Smith Lawson & company student loans letter

KittycatM

Hi everyone,

Hope you can help as I am absolutely terrified!! I started a PGCE in September 09 and withdrew in December. I received my student loan for January which I used to pay a bursary overpayment.
I was mortified when I received a letter today from Smith Lawson demanding £675 within 7 days of the date of the letter! The letter was dated 1st June! It says to call the number which I did, but I only got the letter when I got in from work so it was too late to speak to anyone.
I had no idea I owed them money, apart from the usual amount I pay in my salary. There is no reason given for the money I owe. I'm really worried they're going to send bailiffs round and take me to court! I'm
never late paying anything and always pay money I owe! I'm
also worried sick as I don't get paid until Friday 18th so won't be able to offer a penny until then as my last money needs to cover my car insurance.
If I offer them £50 - £100 a month, if I owe something, are they likely to accept it? I already have cards to pay so £100 would be my limit. I'm so worried now. Can anyone advise?

DVardysShadow

Don't phone them, only write. If they ring, don't answer the security questions, which puts them in a position when they cannot discuss with you. The reason for this is that you are naive about your rights and they will use a phone conversation to bully you relentlessy.

Now the order of things is that they take you to court if they think it is worth while. And only after you have been taken to court can they send a bailiff. This is important to understand. It means that if someone who is not a bailiff turns up at your door and demands money, they have no rights and you can tell them to clear off.

As you think you are paying this down in your salary, you should just double check - if you are, then you can tell them to get stuffed. If you are not, then you need to be a little more circumspect and start off with the 'prove it' letter. This is in the stickies at the top of the forum - or someone will probably come along with a link soon

fermi

If you withdrew from your course in September, then presumably you should not have been entitled to receive the payment in January from SLC?

Did you inform them (or whoever you are required to) to tell them that you had pulled out of the course? An overpayment or payment that should not have been made is one that they can recover directly, rather than via you salary if I remember.

Smith Lawson & Company are not debt collectors. They are just Student Loan Company staff using a different name and letterhead. Think about the initials. SLC?

They do it so that letters etc look more 'intimidating'.

So first of all you need to get confirmation of what they are chasing and why. You could do that by letter, but in all honesty the SLC are not too bad to deal with via the phone. Been there done that. You just need to be firm with them. If you get put through to someone who is unreasonable, then just give up and call back a bit later.

The most important thing is not to let this worry you over the weekend.

They are not about to take you to court yet, and will probably accept the repayment proposals you mentioned after a little haggling. Bailiffs are a million miles away, and if you don't ignore things can never happen anyway.

KittycatM

I called them this morning and the woman I spoke to was actually really nice, she said 4 letters had been sent out but with this one taking 11 days to get to me she wasn't surprised that I hadn't had the others. She said I'd been overpaid some grant but that they can't take it out with loan payments as you can't pay interest back on a grant. I offered to pay £50 a month and she said that I didn't have to as she didn't want me to be left short, so I offered £30 and she was more than happy with it. Feel much better now!

Mrs_Jojo

Glad to hear it Kitty, and nice to see you spoke to a reasonable person on the phone!

fermi

KittycatM wrote: »

I called them this morning and the woman I spoke to was actually really nice, she said 4 letters had been sent out but with this one taking 11 days to get to me she wasn't surprised that I hadn't had the others. She said I'd been overpaid some grant but that they can't take it out with loan payments as you can't pay interest back on a grant. I offered to pay £50 a month and she said that I didn't have to as she didn't want me to be left short, so I offered £30 and she was more than happy with it. Feel much better now!

Excellent.

Took me a few attempts to get someone like that to talk to.

Handy to know that they are open for calls on a Saturday morning as well. I didn't think they were.