Student Loan Help - First contact in 10 years

CLAPTON

just bare in mind that once you make any payment or offer payment the 6 year rule restarts.. you will have acknowledged the debt and the consequences will be outside your control

mayb_2

If you are not earning over £15000 you do not pay for a student loan (this went up last year). If you did not earn enough to repay in relation to your income then as it applied each year, then you should not have any arrears to make up. You only pay on the difference between the threshold and the total amount you earn before tax. I am wondering if you finished your course as I think the arrangement differs if not and if you have only just crossed the threshold this amount appears quite high. Do you not have your past P60's to show how much you have earned in the past? You are legally responsible for keeping these now. Perhaps the HR department or pay role personnel - if you have such a thing, could help you track down your income and tax history. Your case may have been passed to a debt collection agency simply because you fell below the radar and they don't actually know how much you owe. Before they can collect it I would have thought they might need to prove the debt exists - if you let the SLC know where you are now this might be overcome.

Eccle_2

The threshold for earnings is higher if the course was started before 1998 (which I assume it was based on the original post).

For the older loans, you can defer if you earn less than £2,034 per month, but if you don't apply to defer they can still claim the payments from you.

The website says this about missed payments

What happens if you do not make repayments
If you do not make repayments, the Student Loans Company will make every effort to agree a suitable arrangement to bring your repayments up to date before taking debt recovery action.

If you miss one repayment, the Student Loans Company will send you a letter. If you get this letter, don't worry - just give them a call to discuss your options.

If you still do not respond, they will make further attempts to contact you by telephone and letter.

If you do not respond to this, or the Student Loans Company cannot contact you, it is likely that they will take further action to recover any outstanding arrears. This can involve the use of a debt collection agency, who may call at your home.

Finally, legal action may be taken against you, which could affect your credit rating or lead to money being deducted from your earnings before they are paid to you (known as an 'attachment of earnings').

The best course of action is to answer all correspondence from the Student Loans Company, and contact them as soon as possible if you have missed a repayment, or are suffering financial hardship.



I'd suggest getting in touch and explaining you hadn't received their original letters and see if you can work something out not involving the debt collectors. These are the details for the collections helpline

0870 242 3220 Monday to Friday, 8.00 am - 8.30 pm, Saturday 9.00 am - 1.00 pm

nommo

I am in a similar position to the original poster with two 'old-style' student loans from before 1998.

The differences being that I was deferring up till the point where my dotcom paper millionaire status (circa 2000) evaporated and I ended up homeless with a young family after being forcibly evicted from private rented property. I managed to get a job in a different part of the country which was under the deferment threshold, but sadly - I seriously lost the plot (depression and anxiety) due to other personal issues, we ran up some hefty debts when I was dismissed on medical grounds from my job and was unable to claim benefits (long story!). We got evicted again.

I didn't inform SLC of change of address or continue to defer - it took them a few years to catch up with me - but catch up they did. I can't even remember if SLC contacted me first after this 'dark period' or whether it was JB Debt Recovery.

Anyway - we are now living in a council house and have been living close to the bread-line for a couple of years - and I have been self-employed as no-one wanted to give me a full-time, pay-rolled position until the other week, when I managed to get a dream job paying me £25k.

I will no doubt go into detail when I post a long overdue SOA and actively participate in the DFW club, but ironically SLC (through JB Debt Recovery) are the only creditors who are being totally unreasonable.

JB have resorted to many dirty tricks, including some outrageous lies, exaggeration, bullying, neuro-linguistic programming and all sorts of other stuff. It has got to the stage where I refuse to speak to them on the phone and will only deal with them by email so that there is a record (now they are phoning my ill wife and harassing her and not replying to my emails!). I made a complaint to SLC some time ago regarding JB's outrageous behaviour but didn't get a reply.

I was honestly not in a position to afford £30 per month, which was my first offer which was refused (they wanted full payment of course).

I am wondering if the OP had any joy with contacting SLC direct, as I really don't want this bunch of w&*%"rs any of my hard-earned cash, and would rather it go back to SLC direct, especially as I can afford to make some payment now.

However - we are looking at an IVA through NDL - NDL advised us that JB shouldn't even be asking for it. My wife has been paying £15 per month on her Student Loans for the whole time this has been going on, through Moorcroft DR.

RAR ! this was supposed to be a short post! You will love reading my SOA!

:mad: