SFE Invitations - Duress Code

TurnUpForTheBooks_2

Look up Duress Code on Wiki ...

I propose to all students applying under duress that all further online submissions or paperwork signatures contain a "D" suffix somewhere close to your name or signature.

When we eventually unravel all the awful unlawful inequalities built into the scheme and the loan contracts are declared uncollectible and therefore non-securitizable (i.e. sold off to private lenders) it might be shown to have been rather useful.

Meantime it will serve perhaps as a sign of how the country really feels. If the idea catches on it will indeed be a turn up for the books.

I don't tweet but if you think it is a good idea then feel free to tweet it.

agrinnall

What on earth are you talking about? I thought one of the things you should learn at university is clarity, I don't have a clue what your complaint is.

TurnUpForTheBooks_2

agrinnall wrote: »

What on earth are you talking about? I thought one of the things you should learn at university is clarity, I don't have a clue what your complaint is.

One of the things you should learn at GCSE at school in the UK is English comprehension - did you keep up and did you pass? Course you did. Now listen up:

Since you have invited me to explain further, let me be more clear because my first post was deliberately a bit cryptic - we're talking code you know :

When you sign an SFE or SFE related paper to claim funding, don't just sign, mark a letter D (for Duress) near your signature. That way you won't suffer having your application thrown out because you are claiming you are signing under duress. You will simply be using a duress code which will be recognised later when the misselling is unravelled.

Did you sign under duress when you applied for the loan you are claiming was missold? Yes Sir I did - there's the D.

All clear now?

agrinnall

I understood what a duress code is, what I don't understand is why you think applying for a student loan should require you to use one - if you don't like the conditions attached to the loan, don't apply.

System

How can you be signing under duress for something that you voluntarily apply for?

TurnUpForTheBooks_2

So the word 'duress' does not compute in your minds ?

I voluntarily go to work but like most people, I would rather I already had the means to be doing something different with my time, especially because like most people in the UK, I work under duress a lot of the time - that means that unless I soak up all kinds of evil and keep my mouth shut, I am under immediate threat of losing my job.

If I apply for an SFE loan and it is the only way I can get a higher education, I have to keep my mouth shut about how much duress I am suffering to cause me to sign else I will be told like you have told "if you don't like it, don't sign" or if you don't retract your allegation of SFE being part of an immoral and corrupt system received with your application we will not give you the loan.


So, for all you young and vulnerable 18+ peeps out there, busily signing forms right now to deal with your £9,000 invoices and acceptance of bursaries and NSP scholarship fee waivers etc., just sign them and add a little "D" closeby.

It'll just be a marker, and I can't imagine any of the administrators involved will be so bold as to contact or interrogate you about why the "D" is there.

Can't do any harm and might do you some good in the long run and help you escape the privateers' clutches.

System

Can I do the same when I fraudulently get a loan to pay for my holidays in the Bahamas? It's the only way that I can afford it.

jacques_chirac

TurnUpForTheBooks wrote: »

So the word 'duress' does not compute in your minds ?

I voluntarily go to work but like most people, I would rather I already had the means to be doing something different with my time, especially because like most people in the UK, I work under duress a lot of the time - that means that unless I soak up all kinds of evil and keep my mouth shut, I am under immediate threat of losing my job.

If I apply for an SFE loan and it is the only way I can get a higher education, I have to keep my mouth shut about how much duress I am suffering to cause me to sign else I will be told like you have told "if you don't like it, don't sign" or if you don't retract your allegation of SFE being part of an immoral and corrupt system received with your application we will not give you the loan.


So, for all you young and vulnerable 18+ peeps out there, busily signing forms right now to deal with your £9,000 invoices and acceptance of bursaries and NSP scholarship fee waivers etc., just sign them and add a little "D" closeby.

It'll just be a marker, and I can't imagine any of the administrators involved will be so bold as to contact or interrogate you about why the "D" is there.

Can't do any harm and might do you some good in the long run and help you escape the privateers' clutches.

It is you that does not understand the meaning of duress.

No one has to go to university, it is a choice. Equally no one has to take finance, they choose to do so.

An argument of duress only applies if there is no choice, you have to do something. A loan does not become unenforceable simply because you put a D on it!

TurnUpForTheBooks_2

jacques_chirac wrote: »

It is you that does not understand the meaning of duress.

No one has to go to university, it is a choice. Equally no one has to take finance, they choose to do so.

An argument of duress only applies if there is no choice, you have to do something. A loan does not become unenforceable simply because you put a D on it!

There is always a choice. There are many more words to describe what is going on here - I might offer the following:

• abdication
• manipulation
• coercion
• peer-pressure
• system-pressure
• hidden agenda
• self-serving/job-preservation
• political spin
• misrepresentation
• lack of transparency
• undefined variables in contract

and they all mean that the student loan/tuition fees business as conducted in the UK is dodgy. I don't expect everyone to understand it but we all learn one way or another about "D" for dodgy as we make our way through life and because we can't all be brave whistleblowers, most of us are instead, susceptible, vulnerable and even if we eventually realise the extent to which we have been done over, resigned to it.

Well there is a chance to make your mark now.

D is for Duress and for Dodgy and for Doodle and if you ever feel the need to remind someone then you can point to your little doodle in the corner of the form and tell them it meant you were terribly unsure about it all.

System

the student loan/tuition fees business as conducted in the UK is dodgy.

Go on then, I'll bite. Why are student loans dodgy

I don't expect everyone to understand it

I understand now. You've dreamt up some harebrained notion in the hope of it containing just an atom of reality whereas it is just another ill thought out trolling post.

TurnUpForTheBooks_2

Thank you for your invitation, albeit your leaping to use the word troll against me is as biased as the proposed government anti-lobbying bill.

Student Loans in the UK are as dodgy as payday loans and my reasons are many for saying so:

• they abdicate the government's responsibility to provide easy access to higher education to all young people
• the "sales pitch" manipulates the minds of the young loan customers by implying that the arrangement is in ways "better than the previous government tuition scheme", "not a loan but a tax", "you may never have to repay it", "it will not be taken into account when you apply for other forms of credit e.g. a house mortgage later on".
• coercion is known as a duress crime in some jurisdictions - the act of inducing someone to take some action (entering into the loan contract) under threat of removal of some favour or application of some threat of removal of a right (e.g. every young person's right to higher education if you have no money of your own to pay for it) - in this case a threat to an impressionable child. Advertising cigarettes in any manner or message that is even remotely likely to reach children is outlawed, yet encouragement to enter into vague loan contracts involving amounts that can seriously damage your health if you even begin to believe they are your responsibility to pay back - that's strangely tolerated right now. Loans of £50,000 at 6% plus are scarey for adults in this economic climate because half of us are on base rate trackers paying much less for our home loans. So why aren't the kids scared ? Because they have been manipulated into the position and see many of their peers resigned to doing the same. So it must be ok, right?
• peer-pressure is exerted in our schools to strongly consider UK universities without any moderation by those that are responsible for running schools and providing guidance towards furthering children's education options when they leave school.
• There is a seriously prevalent system-pressure being applied to these young minds from every angle. Both at school, and via the usual media where the most recent tuition fee riots are played down as a damp squib and non-representative, and even here on MSE where someone like me is described as a nutjob.
• Clearly the government has a hidden agenda - it has abdicated its responsibility and so members of the government are prone to cover that up, but they are also hiding the fact that they value the fact that privateers can advertise guaranteed 10% returns on new built student accommodation and argue that's good for the economy that investors are prepared to build such projects. Universities are pleased to abdicate responsibility for providing as much accommodation as they can. It's a hassle for them. It is actually a hassle for everyone and that's life but if you can abdicate hassle (i.e. shed risk) then you're all right Jack - doesn't matter that all that risk ends up with the students who then start paying privateers through the nose for substandard accommodation services. Civil servants and others who might be working in and around education also have a hidden agenda based mostly on self-serving agenda and job-preservation.
• All of the above is constantly subject to political spin by those who have already abdicated all the risk, simply to justify or cover up the true meaning of what they have done.
• The loans and support for needy prospective students are misrepresented as "not a loan" and "may not have to pay back" and fee waivers and bursary scholarships when in fact they are worse than most so called cashback deals on Quidco.
• There is a total lack of transparency through which needy students might otherwise be able to see or calculate exactly what amounts by way of grants they are entitled (it is left up to the universities themselves to play around with their grossly inflated new income flows in order to create smoke and mirrors at times such as now where they are basically harvesting this years crop and deciding how much to keep for themselves). Then of course there is the still unanswered question of how the interest is racking up the moment their university receives money or maintenance loans arrive in their bank accounts. I want to give my two acquaintances a spreadsheet preloaded with rates and their expected instalments and dates so they can read off their total loan balance for future dates. Why has this not been provided if these maximum loans and grants are so standard?
• Then there are the totally undefined variables in contract not least the parameters of the movable threshold for gross earnings above which you start paying back capital and interest which you owe, and the questions about what exactly happens to your loan liabilities if you have to drop out - at what point does your debt become a securitizable private sector debt? No-one seems to know but stories of debt collectors chasing UK student debt are not uncommon, are they?

So, as I said, to sell all this to an 18 year old as a loan is decidedly dodgy and for any of the above reasons, let alone all and more, it is therefore all being missold in far worse ways than PPI ever was (at least you received paperwork that set out your interest rate and payments with PPI). If you disagree then please explain carefully why it is not dodgy.


D is for Duress, Dodgy, maybe just a Doodle, but if its a Doddle then why not just Do it? Or am I being manipulative? Maybe so but there is little harm in what I am suggesting ... until they start banning the letter D on forms and adding their own mark to your file.