ERUDIO student loans help

anna2007

pepedopolous wrote: »

At last! 4 days after writing a complaint to Erudio, deferment finally granted! To think that this all began for me in May.

Well done pepedopolous, glad to hear you got there

I know it's ridiculous that it took 2 months to get deferment (the SLC took 2 weeks for my deferment last year), but your result shows that a formal complaint is the way to go - Erudio know that having a customer wait so long = crappy customer service at best, breach of contract at worst (2 weeks is the benchmark set by the SLC, who get nothing but bad press for not doing things right), so anything over the 2 weeks is worth a complaint, especially if you can prove how long it took the SLC last year.

Although it's a relief to get deferment confirmed, I hope you'll still progress the complaint with the ombudsman, based on the delays/lack of response, etc - anything where Erudio have earned a big fat fail. If you don't, then they'll carry on regardless. If you do, then that's £500 out of Erudio's greasy hands, they won't like that much when they're trying to squeeze every penny out of legitimate deferrers!

That is the only way to get Erudio to change - complain and complain until they're sorry they ever took our loans on!


Edit: Just read that back, what an optimist I am!!

anna2007

erudioed wrote: »

I think we may already have had a very strong impact already:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/student-loans-system-is-collapsing-mps-warn-9620049.html

Although Vince Cable and BIS seem to suggest selling off the student loans is not financially valid now, with the press coverage making no mention of the Erudio debacle, i just wonder if we may have just had the ultimate effect. Here is one bit of th article: "MPs have told the Government set out the costs of the sale, as well as the benefits. Adrian Bailey, chair of the BIS select committee, said: “The student loans system needs urgent attention and it’s vital that BIS doesn’t further undermine the viability of the system by selling off the income-contingent loan book at a knock-down price.”

well, concerning the benefits of a sale, that is surely where we come in at some point. We are the case study for how future sales would go. BIS have been inundated with complaints from us and we have focused alot of attention on this issue with our peppering of everyone we could think of. With certain legal issues some of us have raised about changes to this and that, finding it virtually impossible to get specific answers to specific questions, and highlighting how poor Arrow, Erudio etc is (one of the best at this kind of operation according to what BIS believed) must have been on the radar of people like Cable and the Lib dems. I am not suggesting that we have been responsible solely for the about turn because money speaks louder to most, but when considering future loan sales, BIS will have been very aware of how the last sale of our loans has created much more work for them than they would like. BIS were also interacting very closely with Lewy, calling him numerous times a day, and even forcing his hand to admit the 500 DDs stolen and such things.
Maybe we had no effect, with poor oiks (us) being the last consideration, but i very much doubt anyone in government could say they cancelled student loan sales because the one undertaken so far where all power was handed over to a private company has been a disaster...no, they would give another reason, ie, that it doesnt represent good value for money (well, was the sale of our loans good value for money...rereading the earlier forum posts would suggest we thought not on the whole, nor did the earliest news reports of the sale).
Of course, that doesnt help our predicament dealing with these vultures for many years to come, but if we have had an influence (even a small one) on that decision to stop the sale of student loan debt, then we have had a significant result.

I agree that we've had an impact - it would all seem too pointless otherwise



We were the guinea pigs, I'm sure that everything on the forums and the limited press coverage (thanks to The Independent and MSE for keeping the story alive), were taken into account. I read that the Select Committees check out public forums in deciding what they're going to investigate, if that's the case, they must check in to the forums to see how things are progressing. So by posting on the forums, every one of us has contributed to the u-turn.


I wrote to the Select Committee and posted their email address on the forums, if only a few wrote and told of their experiences of Erudio, then that might have been enough to make an impact. I'm going with that, because it justifies the time I've put into fighting Erudio!


In reality, we should be thanking Mr Andrew McGettigan from HEPI, he should be knighted for his contribution, I'm sure that's what turned the tables (basically he ripped the BIS business model apart). Report here:


http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201415/cmselect/cmbis/558/55802.htm

anna2007

rizla_king wrote: »

Can't see any justifiable reason for withholding that.

Complain

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/help/unhappy

Someone commented on the Mumsnet thread that withholding details of bidders is legit, as it can affect future bids? Sounded like a reasonable argument when I read it.

rizla_king

anna2007 wrote: »

Someone commented on the Mumsnet thread that withholding details of bidders is legit, as it can affect future bids? Sounded like a reasonable argument when I read it.

Yes I read the BIS response and it sounds like a cop out.

No harm in objecting and taking to the ICO to see what they say.

LuckyEskimo4

Well I think we are all about to have our Credit Records trashed if we have applied for deferral!

The constantly changing FAQs on Erudio's website now have a very distressing update advising that deferred loans will be registered with CRAs as being on a 'Payment Holiday.'

Erudio state :-

"Where your account is in deferral it will be treated in the same way as any other form of loan which is in a payment holiday and will not be treated as a default."

The Money Advice Service set up by government advises that Payment Holidays will adversely affect credit records. They state :-

"Even where your lender agrees this temporary solution, your credit file WILL be affected – this in turn could affect your ability to get credit in the future."

I think it is SHOCKING that this is being drip fed to us, and this low down and frankly deeply distressing update almost 5 months after most of us received our deferment form shows that Erudio never planned to be transparent, fair, or even compliant with the Data Protection Act.

And it apparently does not matter if we write all over the form that we do not agree to our details being passed to CRAs in this way. In using the form and signing the declaration, we apparently HAVE agreed to this distinct change to the terms and condition of our loan. There is no good news. I think we have been abandoned and Vince Cable could not care less about us. We were the experiment for student loans when they were introduced, and we have been the experiment again to see how fully selling loans to shady debt collectors would go.

If anyone is prepared to fight on, then the most important route is to complain to The Information Commissioner's Office. We have to make them aware that our original loan agreement did not make things clear, and we should be allowed to consent to having our details shared with CRAs. After all, the 1998 Data Protection Act has given students who took out loans from 1998 onwards the right NOT to have their details passed on to CRAs if they so choose - AND SO SHOULD WE!

Further more, I object to the 'payment holiday' term being used on 'deferred student loans.' It is worth complaining to the Information Commissioner's Office that this is not strictly accurate and WILL be detrimental to our credit records.

TO COMPLAIN TO THE INFORMATION COMMISIONER'S OFFICE on 0303 123 1113.

This is going to be a MAJOR issue for us all. It is worth reading through all Erudio's latest FAQ's. It is no surprise that the full extent of ther evil wickedness has only been revealed on their website now that the vast majority of people have folded and returned their UNFAIR deferment form. THEY HAVE GOT US. I am very depressed.

And finally, it looks like Martin Lewis's Money Saving Expert team have turned their backs on us too. The latest 'nothing to worry about' article by senior new reporter Helen Knapman seems to have a subtext. Doing Erudio's job for them in my opinion. It looks like Helen Knapman has received a press release from Erudio, and helped them out by saying how Erudio is doing the right thing while the SLC were bad.

Grrrrrrrrrrrr

erudioed

Luckyeskimo4, could you provide a link for that information commissioner quote about it affecting credit files please.

fermi

The quote is taken somewhat out of context as it refer to mortgage payment holidays.

https://www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk/en/articles/mortgage-payment-holidays

erudioed

yep, i agree, not close enough to say its evidence. However, i dont doubt what luckyeskimo is saying, i think it will be a negative. How can having a loan listed and it not being paid back be seen as a positive by any lender, its a rather ridiculous assertion.

fermi

Yes claiming that is going to be seen as anything else apart from a negative is too absurd for words.

neilmck

Well I think I've potentially landed myself in the mire, and would really appreciate any advice. My deferment period ended at the end of April. I didn't have three consecutive payslips at the time (couldn't find one of them) so had to wait until June to send off my three slips. I'd spoken to Erudio in the interim, and they told me that they would be able to cancel three month's worth of payments when my deferment was accepted. To ensure all my payments for this year could be cancelled they needed by deferment by yesterday (27th July). Beyond this date they could still remove three months worth of arrears but I would need to meet any additional amount.

Stupidly (very stupidly) I sent off original copies of my payslips (as SLC always insisted on) without a record of posting. I haven't heard anything back from Erudio, so I can only assume my deferment form (and payslips) are sitting in Erudio's mail room or have disappeared into the ether.

Is my only option to wait another couple of months until I again have three consecutive payslips? Could I ask my employer for a letter confirming my salary instead maybe? I know SLC accepted this as proof of earnings in the past. I do have three consecutive payslips from the start of the year - maybe these would work?

On top of that, I received a "remedy of account" letter from Erudio a couple of days ago about recalculation of my arrears. This appears to be a good thing and has resulted in a decent reduction in the total amount I need to repay. I'm wondering if this could also impact on my current predicament - the arrears that Erudio are currently persuing me for (three months because I haven't deferred yet this year) are based on an incorrect total loan value. From what I've read(on MSE) Erudio were aware of this miscalculation when they bought the loans, so they have essentially been asking me to make payments which they knew would be in excess of what I actually owe.

Apologies for the long winded message, and thanks in advance for any advice!