ERUDIO student loans help

rizla_king

Reject the adjudators decision and refer it to an actual ombudsman.

rizla_king

AReeves wrote: »

Not unexpected. However, as I have said in previous posts they decide matters by what they regard as "fair and reasonable" and (as they acknowledge) not always strictly on what is the law.
That is why, in my view, a court decision on all the issues is important.
So the bottom line is that a decision of the FOS does not necessarily reflect what the law is.

Anthony Reeves

Need to keep pushing with the FOS though, as there is a fair chance youll not win in court.

FOS can and may change their mind.

Pluthero

AReeves wrote: »

Not unexpected. However, as I have said in previous posts they decide matters by what they regard as "fair and reasonable" and (as they acknowledge) not always strictly on what is the law.
That is why, in my view, a court decision on all the issues is important.
So the bottom line is that a decision of the FOS does not necessarily reflect what the law is.

Anthony Reeves

So would the legal argument be the interpretation of clause 16 ALLOWING CRA reporting? OR failing that: If they are allowed under clause 16 to report to CRA's could a miss selling legal argument be pursued? EG; The govt and their loan literature at the time and even today state student loans will not stop you getting a mortgage, phone contract etc - they were SOLD AS special govt backed loans which will not affect your future finances?

JeLaw

Thought people might be interested in a job advert I saw in Monday's London Evening Standard.

It seems that any FOS adjudicators with one of these mortgage style loans would be eligible for deferment..... The FOS is advertising for adjudicators. Salary £22,000 - £23,500....

I also noticed a small article in the Sunday Times. If I have a chance, I intend to contact the writer - but if anyone else also wants to do the same, there is a twitter address (I don't use twitter but will write to the paper instead): @siangriffiths6.

Labour are apparently considering replacing tuition fees with a graduate tax. What made me rather angry was the article mentioned "About 45% of graduates are expected never to pay off their government-backed loans in full because they do not earn enough".

Apparently the source claims "It has taken everyone by surprise - universities, us, and probably the Treasury as well -just how big the black hole is in student finances".

I remember people on here mentioning before that it has always been expected that a significant percentage will never be repaid. Sorry if I'm including links already posted - but thought the following might be of interest. First link relates to the DD issue. Not sure how helpful this is for us as it was a House of Lords discussion - but perhaps of use to us. It also relates to repayment rather than deferment but I think it is still relevant.

http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/lords/1990/jun/28/education-student-loans-regulations-1990#column_1772

The issue of direct debit was also raised by the noble Lord. This is needed to simplify the arrangements for repayment. The facility is there for 1789 the borrower to vary that part of the regulation. In other words, if it is not suitable for the individual student, the student can negotiate a different way of repayment.

http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1989/oct/20/student-loans
....far from saving the taxpayer money, the scheme will cost more than the grant system from now until at least 2015 and probably 2026. The additional expenditure will, however, produce no discernible social or economic benefits; instead it will disappear into a black hole of vast administrative expenses and enormous default and deferral costs. Annex E to the White Paper admitted that the scheme could not start to show annual savings until 2002, nor break even until 2013.

JeLaw

On the subject of data sharing and a few other points. I thought the information I found below might be useful or interesting for us (sorry if this has all been posted before - I don't get the chance to check in here all the time).

I found this www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/SN06795.pdf

It's from January last year and involves a government discussion about selling off most of the rest of the student loans (the pre-2012 income contingent loans). I thought the following quotes are of particular interest. Not sure quite what they mean by "alternative debt-collecting methods"....

BIS’s current proposal is that the repayment mechanism through HMRC and the SLC will remain the same if the loan book is sold. In this situation, the private buyer would have limited opportunity to use alternative debt-collecting methods to increase expected income and reduce credit risk .

It also perhaps indicates that Erudio always intended to try and get money out of those of us legally entitled to defer. A large number of the defaulted loans (bought by Erudio) are statute barred. I want to know how many of the 40 per cent referred to below (not repaying in accordance with their terms) are now statute barred. Does anyone know? Perhaps that would be a good FOI request to make.

Of the loans sold, approximately 46 per cent are earning below the repayment threshold; 14 per cent of borrowers are still repaying and 40 per cent are not repaying their loans in accordance with their terms.

And, the government discussed the possibility of changing the terms and conditions back in 2010....

In 2010 the government commissioned a report by Rothschild Investment Bank into the sale of loans. This report discussed in two articles in the Guardian, “Raise interest rates on old student loans, secret report proposes” 13 June 2013 and “Why privatise student loans?” 16 June 2013.

Reference to the statute barred loans...

The SLC has faced challenges in collecting mortgage-style loans. Two tranches of mortgage-style loans were sold in 1998 and 1999, leaving a residual loan book of poorly-performing loans. While the SLC tried to contact all borrowers with overdue repayments, BIS and the SLC decided not to pursue litigation for debts where they judged there would be a low likelihood of recovery. Consequently, some borrowers neither made repayments nor acknowledged their debt within a six-year period. As a result, £127 million may become ‘statute-barred’ meaning that the borrowers would not legally have to repay the loans. BIS informed us that, to date, £2 million has become uncollectable because of this issue (paragraph 2.5

Data sharing...
3.17
BIS and the SLC could seek better information on borrowers who have lacked an employment record for long periods. They could work with other government departments to develop a strategy to share data and identify borrowers most likely to be able to repay. BIS and the SLC are in the early stages of work with the Department for Work & Pensions to share data that will allow the SLC to establish which borrowers are living in the UK on benefits and therefore not earning enough to repay. BIS has also
approached the UK Border Agency 10 (to track borrowers leaving the country) and is considering data sharing with health services (borrowers using UK health services could
be assumed to be living in the UK), but has not yet started detailed discussions.

anna2007

Forever wrote: »

I'm afraid I have some bad news regarding the FOS and giving our information to CRAs for those of us with pre-1998 contracts.

When you escalate it to the ombudsman, you could ask if it's fair and reasonable that Erudio customers on the pre-98 agreement are being disadvantaged and treated differently to later borrowers, simply because the clause in the later agreement was updated to make it DPA compliant.

Ask the ombudsman if it's fair and reasonable for Erudio to disclose pre-98 deferred loans, when SLC, Thesis or HSL don't do it for the pre-98 loans they own.

You could also ask if it's fair and reasonable for Erudio to say they will report our loans, and then do nothing (i.e. threaten and intimidate its customers).

Forever

anna2007 wrote: »

When you escalate it to the ombudsman, you could ask if it's fair and reasonable that Erudio customers on the pre-98 agreement are being disadvantaged and treated differently to later borrowers, simply because the clause in the later agreement was updated to make it DPA compliant.

Ask the ombudsman if it's fair and reasonable for Erudio to disclose pre-98 deferred loans, when SLC, Thesis or HSL don't do it for the pre-98 loans they own.

You could also ask if it's fair and reasonable for Erudio to say they will report our loans, and then do nothing (i.e. threaten and intimidate its customers).

That's fantastic to have summed it up like this. I have now forwarded these questions to the adjudicator.

I have also complained to the FOS on Twitter, and they have responded. So, I have asked them to contact me too.

Hopefully, I will get somewhere!

anna2007

JeLaw wrote: »

Labour are apparently considering replacing tuition fees with a graduate tax. What made me rather angry was the article mentioned "About 45% of graduates are expected never to pay off their government-backed loans in full because they do not earn enough".

Apparently the source claims "It has taken everyone by surprise - universities, us, and probably the Treasury as well -just how big the black hole is in student finances".

I think the 45% is referring to the latest scheme for student loans, where the Government has seriously underestimated how much will be repaid by borrowers before the loans are wiped 30 years later. Martin Lewis blogged about it recently, and he's not too happy that the Government are talking of raising the threshold, to try and reduce the size of that great big black hole in the finances:

http://blog.moneysavingexpert.com/2015/01/09/a-deliberate-threat-to-the-government-u-turn-on-the-21000-student-loan-repayment-threshold-i-will-organise-mass-protest/

It sounds like a complete shambles... wouldn't expect anything less from our Government when it comes to student loans.

If I remember right from Mr McGuffin's posts, the projected % of our mortgage-style loans that would remain unpaid at write off was far lower (around 13%?). Which would have been about right, if Erudio hadn't got their greedy, grubby little hands on our loans!

anna2007

JeLaw wrote: »

It also perhaps indicates that Erudio always intended to try and get money out of those of us legally entitled to defer. A large number of the defaulted loans (bought by Erudio) are statute barred. I want to know how many of the 40 per cent referred to below (not repaying in accordance with their terms) are now statute barred. Does anyone know? Perhaps that would be a good FOI request to make.

I made an FOI request to SLC around a week ago, which might help answer that (if I've worded the request right!) -

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/mortgage_style_student_loans_sta#incoming-605681

BorderReiver14

Pluthero wrote: »

So would the legal argument be the interpretation of clause 16 ALLOWING CRA reporting? OR failing that: If they are allowed under clause 16 to report to CRA's could a miss selling legal argument be pursued? EG; The govt and their loan literature at the time and even today state student loans will not stop you getting a mortgage, phone contract etc - they were SOLD AS special govt backed loans which will not affect your future finances?

I agree completely... If the FOS is more concerned about 'fair and reasonable' then the fact that this latest statement by them means they feel clause 16 is broad enough to report to CRAs, then that really has to be a case of mis-selling by any stretch of imagination! Not only that but as we all know, people who also live in our households also get affected.
In my case however I was sent one DAF to defer four loans some of which are pre-98 and others post-98 and so in my mind after reading what others had written and through a little research I assumed I was being wise in not bringing all of them 'in to line' for ESL by submitting their DAF.
Their failure to respond in good time pushing myself and many others in to arrears is yet another can of worms the FOS or someone in authority should address.