ERUDIO student loans help

gardenia101

Before I got carried away with ranting I meant to add that I think Anthony Reeves did a great job in giving many of us excellent, free advice.

He was kind enough to spend a lot of his own time talking to me about my case, & even though I don't live a gazillion miles from his firm, he was prepared to drive to my town (about 25 minutes each way) as he knew what a PITA it would be for me to get to him on public transport (would have taken me almost 5 hours of traveling which is ridiculous , but that's a whole other rant :rotfl:).

I'm very sorry that we won't all get to find out all the details, or that its unlikely anyone will get an open court case. But I don't think for a minute that he was only doing this to make money & I want to say "BIG THANKS" to him again :T

gardenia101

dizzybuff wrote: »

Well the senior manager has obviously taken leave of her senses and upheld that they do not assess the calculations of income as it is not part of their job. Because erudio have stated they have followed procedure they have agreed with thEm. Well pass it onto an independent assessor then. I'm !!!!ed off to say the least.

Oh Dizzybuff, I feel for you. It is just so,so wrong to include child maintenance, but to then mess up your calculation....

Can you speak to your MP about the problem with the calculation? It seems madness that Erudio can get a "fact" so wrong - I mean your income can either be calculated correctly or it can't (if we ignore what they're including as income & just go with what they catagorise as income for now). Who do they expect you to go to for help if the calculation itself is wrong?

What do FOS do when customers' disputes are about bills? Surely they don't refuse to check the bill calculations?

They said a similar thing to me about missing paperwork - it would appear that if Erudio say they've sent it, well that's good enough for FOS. It doesn't matter how many times I fail to receive it. Disappointing isn't the word.

dizzybuff

Apparently have someone qualified to look at it or go to the cab. Errm my ombasman was a bloody accountant. I now have to take it to the independent assessor. Even though I provided them with the calculations that erudio have done. I'll cc my mp in on it he's been in the loop from the start.

Getting very !!!!ed off with an ombasman who refuse to look at the essential parts of the job in hand.

anna2007

Lungboy wrote: »

My new contract was 7 months ago, but for 6 months I kept a higher wage due to being redeployed within the same company. Now my wage has dropped to its proper level, but I only have feb's payslip showing my proper wage.

Wouldn't your P60 do then, as your latest one would be for the previous financial year (assuming you were below the threshold in 2013/14)?

The DAF guide does say "your most recent P60"!

Lungboy

Sadly I was over the limit for most of 13/14 too.

Sarebear78

gardenia101 wrote: »

Has anyone actually received a penny's compensation yet? Have they just taken it off the loan balance :rotfl:

I actually received a cheque for my compensation and it cashed ok. I will wait until I get my annual statement though to make sure it hasn't been added to the loan balance!

anna2007

A new response from the FCA to an FOI (GinOClock again!) on what action would be taken by FCA in response to various scenarios. They do say they would get involved if there were a number of court judgments against Erudio, which is good. A bit vague on what would happen if Erudio's credit licence was taken away, they say they would write to customers to let us know the next steps, but don't say what that would involve.

It's good to see them take only 2 weeks to reply and to apologise for the delay, when BIS/SLC take the maximum time allowed, even when refusing a request.

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/erudio_student_loans_limited#incoming-625991

globetrotter123

@anna207 -- my old address is my parents address, so they get any letters that are sent. I do not have any new address overseas to give as i stay a few months at any one place. i told them to SLC and now to Erudio. I have told them i don't live in the UK yet they still now send letters to my parents house. i didn't get in touch until December when i went back to the uk, so hence the £1k+ arrears

eroneo

gardenia101 wrote: »

They backdated more than several months of arrears on my account as they accepted (I'm assuming that by default as they haven't actually confirmed that in writing) it was their fault that I couldn't defer.

Had my response from FOS - no great surprise to any of you that Erudio can do whatever they like regarding CRA reporting. My adjudicator "does not believe that payment holidays will have a negative impact on my credit file as it will show other creditors that my loans are in deferment."

Can someone with more knowledge of how credit ratings/files actually work comment on this please? I can't see how having up to 36 months of payment holidays can do anything other than look like I can't afford to repay them.

Would banks allow up to 3 years worth of payment holidays on mortgages or "proper loans" (IYKWIM )?

She has not addressed by question of how this 3 year period fits in with Erudio's latest flannel about payment holidays being temporary.

She's also not commented on the fact that there is still a lot of outstanding paperwork. She is happy that Erudio say they've sent it to me.... 5 times I've requested a statement in writing, yet I still don't have any idea what IR they're charging me (I know what they should be charging me, but...). Is it just good enough that Erudio keep saying "We've sent it" even though I never receive it - it would appear so.

Not amazingly impressed with FOS, but not surprised either.

She did agree that they'd failed by not sending large print documents & there was no way they could wriggle out of that one as she had copies of everything. So I am due some compensation, but I don't know that I want to settle just now. Will have to mull it over.

Has anyone actually received a penny's compensation yet? Have they just taken it off the loan balance :rotfl:

In her/FOS's defence she has explained her reasoning very well & I can follow her arguments, even if I don't agree. So she's clearly one of the better ones

For me, it probably won't make a flying **** of a actual difference to me in real life if my credit file is trashed, since I doubt I'll ever be applying for a new mortgage/loan/card ever again, but that isn't really the point, is it?

Grr - another f'in weekend spent getting cross about f'in Erudio....

If you are not happy with a FOS decision you do not have to accept it. If you accept it, you may be stopped from ever bringing a court claim.

Interference with your credit file will continue for 6 years after your loan account is closed. It's a long time and you cannot predict how your life will change over 10 to 20 years.

Each bank has it's own way of deciding on what they will lend you. The information on your credit file is used in that decision. The more debt you have, they less they will lend. What you need is evidence that the student debt would reduce your borrowing potential all things being equal. If there was some way you could ask a lender to confirm that a student debt would reduce what they would lend you then that evidence would contradict the opinion of the FOS.

Whether or not it would affect your credit does not change the fact that they are disclosing info they are not entitled to share.

I don't blame you if your attitude is to never take credit again. It is very sensible.

erudioed

After recent communication with Erudio, it has become increasingly clear to me that Erudio will be reporting our loans to CRAs later this year. It is my understanding that they are currently preparing to do this. This means that i will now stop suggesting that this is an idle threat, something i had been increasingly considering to be the case given that they fully understand this could potentially turn a legitimate deferrer into a voluntary payer. I guess my new stance is backed up by their word change in the new DAF guide, from MIGHT report to CRAs, to WILL report to CRAs.
However, it hasnt happened yet. I personally believe (which hasnt changed), and again backed by what was included on the 1st DAF, that the reporting of such a loan can have an impact on family members and people residing at the same property as that person. This is the very nature of CRAs and how they connect information, and how potential lenders utilise CRAs. Whether listed as a payment holiday or some other misrepresentation, it will appear to some lenders that we have a loan from between 15-25 years that has never been paid back.
As such, and as this mass reporting to CRAs has not yet taken place and no one is yet to be affected, i feel that we need to try and put a spanner in the works and highlight that this should not take place. I have also been categorically told by BIS during a phone call that a student loan should not affect another individual and any consequences of contract breaches should be solely applicable to the borrower. But i dont have this in writing.
I would like to echo gardenia101's shout out to Anthony Reeves, who i believe has added and propelled us forwards in some areas of the law where we are slightly lacking in knowledge. We are in a better collective place after his involvement than we were before. Although everyone will have their own scepticism, and rightly so, it is a shame he has decided to seek different waters right at the time when, to me, some kind of collective action against the reporting to CRAs was going to become a real issue to take all the way to court and get a verdict on. The reason it didn’t happen earlier was timing I think.
I am no legal expert but after speaking to Anthony Reeves a few times, i was thinking that we had a good case to win that particular fight. Now i guess the burden is on us to try and stop Erudio from reporting our loans before it occurs because once it does happen, the potential negative effects will be very difficult and time consuming to reverse (if they will be reversible).
Although nowhere near something with legal legs, and especially considering SLC never did report our loans, Erudio choosing to report our loans is a malicious act. They dont have to do it, but are choosing to. There is no legal pressure forcing them to do so, and as SLC chose not to, i dont know any other way of considering this act as anything other than a malicious act that really does rain the doo-doo down on each of its 'customers' (us). I dont believe it is treating customers fairly. If it was, they would ask us first if they could...
Now, as we all know, they have been asking us, for the post-1998 loans, not because it is in our interest but because they dont feel they can do it unilaterally, basically because of the T&Cs of those post 98 loans. As SLC chose not to report those loans for most of the life of these loans, this change of policy by Erudio to actually go ahead and report our pre 98 loans is one battle line that needs to be fought. And it is important o note that it is a line drawn by Arrow Global because they don’t have to report them, they are choosing to do so, in the face of hostility (all our previous complaints/news reports).
I know a few did actually take legal action about not having to sign the 1st DAF, with Arrow Global, according to posts, choosing to settle before it went to court. We can only speculate on why they would prefer that than fighting the case in court. This time around, the new DAF does look slightly less intrusive but Arrow Global have collected all of that information on the 1st DAF, so little seems to have changed. In fact, the major change I can see is the change to that wording about WILL report to CRAs. I am suspecting that many more people will want to lodge an official complaint with Erudio, and yet again be forced to go via the Ombudsman and the long path to trying to get a satisfactory answer. I also suspect, even more people this time around will want to get stubborn and refuse to sign the new form, as I am guessing the new warranty section will also appear to ask for us to sign some of our T&Cs away, or appear like they are asking for permission to do something they are not entitled to without permission, all sealed within another long page of veiled threats about what you are agreeing to sign and the danger of CRAs.
Helen Ashton, now overlooking Erudio (and her other multiple directorships at the same time) has apologised for the past mistakes, whilst simultaneously posting the new DAF guide which categorically states Erudio WILL report our loans to CRAs. I don’t need to ask one of the 200,000 Erudio customers to know that if a poll was taken, asking if it was ok to report our loans, a miniscule percentage would say yes, and they would probably have chosen to by misreading the question. As such, is that TREATING CUSTOMERS FAIRLY. And if not, knowing that this is already an issue for many of us having already complained to Erudio, MPs and beyond, including the press, is it not a direct affront to us all?
Interestingly, when they do report our loans to CRAs, they are only ‘suggesting’ that it wont affect our credit files. They cannot guarantee it. It isn’t a fact. As such, its a little like an experiment to see what will happen. But, isn’t that a rather large gamble to take because if it does have a negative affect, that negative affect can be life changing, not a negligible change. It can mean the difference between getting a mortgage, for example, and not. A life changing result. The onus should be on all the concerned parties to prove that there wont be an affect on us, but again, this is not the case, because it is just positive spin used by Arrow Global to answer the direct confrontation by Martin Lewis and all our complaints to pacify us and reduce immediate negative publicity, to let them go ahead with the minimum of fuss. As we know, student loans differ from other loans, so it is going to be again up to us to take our stand, whether it is not signing the DAF, going through the full complaints procedure or raising this issue with parties (press, MPs etc) to incur as many additional expenses and negative publicity for Arrow Global as we can in the time we have before they start to report our loans. If they do report our loans it may be irreversible, so we have to act now. With the new DAFs on the way, it is as good a time as any to start. Only negative publicity and a financial hit to their bottom line will make them reconsider because they clearey haven’t listened to any of our concerns over the past year. It is an experiment, and considering the potential consequences of reporting our loans, a very dangerous experiment that can have far reaching life changing consequences for some of us, and even those associated/connected to our credit files.