ERUDIO student loans help

BorderReiver14

The week after next and a standard letter of 'please fill in the DAF' will arrive. Good for you though. Keep up the fight.

BorderReiver14

fabianess wrote: »

Hello,

Looking for some advice and guidance...

Took loans out in 97 98 & 99 and have deferred every year. Deferment ran out in May this year, so I applied again believing I was under the threshold, but it has come back that I am some £16 over.
I rang erudio to tell me how they had calculated this and I wanted to check this because their form is a bit misleading I think.

Income from rent - on the form this is advised as the net figure. So on the form I wrote in the rent figure split by 50% as joint with my husband less mortgage interest and the figure that is taken by the lettings company, again split by 50. This is what I provide for the taxman. Erudio don't see it this way and will only class the net figure as what is paid into my bank account directly, which is only the rent less the letting agents fee. This is a misleading interpretation based on the form? Or is this just me?

Please can someone advise me on the relevant month. Is this the month before the deferment is due to start? I sent Erudio payslips for Jan Feb and Mar, not having April's available. On the Feb payslip I received a one off £199 bonus. They have taken this bonus and divided it across the year to work out my monthly income level. I thought that deferment is based on income for the coming months not the past. I won't be getting a bonus of this nature again, this is the first in 15 years! Again just some clarification please.

Finally how are payments on a four weekly basis calculated. The rental income I wrote down as monthly, they have advised that the payments are 4 weekly, fair enough, and are calculated as income x 13 divided by 12 to reach their final figure for the monthly income total . Is this correct?

Thanks to anyone who can help, if I have to pay it back fair enough, but don't trust Erudio, so just wanted to check.

You are quite right not to trust Erudio... And yes, their DAF is very misleading. Some would argue deliberately so. The bottom line is this. It is a self-certification process governed by the regulations and original terms and conditions of your loan agreement.
You just have to show that your gross monthly income for the relevant month (the month before you apply for deferment) is not going to be above the threshold. If they ask, they can ask you to show three months.
The bonus certainly has not been calculated fairly if they have used this across a year. This alone has put you 16 quid over the threshold if you calculate your bonus of 199 by 12. If you were deferred last year and your circumstances were the same (apart from the bonus) then it does seem harsh.
In terms of the rent others on here have been in a similar situation. May be worth checking back on this thread. Will post again if I find anything.

fabianess

Thankyou. I will take a look through the thread. I had a payrise last year other than that it is the same. They have taken everything I earn, my rental income and child benefit and averaged it throughout the year to get the monthly income figure. They did my wages and the bonus over 12 months as I'm paid monthly and averaged the child benefit and rental income over a four weekly period which they said they based on my bank statements on the x13 divided by 12 calculation I mentioned in my earlier post.
So am I correct in thinking they should not be averaging my income out over the year like this to reach my total monthly income figure then?

Lungboy

My paperwork was received yesterday. Assuming they refuse my deferment, what's the best way to keep track of everything? Only respond to/with hard-copy letters? Are emails ok? I guess recorded phone calls would be good but I'd have to remember to record each time.

Jonez

I used this: Deferment@ErudioStudentLoans.co.uk Generally received pretty prompt replies. Given their reputation for providing inaccurate / inconsistent information, I'd avoid the phone and keep everything in writing.

Lungboy

I emailed it to their customer service email address, didn't realise they had a deferment specific one. Oops.

BaffledByErudio

Well, seems old Georgie Boy's straight in there.
Aiming to 'make the UK one of the most prosperous in the world'.
Those poor income contingent loan holders don't know what's coming to 'em!
(I apologise, clicking this link means you'll have to read a Daily Mail page)!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3089837/George-Osborne-sell-government-assets-like-Eurostar-Student-Loans.html

BaffledByErudio

......also, it's worth scrolling to the bottom of the article to take in some of the reader comments. There are a few which show contempt for the plans, but quite a few (admittedly it's the Daily Hate we're looking at here) shrug off student debts in a poisonous turn of phrase. Bitterly deriding graduates with loans for not paying of debts. Debts which are managed through a system students signed up to, which is supposed to be fair.
It particularly grates with me that many folk who make this kind of comment probably went to university in a long-forgotten Britain, where the state paid for their higher education and they could even claim dole in the summer holidays!

lucypuppy

Well another year, another Erudio mess!

I swear I'm bloody sick of these crooks.

Anyhow, sent off all my evidence at the start of May and just received a rather threatening letter from them today telling me that I had failed to send the relevent information and that if I didn't send it they would put my account in arrears, yadda yadda, you guys all know the drill.

stuff this I thought and went straight on the phone to the FOS, they are now complaining again on my behalf (exact same as last year) and they advised me to send all the information again to them as they had asked, that way Erudio could'nt come back and say I hadnt done it.

Long story short, I decided to phone them this evening to find out exaclty what evidence they wanted as my pay hadn't dramatically increased by 5K in the past 3 months. Turns out that they couldn't read the dates on my payslips. To be fair the guy on the phone was helpful and told me to email everything to them and he would phone me to with an update. Lo and behold the flippin email didn't send, but give him his due the agent did phone me back to say nothing had been recieved. I resent it then he phoned about 10 minutes later to say it had come through and that my deferment would be granted. I would be deferred from 23/06/15 to 22/06/16. He said this would be confirmed in writting to me within 2 weeks. Now going on past experience with this bunch I don't know wether to believe them or not?

Anyone else been told they were deferred over the phone and recieved a letter backing this up?

I think I will give them the 2 weeks for me to recieve a letter, I still have an open complaint with the FOS so I can fall back on this.

I don't get stressed easily, but man oh man, they fair push your buttons!!!

erudioed

BaffledByErudio wrote: »

Well, seems old Georgie Boy's straight in there.
Aiming to 'make the UK one of the most prosperous in the world'.
Those poor income contingent loan holders don't know what's coming to 'em!
(I apologise, clicking this link means you'll have to read a Daily Mail page)!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3089837/George-Osborne-sell-government-assets-like-Eurostar-Student-Loans.html

Well found baffled! Now the Government has no brakes (now the Liberal Democretins have left the building) on their loss making sales, one can only guess with trepidation where we will be in 5 years. Some of those quotes by Osbourne are inaccurate. Such as 'returning' Government investments back to the private sector, which suggests thats where the original money came from. My own assumption is that cash came from the tax payer, which means "returns" is double speak for transfer of wealth, the age old war we are all fighting, whether we know it or not!
But credit where its due, they did state they would do it and they are doing. I can only wonder how many of the 4 million with outstanding income contingent loans ended up voting for something that isn't in their interests, let alone the other voters who don't think short term gain is long term profit. In their case, it isn't like mortgage style loans with deferment, most of those are continually paying monthly. But that fee will now be heading the way of sovereign wealth funds and out of the UK...as the loans will be sold for less than face value, the payments will eventually total more than the money the government will get from the loan sale, which in turn will then leave the country. I suggest it will end up being a long term net loss. The big financial vacuum will continue to suck money out from a nation state and deposit it in an untouchable bank somewhere in a tax haven! Just like the plan with Greece and the privatisations...the Germans buy businesses cheap in Greece, sucking up the money out of the host economy and depositing it elsewhere, all to the loss of the host nation in the long term. At least one government in Europe is trying to stop such crazy economics, even if it does mean them being ridiculed by the press throughout Europe. Our lot have willingly chosen this policy, and been voted in again to continue it...
How the next anti-globalisation/1% movement manifests itself will be very interesting.