ERUDIO student loans help

eroneo

eroneo wrote: »

Challenge:

The last page of the annual statement has a change to one of the terms and conditions.

Can anybody spot it?

The plan must be to gradually publish reworkings of the old t&cs here and there in the 'help you understand' small print. No one will notice.

So, nobody was able to spot the new rule?

Disabled borrowers can defer for 3 years if:

On the original agreement:

You must show your gross income is unlikely to exceed the deferment level for the next 36 months.

But now with Erudio:

You must be "unable to work for the next 3 years".

Being unable to work at all is a much tougher test than the original one. Many disabled people have low paid jobs but are now no longer able to defer for 3 years when previously they could.

Of course it only affects a small percentage of borrowers but anyone could become disabled through accident, etc. in future.

Note this has been ratified by BIS in the sale and purchase agreement 8.1.2

anna2007

eroneo wrote: »

Disabled borrowers can defer for 3 years if:

On the original agreement:

You must show your gross income is unlikely to exceed the deferment level for the next 36 months.

But now with Erudio:

You must be "unable to work for the next 3 years".

The relevant bits of the regulations:

6. If the borrower shows the lender that he receives a disability related benefit and that because of his disability he is unfit for full-time work and is not likely to be fit for at least the next 3 years the number of monthly repayments will be 120, including any repayments already made.

11. If the borrower can defer making repayments under paragraph 9 and he can show the lender that he gets a disability related benefit and that his gross monthly income during the 36 months immediately following the relevant month will not or is unlikely to be more than the deferment level the deferment period will last for 36 months.

The requirement that a disabled borrower is unfit for work for a 3 year period only relates to extending the repayment period to 10 years, completely unrelated to paragraph 11, which gives a disabled borrower the right to extend the deferment period to 36 months, on proof of income.

It's just another example of Erudio trying their best to take the p!ss and make a profit.

Edit: You can see the potential for further pee-taking though - how can you possibly show that your income for the following 3 years will be under the threshold, unless you had a crystal ball or time machine?

If Erudio applied a strict interpretation of the agreements (bearing in mind BIS have ok'd this through the S&P agreement), I'd hope that any disabled borrowers affected by it would create a big stink, contact the press, shame Erudio into acting reasonably.

plong979

When I do my FOS complaint, for the desired outcome section I'm going to cheekly mention about settling the debt for the price Erudio paid for it. Whats the correct settlement term you need marking on your credit file?

chiefdave

chiefdave wrote: »

Quick recap, I'm self employed and have been for many years. Under SLC it was easy, just sent a copy of my tax calculation (SA302) and they accepted my income as total revenues less allowable losses. Of course Erudio wouldn't accept that and I ended up going to the ombudsman before Erudio would finally accept it and I also got compensation from them.

Fast forward to this year and I recieved the new defferment form. Sent it back with SA302 from HMRC. Few weeks later I recieved a letter saying I had not provided any evidence and needed to send my SA302. Sent the SA302 again, along with the relevant information from HMRC indicating it was the correct evidence - when you print the SA302 online it doesn't print the form number.

Now I've recieved another letter. This one says again they have not recieved sufficient evidence but now specifies they want one of:

Wage slips (don't have these as self employed)

Employment contract (don't have this as self employed)

P11 form from temping agency (don't have this as I have never used a temping agency).

So following on from the above I fired a complaint in to both Erudio and FOS. The response I've had from Erudio is staggering in its incompetence.

They say they can't accept my 2014/15 SA302 as I used it last year. Clearly that's incorrect as the tax year didn't end until 5th April this year! They want me to supply an SA302 for 2015/16 which of course is impossible as we're still in that tax year!

Sarebear78

chiefdave wrote: »

So following on from the above I fired a complaint in to both Erudio and FOS. The response I've had from Erudio is staggering in its incompetence.

They say they can't accept my 2014/15 SA302 as I used it last year. Clearly that's incorrect as the tax year didn't end until 5th April this year! They want me to supply an SA302 for 2015/16 which of course is impossible as we're still in that tax year!

Unbelieveable! (not, if you look at their sparkling record so far)

Hopefully a complaint to the FOS should be pretty straightforward then. Another bill for Erudio from them then, I think.......

gardenia101

eroneo wrote: »

So, nobody was able to spot the new rule?

Disabled borrowers can defer for 3 years if:

On the original agreement:

You must show your gross income is unlikely to exceed the deferment level for the next 36 months.

But now with Erudio:

You must be "unable to work for the next 3 years".

Being unable to work at all is a much tougher test than the original one. Many disabled people have low paid jobs but are now no longer able to defer for 3 years when previously they could.

Of course it only affects a small percentage of borrowers but anyone could become disabled through accident, etc. in future.

Note this has been ratified by BIS in the sale and purchase agreement 8.1.2

That's me then with yet another hoop to jump through I'm one of the many disabled who is well enough to work part time (but is wiped out by doing so) & also disabled enough to be entitled to DLA.

Although as Erudio have still not been able to send me a statement I haven't yet seen this change (although they have promised I'll have a statement by the end of next week so that's OK :rotfl:)

anna2007 wrote: »

The relevant bits of the regulations:



The requirement that a disabled borrower is unfit for work for a 3 year period only relates to extending the repayment period to 10 years, completely unrelated to paragraph 11, which gives a disabled borrower the right to extend the deferment period to 36 months, on proof of income.

It's just another example of Erudio trying their best to take the p!ss and make a profit.

Edit: You can see the potential for further pee-taking though - how can you possibly show that your income for the following 3 years will be under the threshold, unless you had a crystal ball or time machine?

If Erudio applied a strict interpretation of the agreements (bearing in mind BIS have ok'd this through the S&P agreement), I'd hope that any disabled borrowers affected by it would create a big stink, contact the press, shame Erudio into acting reasonably.

I'm probably being thick here, but its been a bad month health-wise my brain isn't functioning very well. Are we thinking that it is perfectly fine for Erudio to change this 36 month deferment to 12 months?

For me, it is easy to say that my income won't go above the annual threshold for 3 years (& probably for the rest of my life). I currently earn below the income tax threshold for this year, & as I work in the public sector I won't be getting any huge pay rises & I'm also at the top of my 3 point pay scale with zero chance of moving on or up.

It took me well over a year of demoralising job hunting to get this job, so I won't be leaving unless my health deteriorates, since I doubt I'll get another job. My health won't improve (unless someone invents a working eye transplant) & is actually deteriorating slowly, but my sight could deteriorate very quickly & catastrophically to blindness next week - nobody knows & it makes life interesting

I get child benefit, child & working tax credits as a single parent on a low income, but they are being cut drastically from April 2016, & will obviously end when my children are older (16 & 13 now). The child maintenance my ex controls by paying for their things directly will also come to a stop (all of this is fair enough, just pointing out that yes, forecasting income is easy for some of us).

I know a lot of disabled people have fluctuating conditions, which means their income may also fluctuate - but many of us do not & the thought of trying to defer every 12 months with a company who won't play ball & provides the means to do that fills me with dread.

Erudio have emailed me back agreeing my account is in CCA remediation despite not being in arrears with the SLC & have said - "[FONT=Default Sans Serif,Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]One of the reasons your account is in remediation may not be down to arrears. It could be that charges incorrectly applied to your account during a specific time which is why it has been looked into."[/FONT]

Anyone else in this situation? From the old SLC statements interest has been added each month & the IR stated has always been the correct rate set for that year, although I haven't checked the maths yet.... Far too early in the morning for that.

eroneo

Did you apply for 3 year deferment?
What happened?

gardenia101

eroneo wrote: »

Did you apply for 3 year deferment?
What happened?

Initially I applied for a 1 year deferment back in the day when I thought Erudio would process our loans as the SLC did (oh the naivete of youth ) but went through all the rubbish with not being able to produce large print documents yada, yada... Hadn't remembered about the 3 year deferments then as I had been well under the income threshold for a few years due to being a single parent with young children so successfully deferred by the SLC, & I only became disabled in 2010.

I got my 3 year deferment after a complaint to FOS, then involving my MP, who then involved the universities minister; it was a very quick turnaround from the minister writing to Erudio to me getting deferred.

anna2007

@ gardenia Your legal right to a 3 year deferment is set out in the Student Loan regs, Erudio can't change that. What they've done is confuse the requirement for disabled borrowers who want to apply for the 10 year repayment term if they're unfit for full-time work, to show they're unfit for work (letter from GP probably). The cynical among us might think that confusion's by design... there's no requirement for a disabled borrower applying for a 3 year deferment to show they're unfit for work, only to show income, same as a standard deferment.

My comment about the declaration on future income was more general, how can any borrower say with absolute certainty what their income will be in 3 months' time, never mind 3 years? I always thought it was daft for SLC to include in their declaration that income for the following 3 months wouldn't be above my declared income, because I never gained the ability to see into the future! It just seems ridiculous to me to ask someone to do the same, but 3 years forward.

With the CCA remediation, I remember you saying you'd never had arrears, why would there be any charges on your account, have you ever seen any added (separate from Erudio messing with the interest)? It's pretty clear from the amount of info on CCA remediation redacted from the S&P agreement that this whole issue is crucial to Erudio extracting profit. I've asked the ICO to issue a formal decision notice over the redactions, so it can then go to tribunal. They said it can take months for the IC's decision notice alone, so it's another waiting game...

gardenia101

anna2007 wrote: »

@ gardenia Your legal right to a 3 year deferment is set out in the Student Loan regs, Erudio can't change that. What they've done is confuse the requirement for disabled borrowers who want to apply for the 10 year repayment term if they're unfit for full-time work, to show they're unfit for work (letter from GP probably). The cynical among us might think that confusion's by design... there's no requirement for a disabled borrower applying for a 3 year deferment to show they're unfit for work, only to show income, same as a standard deferment.

Thanks Anna, that is what I was hoping the situation would be, although I expect it may be another complaint to FOS when they try & present that situation to me when I next try & defer in 2017 (assuming my current complaint has been sorted out by then )

My comment about the declaration on future income was more general, how can any borrower say with absolute certainty what their income will be in 3 months' time, never mind 3 years? I always thought it was daft for SLC to include in their declaration that income for the following 3 months wouldn't be above my declared income, because I never gained the ability to see into the future! It just seems ridiculous to me to ask someone to do the same, but 3 years forward.

See what you mean & in my pre-disability days I thougt the same. Sorry, misread your post & thought you were just talking about disabled deferrers.

With the CCA remediation, I remember you saying you'd never had arrears, why would there be any charges on your account, have you ever seen any added (separate from Erudio messing with the interest)? It's pretty clear from the amount of info on CCA remediation redacted from the S&P agreement that this whole issue is crucial to Erudio extracting profit. I've asked the ICO to issue a formal decision notice over the redactions, so it can then go to tribunal. They said it can take months for the IC's decision notice alone, so it's another waiting game...

No other charges added under the SLC - I did technically have arrears for 2 of the last years SLC were dealing with my loans, due to the extra time it took them to produce large print paperwork. The first d/d would go out of my account before I'd get the DAF, I'd ring up to question why it was taking so long to get to me, they'd apologise, I'd get the paperwork some time later & defer & they'd wipe the arrears & backdate deferment so there were no gaps.

Maybe this has confused Erudio?

The £10 cheque I sent to SLC for my SAR was also credited to my loan, which I thought was odd, but the SLC refused to discuss my account directly since they sold it to Erudio, so I could never query this. How did the SLC process anyone else's SAR payment?

I'm also wondering if they're hoping they can say I was incorrectly deferred for many years by the SLC since they chose not to include child maintenance in their income figure? Perhaps Erudio are trawling through our records deliberately looking for "errors" that they'll try & exploit?

I wonder if they can overturn years of deferment processed by the SLC?