ERUDIO student loans help

anna2007

rizla_king wrote: »

think they mean its not a legal requirement for you to fill in the form and defer if you qualify. i.e. you could legally not bother and pay, or let it go into arrears. your choice.

It might be too much wine, but I don't understand what you're saying here? If it's not a legal requirement to fill out their DAF, and you qualify i.e. you show earnings are below the threshold, you can't have arrears. If Erudio put your account in arrears in that situation, they're in breach of contract.

rizla_king wrote: »

so if you DO want to defer they require one

They require one, on what basis? Not a legal one, which they've acknowledged. Their requirement is based on nothing more than they want you to complete the form, and they'll sulk and say no if you don't play along. They can't justify refusing any amended DAFs, because they're not a legal requirement, and they've accepted them previously. Any amendments to their DAF have no bearing on what legally matters to qualify, declared income, so can't be used by them to refuse deferment.

It's nothing more than a ploy to force a borrower's account into arrears, all that matters to them is profit, so trying to remove our statutory right to deferment/cancellation is the only way they can extract a profit from deferred borrowers.

Brooker_Dave

Q43 Mr Bacon: Can I clarify something else? I have just found this on the internet, so goodness knows it may be wrong, but apparently all student loan agreements carry the following clause, which looks like it is lifted from somewhere, so is probably correct: "You must agree to repay your loan in line with the regulations that apply at the time the repayments are due and as they are amended. The regulations may be replaced by later regulations." The narrative on the website goes on to say: "As such, students ‘are told to sign an open-ended loan agreement where the interest rates and term of repayment can change, at any moment in time, at the whim of government, without the need to [pass] legislation.’" Is that correct? Is that a fair summary of the current position?
Martin Donnelly: The Government does have the ability to change certain terms of the loan, including, for example, the level of indexation. I don’t know, Mick, whether we always require secondary legislation or the way we would have to do that.
Mick Laverty: I am not sure, but I don’t believe we do.
Q44 Mr Bacon: No, the implication is that you must repay it in line with the regulations that apply at the time that the repayments are due and that those regulations may be amended and then you would be obliged to follow the new amended regulations. That is correct, isn’t it? The existing structure provides for that without having to come back and do a piece of delegated legislation and get a statutory instrument or anything like that. Is that correct?
Mick Laverty: That’s correct.
Q45 Mr Bacon: Okay. Fine, I am just checking. So if you were then to sell the book, what freedom would somebody buying the book have? That is not you the Government as the person who is owed the money, but the person who now owns the book, it having been purchased by them? What freedom would they have to alter the terms and conditions after they had bought the book? Would they have any freedom at all?
Martin Donnelly: The plan would be to sell tranches of the loans and the terms-this is an issue that we need to be clear about as we go through the preparatory process-would be set. So the point about the people buying the loans is that they would not have a say in what those terms were. But the question of what we have to say about what we would be prepared to commit to do or not to do is one of the issues that is in the value-for-money calculation we have to make.
Q46 Mr Bacon: Yes, I understand that. But the moment you sell a particular tranche of debt, the terms and conditions upon which it is sold are set in stone. They are crystallised and the buyer of that debt buys them on those terms and that is it; they cannot change them. Correct?
Martin Donnelly: We have to be clear about what those terms are, yes.
Q47 Mr Bacon: Sorry, am I correct in what I just said? You were shaking and nodding, and that does not get recorded in the transcript. Can we just be clear that the person buying the debt buys it on set terms and conditions that cannot subsequently be changed by the new owner of the debt? Is that correct?
Martin Donnelly: Yes.
Mr Bacon: Okay. Thank you.
Amyas Morse: I am curious to know why someone would buy this and then what they would do. If somebody buys a tranche of debt, will they be able to approach some of the borrowers and offer them the chance to make an early payment to commute the debt completely? That might make a lot of sense from a commercial point of view.
Mr Bacon: Yes.
Martin Donnelly: I can’t give you any more detail because we have not done the work.
Amyas Morse: I realise that.

Brooker_Dave

Q60 Chair: Does the company to which you sold-Erudio-have the power to change the terms of the loans?
Mick Laverty: No. The terms of the loans are fixed at the point of sale.

anna2007

Brooker_Dave wrote: »

Erudio has been notified of five complaints received by the Financial Ombudsman Service as at 31 July 2014.

Jim Dobbin should ask his question again, the stats have changed a fair bit since. We need an MP pointing out that Erudio's complaints record is worse than Wonga's.

Mr Bacon's grilling - I remember reading that before - think it's to do with IC loans? Those terms actually state that the terms can be amended by Government at any time, they got brazen about the fact they want to rip you off. Our terms are supposedly set, but I'm sure if the Government really wanted to find a way to amend them, the loophole will be there. If they ever did though, it would clearly be in favour of their corporate buddies, but would anyone other than those directly affected even notice?

Lungboy

anna2007 wrote: »

It might be too much wine, but I don't understand what you're saying here? If it's not a legal requirement to fill out their DAF, and you qualify i.e. you show earnings are below the threshold, you can't have arrears. If Erudio put your account in arrears in that situation, they're in breach of contract o

I agree with Rizla. Erudio aren't saying it's not a legal requirement to fill in a daf to be deferred, they are saying it's not a legal requirement to fill in a daf. That's correct. People earning too much to defer don't have to fill in a daf, so it's not a legal requirement to fill one in.

anna2007

Lungboy wrote: »

I agree with Rizla. Erudio aren't saying it's not a legal requirement to fill in a daf to be deferred, they are saying it's not a legal requirement to fill in a daf. That's correct. People earning too much to defer don't have to fill in a daf, so it's not a legal requirement to fill one in.

To put it into context, this is the question Erudio were responding to:

I applied for deferment of my own student loans in April of this year using your DAF, which I substantially amended to a form of wording that was acceptable to me (copy attached). I received confirmation of my deferment by letter from the Erudio Operations Manager within a matter of days, a copy of which is also attached.

Given that I am not legally required to complete any DAF supplied by you, and the amended DAF I submitted was simply a courtesy to assist you in the assessment of my income for deferment purposes, could you please confirm by return of email that my current and previous year's deferment is fully valid, remains in place and will not be revoked at a later date by Erudio Student Loans.

My enquiry clearly related to use of their DAF for deferment purposes. If it's as you say, and Erudio are being slippery with the wording, that doesn't really wash when there is no legal requirement to fill in a DAF to get deferred?!

Lungboy

You know that Erudio answer what they want to answer, not necessarily what they are being asked.

anna2007

Lungboy wrote: »

You know that Erudio answer what they want to answer, not necessarily what they are being asked.

That much is obvious, Erudio are good at being vague, misleading or downright wrong in their responses.

They can choose to be obtuse in their answers, or take a strop if we don't agree to their unreasonable demands, which have no legal basis. None of it changes the legal position. It seems Erudio don't like that, which is a real shame, but they knew the terms of the loans when they took them on.

Trying to manipulate the terms, and the deferment process, for their own gain is to expected. But we're also free to interpret their answers in the context of what was asked, what our terms say, and what we know are our legal obligations in order to get deferred.

So I'm going with it's not a legal requirement to complete the DAF in order to get deferred

They have been contradictory enough in their responses though to justify another FOS complaint, so here we go again.

rizla_king

anna2007 wrote: »

So I'm going with it's not a legal requirement to complete the DAF in order to get deferred

that is you adding words to their statement as that is what you hope or wish they mean.

IMO they actually mean there is no absolute legal obligation to fill in the forms as there isn't as you may not wish to defer. but it is their opinion that its required (or they requite it) if you wish to defer which the 2nd paragraph says.

dont get me wrong i agree that legally the form is not required for a deferment request to be legal and valid. just saying you are probably reading what you want to hear into what they said when actually is the 'weasel words' again

anna2007

rizla_king wrote: »

just saying you are probably reading what you want to hear into what they said when actually is the 'weasel words' again

No, I'm interpreting it in the way that makes sense and fits with my contract terms.

I'll ask them to clarify in my formal complaint.