ERUDIO student loans help

GinOClock

BorderReiver14 wrote: »

Sad to say but if it is not impacting the government, will they really give a $h1t. One of their chief aims is to off-load as much public sector debt (and responsibilities) to the private sector.

Yup. They have no intention of enforcing any of the S&P agreement.

anna2007

GinOClock wrote: »

Yup. They have no intention of enforcing any of the S&P agreement.

Completely agree, Anthony Odgers has admitted as much in response to an FOI request to BIS on due diligence. When I raised the issues around Erudio's crap customer management and deferment process, their response was:

BIS is not responsible for the actions of the purchaser following sale. As you will be aware from information already released, the terms of sale require the purchaser to act within the law, and in line with loan terms and industry codes of practice. BIS had no ongoing duty in this respect, which is a matter for the Financial Conduct Authority.

BIS clearly couldn't give a stuff about the consequences of their decision to sell to the dodgy DCA setup that is Erudio, or how it impacts on the lives of 250,000 borrowers (who also happen to be UK citizens, so BIS continue to be responsible, no matter how much they'd like to get rid). Their FOI response suggests BIS has no intention of making Erudio stick to the terms of the S&P agreement, which means it was nothing more than a legal formality.

And to claim that any problems are now a matter for the FCA is laughable.

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/details_of_the_due_diligence_pro_3#comment-66438

erudioed

Great post Anna. It is as clear as day in that document. I do forget these FOI answers you have managed to get, they are where much of the meat is at.
So even though Erudio has breached its contract with the government, it leaves the customer to complain to the FCA, with our complaint, i assume, weighted against the terms set out in the contract. I'd have thought a direct contract breach like this one would be for the government to get to the bottom of, but stupid me. The government makes the sale and then its out of there, no more responsibility, washing its hands of the whole thing. Seen like that it does give Erudio an awful lot of power. Which makes the assessment (due diligence report) of Erudio even more important. That FOI answer states:
"I can confirm that the process by which initial expressions of
interest were shortlisted to reach a final decision was robust. It was driven not just by
securing value for money for the taxpayer, but also three other objectives: ensuring
successful execution, minimising the administrative burden on SLC and BIS, and that the
purchaser undertakes to continue treating borrowers in accordance with their loan terms
and conditions, and in line with regulation and best practice on the fair treatment of
borrowers."

Concerning value for money, i contest that with its shell structure, and Carval's Luxembourg shell company, any collected money will be flying out of the UK. I assume Erudio will collect more money than the sale price. By my very basic maths and lack of understanding of how these things work, thats a net loss.
Concerning minimising the administrative burden, just selling the loans would do that, no matter who it was sold to. If i am right and the sale will produce a net loss to the UK economy, then if this was a concern, SLC should have just cancelled the loans so it didnt have to 'manage' them.
Concerning the treating customers fairly part and not breaking the rules, well, we all know what a joke that has been.

The very next part of that statement above is:
"The assessment of the purchaser against the last of these objectives was
that they were as good if not better than the other bidders."

If the Erudio bid was better than the others, thats not the same as they put in a good bid. Its setting the bar pretty low. If they didnt get a bid from anyone that instilled 100% confidence, they should not have sold the loans. Its not ebay, they can choose not to sell if the appropriate bid doesnt get put in.

That 2 of the main 3 reasons for selecting Erudio are particularly iffy, one can only wonder what the due diligence report contains. Well, Anna managed to get that answer as well in the same FOI request.
It reads:
"...it covers detailed valuation/bid structuring information
and assessments of commercial/operational capabilities..."

Now that i would like to read given the most important part of the 3 above reasons that affect us, the so called customers, has been so clearly disregarded. From what i understand, Arrow Global isnt operating in any different way to the way it acted before it invaded our lives.

FuriousFeline

Well, I still haven't received confirmation of a new end date for my current deferment period from Erudio or even the generic apology letter claiming that people now have 56 days to return their forms (but not saying from which point). What I have just received, however, is a letter acknowledging the complaint I made 10 days ago!

anna2007

We should get more answers on due diligence from the ICO complaint, I'm sure it'll be similar to the S&P agreement and some of the info will have to be released. They've said the IC should have his initial assessment done by late May/early June.

Some good news on the tribunal appeal for the redacted info in the S&P agreement, it was accepted yesterday, so the ICO now has 28 days to respond. I get 14 days after that to make any further submissions, then the hearing's set, so at least a couple of months until we get the tribunal decision. It should be before the ICO's final decision notice on due diligence, and there's some overlap on VFM/treatment of borrowers, so (if some of it goes our way at tribunal) that might have a bearing on how much is released on due diligence.

Ibreakwindinerudiosdirect

From that FOI request:

""I can confirm that the process by which initial expressions of
interest were shortlisted to reach a final decision was robust. It was driven not just by securing value for money for the taxpayer, but also three other objectives: ensuring successful execution, minimising the administrative burden on SLC and BIS, and that the purchaser undertakes to continue treating borrowers in accordance with their loan terms and conditions, and in line with regulation and best practice on the fair treatment of borrowers."

Which to my mind would include continuing to act as per the terms of the sale.

"The sale of the mortgage style loan book led to the full transfer of legal ownership from BIS to the purchaser. However, the Department took steps at the time of sale to ensure, as far as it could, that the purchaser acts within the law, and in line with loan terms and industry codes of practice. BIS had no ongoing duty in this respect, which is a matter for the Financial Conduct Authority."

Fantastic. This is why I'm interested in these loans. Several friends have asked why I have spent time on it. It's because this is how things will be in the future for all people with students loans: you borrow from the government, they then flog it off to people like Erudio.

erudioed

Maybe. The IC loans, if the government sells them off, are collected in a different way from what i understand. Thats through HMRC. If they were sold, maybe its possible to change that and have the winning bidder control the collections process. The way i had it explained to me was that the collected money by HMRC would be diverted and go straight into the winning bidders hands. It would be like selling something now that has a guaranteed income of £100 over the next XX years, for a much lower fee today. Andrew Mcgettigan writes much more concisely on all this. Hes still trying to get to the bottom of whether selling student loans is value for money, swaying on the side it isnt. But SLC and BIS wont release the important statistical data he needs from what i recall.
As a point of note, the last budget was the first one where the selling off of the next loan tranche was not included. Cable was the one who withdrew it from the government agenda for not being financially of interest for sale, but it was always included in Osbourne's budgets. Maybe they will do it on the sly (and put control of the payment procedure in the hands of the winning bidder), and at a speed Thatcher would be in awe of, like the Post Office, but it is a slightly different animal to our loans.
However, as i personally believe, winning our loans was like taking a hit for the real cash bonanza that is the IC loans. If they go up for sale, the c#nts behind our bid would be top of the list for the next one. That would not change the winning bidder having control of each loanee's data though, and i am sure there would be much wiggle room to abuse any system in place and intimidate each 'customer'.
All the quotes from Anna's FOI request make me sick to the stomach. Buying debt and the following that it invokes and puts onto the ordinary person is standard practice here. But it isnt everywhere. Look at Greece and what the Troika are trying to do with so called Red Loans (or opening up such a debt selling market like so called 'advanced' countries). Greece has and is still resisting creating this market, although it is being forced into as we speak. If you read any news of Greece and the troika not being in agreement, this very issue is one of the 3 or so main ones that is a sticking point. It should also be noted that the legitimacy of selling debt never comes up in any of the mainstream media and rarely in the independent media.
Its no surprise that after Portugal was forced into its own debt crisis recently that one of the main players who moved into its purchasing of private debt market was none other than our own Arrow Global. I can also say that unlike with us on the whole, in a country like Portugal where the welfare state has been as good as tortured by the imposed cuts, where income is very low and unemployment very high, being on the receiving end of the continual phone calls and deceitful tactics/threats by such a company wont so much lead to anger and pages on its own MSE as it will suicides and widespread depression! I think it does the same to most people, whatever country they are from but maybe not at such an extreme level. These companies do nothing positive for anyone, other than financially terrorising people for their own profit!

AReeves

I think JeLaw make a very good point. I totally agree.
He/she has hit the nail on the head in my view.

Anthony

JeLaw wrote: »

I agree that Erudio's delay/not sending out DAF forms is bad behaviour (not surprised at what they do anymore) - but I'm just a bit concerned that if this is complained about too much, any attempts to not use the DAF or use an amended version won't hold as much weight.

I'm not feeling 100% today so maybe I'm not thinking straight.

ETA. Surely if people aren't receiving DAFs on masse, it makes it easier to simply defer with a letter and/or amended DAF - as it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that the lack of urgency on the part of Erudio in getting DAFs to people shows their DAFs are not a requirement for deferral.

erudioed

Seriously Anthony? They are 2 separate issues. You cant cease to complain about one because it might theoretically be used as leverage by Erudio to affect the other. That is preposterous in my opinion. Even if it was ruled you didnt have to use a DAF, everyone who has unfortunately caved on that (most i am guessing, me included) have still given them authorisation whether they use evidence alone or not. And is the not signing the DAF issue getting closer to being solved? It seems Erudio are doubling down and the cretinous FCA are supporting it. To get all those prior authorisations cancelled by some authority and then Erudio reinventing the deferment process isnt going to happen. Even though it should, it wont.
I would have thought the advice would be to try and ascertain what those permissions actually are, if Erudio has used them yet, and if they have indeed breached the original T&Cs in some way. Then we can all go to court and make a killing.
Yet, with the not sending out of the DAF, they have obviously, and evidentially broken the S&P agreement. An issue provable by thousands.
Maybe i am wrong, but i am guessing most people want to just defer as peacefully as possible, so not complaining would only give Erudio a free hand to do this every year.

FuriousFeline

I agree that if people don't kick up a stink now Erudio will think they can do this every year. Although I finally received DAFs, I am still pursuing a complaint against Erudio because it is bad form of them not to have given us individually specified new dates for the end of our current deferment periods. As they have not done this, we have been left to experience unnecessary doubt and stress regarding how much time we now have in which the DAFs have to be returned, processed and approved. It is unlikely that Erudio will give me a satisfactory response to my complaint, so I will in all likelihood be taking this issue up with the FOS. @Erudioed do you think the FOS are likely to order Erudio to pay compensation?