ERUDIO student loans help

erudioed

anna2007 wrote: »

I thought this article was better than most at highlighting the risks of where we're headed with further student loan sales. Erudio gets special mention - that sale's really the benchmark, which should be enough to deter any Government from making the same mistake, but clearly they're motivated by something other than common sense.

Even before my loan was sold, i've always assumed the end goal is for private companies (banks and their backers) becoming the ones actually providing student loans, as in the US system. Nothing the last 3 governments has done has stopped me still seeing that as being the end goal for uni education. We are not far away from another crisis (in the shock doctrine sense) requiring yet another radical rethink, and who will be waiting in the wings with fully fledged plans to help the failing education system, cupid stunts like bank investment departments and their backers. For the next sale, the purchaser wont even need to outsource much work, considering the money is collected automatically. It will be the sale of the century for someone like Arrow Global. And putting up with the sh*tty little erudio sale will look good for Arrow when those civil servants working in this field are looking who to give the bonanza too. This will be the golden calf of all sales for these vultures.

seatbeltnoob

CakeCrusader wrote: »

Labour did a massive injustice to students by charging fees. These are politicians who've benefited from a free university education, no fees and a bursary that they didn't have to repay. They pushed for a larger amount of students going to University, meaning Universities created stupid degrees to cater for them. They should have limited the places for those who were academic, and encouraged those who are more vocational into other trades which didn't require a degree. Golf course studies, anyone??

to be fair. Universities were taking advantage of this and offering micky mouse degrees. They lured students into doing worthless degrees subsidised by the UK taxpayer that resulted in people doing clerical/administrative jobs after graduation.

The price increase will make people think long and hard of whether their degree is necessary and whether they should go to uni or just do a vocational course.

CakeCrusader

seatbeltnoob wrote: »

to be fair. Universities were taking advantage of this and offering micky mouse degrees. They lured students into doing worthless degrees subsidised by the UK taxpayer that resulted in people doing clerical/administrative jobs after graduation.

The price increase will make people think long and hard of whether their degree is necessary and whether they should go to uni or just do a vocational course.

I don't know. I started my degree in 1995 and it was a running joke at that University that Graduates would all end up working at McDonald's, despite their degree. I'm sad to see that Nurses now have to pay to do a degree though, and they can't get a NHS bursary for a diploma course.

seatbeltnoob

CakeCrusader wrote: »

I don't know. I started my degree in 1995 and it was a running joke at that University that Graduates would all end up working at McDonald's, despite their degree. I'm sad to see that Nurses now have to pay to do a degree though, and they can't get a NHS bursary for a diploma course.

We give so much money to other governments as development aid.

It would be much better to use that money and train our own nurses and not poach nurses from developing countries and hurt their healthcare.

CakeCrusader

seatbeltnoob wrote: »

We give so much money to other governments as development aid.

It would be much better to use that money and train our own nurses and not poach nurses from developing countries and hurt their healthcare.

No. A lot of aid goes to war torn countries (a lot doesn't though), and it helps to promote stability. We shouldn't be poaching nurses though, especially when there's so many in the UK, but nursing isn't a great job any more. It's no longer about patient care, it's about form filling, and now they want nurses to have degrees? This makes no sense, it's a vocational job and they don't need degrees. Nurse training isn't a normal 15 hour a week course either, when you're on placement you're working 36 hours a week so there's no time to get a part time job. Anyway, I think we're going slightly off topic here, back to Erudio

anna2007

Brooker_Dave wrote: »

But if we signed contracts saying that our loans are regulated by the CCA, then how can said contracts be unregulated later?

Surely we were mis-sold if that's the case?

It's yet another reason to add to all of the other reasons why our loans were mis-sold. The Government chose to allow both Erudio and the SLC to become exempt from FCA regulation after our loans were sold, but said at the time of the sale:

Erudio Student Loans will have to adhere to strict Office of Fair Trading (OFT) [defunct 01/04/14, about the time Erudio took over] guidance about the treatment of borrowers which includes particular protections for vulnerable borrowers and those in financial difficulty. They have also committed to adhering to best-practice guidance issued by the Credit Services Association [specific to the DCA industry, so its 'best practice guidance' is irrelevant to deferred borrowers, also not convinced that we have any sort of redress through them].

When the MS student loans scheme was debated in Parliament, it's on record via Hansard that around 11% of the loans were predicted to be eventually cancelled due to deferment. That prediction turned out about right, the scheme was designed that way to account for the fact that some borrowers would enter low-earning jobs, and/or would take time out for family, and/or had disabilities, and/or any other number of reasons.

What we also know as fact is that a lot of financially inexperienced 18 year olds trusted what the Uni's, the SLC and the Government were 'selling' with these loans. Even if we'd been financially savvy enough to understand the implications of the assignment clause at the time, it was reasonable to assume, with the way these loans were 'sold', that the Government would follow both the letter and the spirit of the loan agreements and the law. Instead, they sold the opportunity to profit decades later to the worst kind of buyer, Arrow Global. That's not what we were sold decades ago so yes, it's the worst kind of mis-selling, when it's your own Government doing that kind of bidding.

It seems the Government thinks itself untouchable, but it's on even more shaky ground with selling the ICR loans and retrospectively changing the terms by freezing the repayment threshold, so making the loans more attractive to potential buyers. Can't decide if it's all part of some grand plan, or if the people making the decisions really are that stupid!

GinOClock

Here is an upheld FOS complaint where Erudio repeatedly hounded a borrower who had repaid his loans in full.

Erudio really doesn't come out good in this at all.

http://www.ombudsman-decisions.org.uk/viewPDF.aspx?FileID=140076

anna2007

GinOClock wrote: »

Here is an upheld FOS complaint where Erudio repeatedly hounded a borrower who had repaid his loans in full.

Erudio really doesn't come out good in this at all.

http://www.ombudsman-decisions.org.uk/viewPDF.aspx?FileID=140076

What a farce, good to see the ombudsman acknowledge just how ridiculous Erudio/Arrow Global's behaviour was.

Does make you wonder why Arrow Global would mark the account as inactive, rather than closed - either they didn't want to close it and always intended to hound the customer, or they couldn't close it for whatever reason (don't have the authority, or computer says no?). Or it could just be a staggering level of incompetence on Arrow Global's part, how embarrassing for them.

And if this is an indication of how things will be handled by Arrow Global when loans qualify for cancellation, that'll only result in plenty more FOS complaints and compensation.

yarmon

I really hope someone can help me!

I have been deferring my loans for many years whilst living a broad. I have done this via email. In 2015 I got many replies to my emails that they would be in contact but they never were. In the meantime I then had 3 children under 4 and had moved house/ city so I wasn't 100% focused (although to my credit one of the emails I sent was while I was in labour!). I also spoke to them on the phone and they said there was no record of my loans. I thought 'marvellous'.

Then I got suspicious and called back October 2016. This was when I heard about Erudio for the first time. They said they sent me a letter (to a very old address) informing me of the selling of my loan. I had no idea something like this was even possible! I called Erudio and they said they had passed my loan on to Moorcroft debt collectors 2 weeks earlier! They had written a letter informing me to an address I hadn't lived in for over 20 years!

My loans were taken out 1995-8. The last successful deferrment was 2013-14. There is correspondence after this but nothing was replied to by them. I had the phone conversation with the student loans company in 2016 and they said that there was no longer any debt and only at a later date did they tell me it was with Erudio

I do not want my credit rating affected and I wanted to defer my loan again. Since October I have been in regular contact with Erudio and Moorcraft begging Erudio to take back my loan. Moorcraft will return it if Erudio request and it is currently on hold. Erudio is very reluctant. Does any one have any advice?! Should I perhaps be in touch with the original Student Loans Company?

Many thanks!

anna2007

yarmon wrote: »

I really hope someone can help me!

I have been deferring my loans for many years whilst living a broad. I have done this via email. In 2015 I got many replies to my emails that they would be in contact but they never were. In the meantime I then had 3 children under 4 and had moved house/ city so I wasn't 100% focused (although to my credit one of the emails I sent was while I was in labour!). I also spoke to them on the phone and they said there was no record of my loans. I thought 'marvellous'.

Then I got suspicious and called back October 2016. This was when I heard about Erudio for the first time. They said they sent me a letter (to a very old address) informing me of the selling of my loan. I had no idea something like this was even possible! I called Erudio and they said they had passed my loan on to Moorcroft debt collectors 2 weeks earlier! They had written a letter informing me to an address I hadn't lived in for over 20 years!

My loans were taken out 1995-8. The last successful deferrment was 2013-14. There is correspondence after this but nothing was replied to by them. I had the phone conversation with the student loans company in 2016 and they said that there was no longer any debt and only at a later date did they tell me it was with Erudio

I do not want my credit rating affected and I wanted to defer my loan again. Since October I have been in regular contact with Erudio and Moorcraft begging Erudio to take back my loan. Moorcraft will return it if Erudio request and it is currently on hold. Erudio is very reluctant. Does any one have any advice?! Should I perhaps be in touch with the original Student Loans Company?

Many thanks!

If you didn't know about Erudio until October 2016, I take it the email correspondence during 2015 is with the SLC? As they failed to tell you that your loans had been transferred to Erudio, and you have evidence of chasing this up, it's worth putting a formal complaint in to Erudio, then escalating to FOS if it's not resolved.

Technically, the maximum any arrears can be backdated is 3 months after your last deferment from 2013/14 ran out. If you didn't keep SLC informed of a change of address, this might go against you, but stress the fact that you successfully deferred by email for many years. FOS will be given access to phone records too, which together with the email evidence you have, means there's every chance FOS will find in your favour and order Erudio to wipe your arrears and allow you to apply for deferment, to run from when your last deferment ended.

Erudio own the debt now, so I don't think there's any point pursuing it with SLC.

Good luck!