ERUDIO student loans help

zombi

Latest trick in the Student Loans split loans deferment saga:

My loans (1997,98,99) are currently held (97) by Thesis and (1998 and 99) by Erudio. So SLC are responsible for sending the deferment forms out every year to cover both companies. 

For the last 3 years the deferment letter has been sent by SLC with the Erudio loan accounts omitted from the form (I think I posted about this the first time it happened). For the last 3 years I have been adding the Erudio account numbers by hand to the form with a covering letter of complaint. Every year I have been sent a response saying "we'll add the Erudio account numbers next year". This never happens, and this year again I am sending the forms with the Erudio loan numbers added by hand and another letter of complaint.

My loans are due to be written off in a few years. Are SLC now in cahoots with Erudio? Are Erudio intentionally not sending the account details to the SLC? Anyone else had this issue?

  

Lungboy

As long as they are accepting the forms with the additional accounts i'd just accept it as yet another annoyance to deal with. Be thankful that the split loans mean the SLC is sorting it and you don't have to deal with Erudio.

Lungboy

Ah, it's that time of year again when i get a text from Erudio telling me I have an online letter waiting for me if only I'll sign up to their system to view it. It'll be the deferment forms a month earlier than by paper again, so no thanks.

erudioed

Fingers crossed they actually send out the forms by post without the usually mucking about.

Cook1e

I got my lovey reminder this year by email as well. I waited and have received the forms. I have  just noticed they don’t put the accounts of the loans. Just a summary of balance and reference number. I took my first loan is 1992 which means the 25 years have passed since 2017. Should they not be wiping the loans off which have passed 25 years? I have deferred every year. They tried to state I was in arrears when it changed from slc to eurodio due to their appalling handling of my deferment, I complained and got deferred with compensation from the Financial Ombudsman. My due deferment date is in June, my 50th birthday is this month. So after sending proof of last years earning which again is under the thresh hold, I should not need to go through all this hassle , but I dare say after the experience with them, I can’t ever trust them.

leflynn

Can anyone help or point me where to find advice?  I have 3 of these old style loans, the first is a 95 loan and I apparently need to start repaying it - does it get written off at 25 years even if I have started repaying it - is there any way I can avoid it (have deffered for this long due to low wages, now with a new job my wage has gone over the threshold)

Sponge

I'd be interested to hear if anyone thinks/knows how they treat multiple loans when it comes to deferment. Similarly to the posters above, I have multiple (4) loans, from 1992-1996. Do they treat them collectively and only write them off after the final loan has matured, i.e. loan #4 has reached 25 years? Or are they treated individually (they each have an account/loan number) and should be individually 'written off' as each reaches the required maturity date? I'll admit I've been working on the assumption it's the former.

It is my understanding that even if a loan has started to be repaid, it should still be written off when it qualifies to be so.

Schnurrbart

Sponge said:

I'd be interested to hear if anyone thinks/knows how they treat multiple loans when it comes to deferment. Similarly to the posters above, I have multiple (4) loans, from 1992-1996. Do they treat them collectively and only write them off after the final loan has matured, i.e. loan #4 has reached 25 years? Or are they treated individually (they each have an account/loan number) and should be individually 'written off' as each reaches the required maturity date? I'll admit I've been working on the assumption it's the former.

It is my understanding that even if a loan has started to be repaid, it should still be written off when it qualifies to be so.

Hi Sponge, I can’t speak for Erudio (I was very fortunate in that my loans weren’t passed to them, but I still follow this forum with interest), but when I spoke to someone at Thesis Servicing (administrator for my SLC loans) in March this year, I was told that my loan(s) – from 1993, 1994 and 1995 – would be written off this October (i.e. after the 25-year maturation of the 1995 one).

Since each of the three loans were applied for - and paid – separately (with unique loan numbers), I totally agree with you that each one should be written off upon maturation, but it seems that Thesis don’t see it like that, and are treating my loans collectively. Given this, I’d say it’s a real stretch of the imagination to think that Erudio would take a more liberal stance and treat loans individually.

I didn’t push the matter on the phone, I just resolved to wait until October, see what happens, and take Thesis to task if I don’t hear from them to confirm that the loan/s has/have been written off.

I know it’s a way off yet, Sponge, but please come back here in September/October 2021 to let us know what happened. Also, you say "I'll admit I've been working on the assumption it's the former” – does this mean that you’ve already tried to get an answer from Erudio about your 1992 and 1993 loans? After all, if they were being treated separately, then those two should already have been written off. Since they haven't, you already have the answer to your question - but I guess the real question is whether Erudio (and other load administrators) can legally treat consecutive loans collectively in this way...

Sorry I can’t be of any more help, and good luck to you and everybody else who has to deal with those shameless parasites Erudio.

Schnurrbart

Sorry, got that wrong - my last (1995) loan won't reach maturation until October next year! (Although I am certain that the advisor told me that the loan would be written off this October). I'm confused now. I guess it's that when you defer, you are making a declaration that you will be under the repayment threshhold for the whole time between the deferment start date and end date.

But then, surely, the administrators would want to know what your income was in the deferment period immediately prior to the maturation date, just in case you'd won the lottery, received an inheritance, etc. - unless they're not allowed to, and have to accept your declaration at the start of the deferment period for the last loan as final.

Really sorry, I was trying to help, but I feel like I've only muddied the waters. I'm going to have to look at this in more detail, unless someone else here can explain things in terms that even a numpty like myself can understand!

[Edit: The most sense I can make of it is this: When you defer, you are making a declaration about your future earnings to the best of your knowledge, but you are legally obliged to inform the administrator if your income subsequently takes you over the threshhold (rather than wait to be asked). If the administrator does not receive any such notification, they have to assume that your income up to the point of loan maturation was as you declared (effectively, predicted) it to be (or, at least, was not subject to an increase large enough to take you over the threshhold), and are obliged to write the loan off. But still, that seems like a suspiciously easygoing approach for a loan administrator...]

[Edit #2: I think I've identified the source of my own confusion. I must have been wrong in thinking that, e.g. my 1995 loan would reach maturation in September 2021 (on the basis that it would cover the 1995-6 academic year). It's so long ago that I can't remember (and don't have bank statements going back that far!), but it must be that the loan payment (to cover 1995-6) was made at the start of the academic year, i.e. in 1995, and so it would make sense that the maturation year is 2020. The more I try to penetrate the fog of times past, the more I think I was getting loan payments muddled up with student grants, which were still 'a thing' while I was at uni. And I'm pretty sure that a grant for an academic year consisted of three payments, one at the beginning of the academic year, and two others throughout it (i.e. in the following calendar year). That must be where I was getting the idea of 'year + 1 + 25 = maturation year' from (in this post - seems I was correct in my previous one after all). But I still feel like I need to contact Thesis again to clarify. Sorry again for any seeds of confusion I've sown here, if I get lots of complaints I'll humbly delete this post!]

Sponge

Don't apologise. It's reassuring to read about other people's situations.

I finished my degree summer '96, but like you can't remember when I got my final loan; it may have been at the start of the academic year, ie autumn/winter '95. It would certainly make sense to get the money earlier, rather than later. All my reading on the matter has led me to believe that my loans are written off 25 years after the time they were due to start being repaid, ie April '97 + 25yrs. But reading today presented me with information that it's apparently 25yrs after the final loan was received/issued. Which would potentially mean they're written off a lot earlier!