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Student Loans Company, where's the Transparency?
So this current tax year I'm now due to be repaying my student loan back after graduating last year and now working in Sweden.
As per their request, I sent in 3 payslips with details. All quiet for a while.
Then I get a letter from them saying I owe them £26 a month. Quite a figure so I thought I'd go over the details provided on their website about the exchange rate and repayment thresholds. My calculations reached £19 a month with their stated SEK-GBP rate and I couldn't get anything close to it with any other currency.
So I decide to message them about it on Facebook and then about 2 weeks after that (Nice and quick, classic SLC...), they tell me they used the previous tax year's SEK-GBP rate to calculate my repayments and they now couldn't reassess it until next tax year or if my employment circumstances change.
When I asked them for the rate used so I could confirm their calculations, they wouldn't tell me it.
When I requested a detailed invoice going from my pre-tax annual salary in SEK down to the annual/monthly repayments, they said they couldn't do that. I cited how any Credit Card Statement, Phone Contract Invoice or Council Tax Bill has a breakdown of the figures and that I am entitled to see this as I would for any financial obligation and have the right to challenge anything which does not match.
To keep them quiet, I'm now manually making £19 a month repayments in line with my own calculations. Calculations they seemingly cannot provide the debtor with for some unknown reason...
I'm curious to see if anyone out there has managed to get their detailed breakdown for overseas repayments to SLC and whether this contravenes regulations on a creditor informing the debtor of any money owed. Is there any avenue in which I could raise a complaint with the Financial Ombudsman too if they're refusing to be fully transparent on their repayment amount? I find it *very* odd and ironic they're not regulated by the FCA given their position as one of the most significant financial institutions in the UK.
As per their request, I sent in 3 payslips with details. All quiet for a while.
Then I get a letter from them saying I owe them £26 a month. Quite a figure so I thought I'd go over the details provided on their website about the exchange rate and repayment thresholds. My calculations reached £19 a month with their stated SEK-GBP rate and I couldn't get anything close to it with any other currency.
So I decide to message them about it on Facebook and then about 2 weeks after that (Nice and quick, classic SLC...), they tell me they used the previous tax year's SEK-GBP rate to calculate my repayments and they now couldn't reassess it until next tax year or if my employment circumstances change.
When I asked them for the rate used so I could confirm their calculations, they wouldn't tell me it.
When I requested a detailed invoice going from my pre-tax annual salary in SEK down to the annual/monthly repayments, they said they couldn't do that. I cited how any Credit Card Statement, Phone Contract Invoice or Council Tax Bill has a breakdown of the figures and that I am entitled to see this as I would for any financial obligation and have the right to challenge anything which does not match.
To keep them quiet, I'm now manually making £19 a month repayments in line with my own calculations. Calculations they seemingly cannot provide the debtor with for some unknown reason...
I'm curious to see if anyone out there has managed to get their detailed breakdown for overseas repayments to SLC and whether this contravenes regulations on a creditor informing the debtor of any money owed. Is there any avenue in which I could raise a complaint with the Financial Ombudsman too if they're refusing to be fully transparent on their repayment amount? I find it *very* odd and ironic they're not regulated by the FCA given their position as one of the most significant financial institutions in the UK.
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Comments
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For the sake of £7 a month why would you not just pay it? Bizarre.
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Because if their calculations are wrong, why should he pay out an extra £84 a year of his money?Tim_Bisley said:For the sake of £7 a month why would you not just pay it? Bizarre.0 -
They will be paying it back anyway! It's for a loan, so it's not as though they are paying more than they owe. They are just paying back more slightly earlier than they would have otherwise done.Deleted_User said:
Because if their calculations are wrong, why should he pay out an extra £84 a year of his money?Tim_Bisley said:For the sake of £7 a month why would you not just pay it? Bizarre.
(Also why are you assuming they identify as male?)0
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