Erudio Student Loan - HELP!

scubadiva73

Hi. I have 3 student loans from '94, '95 and '96. I have always been able to defer repayment until this year when they said I was over the threshold. My net monthly income is only £961 but as a single parent of 2 children, I also receive housing benefit, child benefit and universal credit, all of which tipped me over the threshold by a few pounds. (I find it disgusting that child benefit is counted as income and that someone with the same income as me, but no kids, is treated the same as me, despite far fewer outgoings!)

Annoyingly, I was unable to get through to Erudio to discuss this ( I have evidence of 3 calls from my mobile in June and an email which was not replied to) and as such fell into arrears. At the time of the arrears letters arriving I was caring for my mother who was recovering from major surgery, alongside working in school everyday (unable to make calls) and then single parenting my children (one of whom has challenging behaviour - awaiting SEN diagnosis) and I didn't manage to contact Erudio before the final letter which said they had terminated the terms of conditions of my loan, one of which was that the loan was to be written off after 25 years. That date was just a few days before the final letter... gutted! I contacted them straightaway and managed to finally get through. I was advised that all I could do was complain about the poor communication - I commented that it was hard to call and that there was no answer machine option (there was on one occasion but not every time - I left a message and did receive call back but was in school at the time and couldn't answer my phone) , I also said that no one replied to my email and that when I did call, all I got was message telling me to manage my account online or email - pointless given that non one replied to my first email. I was told I could write a letter of complaint which I duly did. I received a letter saying that they admitted their communication was not as it should have been (not replying to my email and being slower than their usual response time to call me back) but that they upheld the decision to terminate my contract due to the loan being in arrears. They sent me £50 for the poor communication. 

I have since been in touch with the Financial Ombudsman and am about to start the process of a case through them but my question is....is it worth it? Will it get me anywhere? What would happen if I did nothing? Erudio do not have a direct debit agreement with me so they cannot actually take any money form my account at present. Will they send bailiffs to my home? Will they take me to court? I'm being told I have to repay the loan in full - it stands at £7530.79. Any advice anyone can give would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. 

kaMelo

Edited because I skim read your post and completely missed the part where they have already defaulted you.
Important when talking about these things to stick to facts and leave out the emotional stuff like your mothers surgery etc, it's important to you but not relevant regarding contracts and makes reading your post more difficult.

The basis of your complaint is that they included benefits as gross earnings, Erudio are insistent that they count. Whilst SLC as the original lender can change the terms of a contract, Erudio as a debt collector cannot and there is a question as to whether SLC included benefits as income in the original contract you agreed to.

If SLC did not include benefits as income then Erudio cannot do so either, even if they want to. In that case you would not be over the income threshold, have nothing to pay, could not have defaulted and therefore would have had the loan wiped. Everything hinges on whether you can show SLC did not include benefits as gross income. If you do not have the original loan terms and conditions I believe there is a copy posted on a (very long) thread on mumsnet.

https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/legal_money_matters/2028211-erudio-student-loans?messages=100

sourcrates

Agree with the above post, any debt collector, or debt purchasing company cannot chop or change the terms and conditions of your loan agreement, it simply is not possible, you are always bound by your original agreement.

As for the benefits you are currently on -

Child benefit is not counted as income for the purpose of student finance.

However Universal Credit and *Housing benefit are classed as income.

*A full list can be found on the Turn2us website.