Mail sent to Lee, Ref no 7925480. Also, previous case numbers for this ongoing issue that might be useful to you: 7137935, 7314534, 7317195, 7512400.

I have a business account (not sure if that affects things) with Vodafone, monthly rolling contract paid by monthly DD. In May I ordered some new PAYG handsets from via their web shop. I paid for the order by VISA business debit card, phones arrived, everything good (except that they hadn't provided a VAT receipt that I required, but I've since managed to extract that from them). However, my next monthly direct debit payment also included the cost of the handsets, and then I found it shown as an outstanding amount on my latest bill. I phoned them and explained the situation, they said they couldn't find a record of the debit card payment (but admitted it was not possible to order on the website without cleared payment), and that it must have gone into one of their 'other' bank accounts. I was advised to request a DD indemnity claim to recover the payment back into my bank account, which is what I did. Then I start getting letters from Vodafone about being in arrears, I have discussed this with them dozens of times by telephone and email (even emailing the CEO, fat lot of help that did). All they say is that they have no record of the payment and that I have to provide proof by sending them a copy of my bank statement. I've sent it to them 3 times, but they say that they haven't received it. They blocked my numbers from outgoing calls last month, and I kicked off at them, they agreed to unblock them while they investigated (it'll take 10 days to locate the payment apparently), but I never heard back from them. I got in touch to request an update and they just requested my bank statement again. Today I found that my numbers had been totally disconnected (number not in use). I phoned them (from another number), and it took them 30 minutes to even locate my account as it had been closed down! Their best suggestion was that I take my bank statement into a Vodafone shop and they could phone customer services to confirm that I had paid in the first place. My nearest Vodafone shop is a good hours drive away though. In the end I've had to pay them (over the phone) again to get my account reactivated, my business is totally dependent on these numbers. I have now contacted my bank to request a charge back on the original payment, and I'm waiting for their response (Vodafone recommended all along that I didn't do this, but to wait for them to locate the payment instead). Is a chargeback request likely to get me anywhere? Firstly, there appears to be 120 day limit, and the transaction is 126 days ago, but it's less time since I first found out about the problem. Do charge backs work the same with business debit cards as consumers? A charge back will require Vodafone's agreement, although since they say they can't find the transaction, I don't see how they can disagree! This has cost me hours (probably days) of my time chasing, I've been disconnected twice, and lost my primary business comms, no idea if I've missed/lost orders because of it, but potentially. Now they want me to spend half a day visiting one of their shops to resolve their cock up. I issued them a notice before action on 29th July, can I just start a small claim against them now? Not sure what that would mean for my account with them. I would switch to another provider, but O2 are the only other one with decent coverage round here. I used to be with them, but they kept having outages on their local cell tower (up to 10 days at a time), which they never admitted was a fault or resolved.

You don't have to use/sign Erudio's form, there's nothing to stop people replying with their own letter. As long as you give enough evidence they can't really decline your deferral request (although reports are that they are writing back saying you must use the form). You definitely don't have to agree to any changes of t&c, like the CRA reporting they are trying to sneak in. I've sent a letter with evidence (sufficent as far as I can tell), but am expecting them to ask for their form and more evidence. All their responses so far seem to suggest that they are being very stringent and want every angle covered to prove deferral eligibility. This obviously suits them, as in the meantime they will start taking payments - brace yourselves for that if you have a DD in place. I've also read elsewhere that they have a 46 week backlog! If accurate (it could have been '4 to 6 weeks', misheard), then it'll be months before most of us get any sort of reply. At present it's taking them several weeks just to reply to emails, so the signs aren't good.

Brig is spot on with this. Further, advising people to treat it as just another DCA scenario is wrong and irresponsible. There is a clause in the original SLC T&C that states: "We shall have the right to assign or transfer all or any of our rights and duties under this agreement to any person without your consent". Also, if you took out your first loan in 1997 or earlier, all further loans (assuming you stayed on the same course), are the old mortgage style ones. My last loan was in 2001, and it is definitely still the old type. From 98 onwards tuition fees came in for new students, and the new loan scheme was altered to take this into consideration (mainly you could borrow a lot more, but also that repayments are made by your employers, like tax and NI deductions). The other difference is with the t&c of mortgage style loans before/after 97. Early ones don't specifically say they can inform CRAs, 98 and onwards they do state that they can if you break the t&c: "if you have broken this agreement, to licensed credit reference agencies".

Something I'm trying to work out here - is it totally accurate that Erudio are operating as 'just another DCA'? They are not chasing debts on behalf of the original creditor, they have bought the entire loan account, so does that not mean they take on the role of the original creditor? For example, if I took out a loan with Barclays, and later on they sold their personal loans division to HSBC - do I become an HSBC customer with the original t&c passing on, or is HSBC now a DCA as they are taking the repayments on the loan? Is there no way in law that one company cannot sell a loan book to another company without it being the same as handing a debt over to a 3rd party (DCA) to pursue? I'm still not sure the best approach is to treat this as a regular DCA scenario (even though that's clearly what Erudio's background is).

I've done a bit (quite a lot) more reading on here and other sites, and my original loan agreements and terms. Now I see what people are saying about them trying to sneak in a change of t&c - by notifying CRAs about loans that are in deferment. Not happy about that. It seems that I can either go all in or all out with this - either I play totally by the rules and continue to try and defer (I'm fully eligible to). Otherwise any minor infraction - cancelling DD, or even getting even slightly behind with (their perceived) repayments, could allow them to ask for full, immediate repayment of the loan, and jeopardise it being written off (which would happen in 12 years from now). My intention at the moment is to play safe (ish), and send my request to defer as a letter, and include the evidence that is actually required (at this stage - they can always come back and ask for more, if they are specific in what they want). I will also make it clear that I specifically do not agree to the t&c changes set out on their standard deferment form. The only risk I can see is that they try and throw it back at me, and insist that I complete their form, which they have no legal basis to do. Or that while they are waiting for the extra 'evidence' the reinstate my repayments, which would be a major pain. I suppose I could use their form and cross out any changes to t&c that I am not accepting. Then they have no argument to say that the deferment was delayed due to not using the right form. another thing that seems to be missing (and I might have overlooked it), is a deadline for replying with a deferment application. They state that my current deferment expires on xx/05-2014, but not when they need the paperwork by in order to continue deferment. I don't have any copies of the loan agreements signed by me (there isn't even a place where the signatures should be on my copies), and I'm pretty religious with paperwork, so I doubt that I've discarded them. Is this where I need to do a SAR (to SLC, being the original lender), to get copies of this kind of stuff?

oldstudent is correct, most common state benefits were/are included in the gross income figure that the SLC (and now Erudio) worked to. I have copies of the old SLC deferment forms, where it states this pretty clearly. I can post a copy if it would be useful? I also disagree when people are saying that working/child tax credits shouldn't count. The whole purpose of these benefits is to top up the income of low wage earners, if you don't count them, you're at an advantage of people who actually earn all their income. For example, if person A earns a salary of £30k/yr, and gets no tax credits they wouldn't be eligible to defer. If person B earns £25k and gets £5k of tax credits (on which they don't pay income tax or NI, so they are actually better off than a £30k/yr salary), why should they be eligible to defer on a gross income basis? Same with housing benefit and council tax benefit - it's purpose is to top up your income so it should be counted. Saying that child tax credits are to go purely towards child costs might be correct, but it's irrelevant - you still have all your other income that could be used to repay your student loan.

I have old style mortgage loans, Recently transferred to Erudio I've always deferred as under the income threshold, But there seems to be some confusion (or other have received different forms/paperwork). All the correspondence I've received from Erudio states that the t&c are the same as they were with SLC, and they can't change them. They can of course choose to enforce them more stringently, play dirty tricks etc, but they aren't allowed to change them. I had a DD setup with SLC right from the start, but no payment has ever been collected, it just sat there idle. When my loan transferred to Erudio the existing DD was amended to be payable to them. IT IS NOT A NEW DD, and the posters saying that Erudio set up a DD without their consent are mistaken. Some people probably didn't have a DD with SLC at the time of transfer (either they'd cancelled them, or changed bank accounts and the old one was lost). I seem to recall (might be wrong, it was 15 years ago!), that one of the t&c of SLC loans were that you were supposed to setup a DD when taking out the loans. This is why Erudio are saying that you have to have a DD setup - it was always a condition from the loans inception. As for the deferment form, my form is 6 pages long, BUT THERE ARE NO NEW T&C mentioned anywhere on it. Do other's have different forms, or are they mistaken about the new t&c? Yes it is bigger, but most of it is reconfirming details that they already have, and came from SLC (name, address, NI number etc). There is a new DD mandate section, but most people should already have a DD setup (as above). It says on the form that you only need to provide DD details if there is no DD already setup. There aren't many new, intrusive questions on my deferment form (beyond the homeowner question, that is a new one), it's all exactly the same stuff that went on the SLC form, but more spread out. They are asking for a copy of your self assessment tax return/SA302, if you do one. SLC were entitled to ask further questions, request this information if required, it's just that most of the time, they accepted your information without the need for extensive evidence. I do think Erudio are playing by the rules with the deferment form so far (it's early days yet...) Having said all that, I am pondering what to do next myself - I've always had a low enough income to defer, currently I'm way below the threshold for repayment, and I don't expect that to change in the next few years. I've always deferred properly with SLC, and everything has run smoothly and is currently up to date (my loan isn't in default or anything). My choices are either: a) continue the same way and reply to Erudio with my deferment application, b) go awol and not even enter into any correspondence with them, and try and string it out to 6 years and get it statute barred. The risk with a) is that Erudio might start being silly (it is their MO as debt collectors after all). E.g. taking DD payments when they shouldn't etc (I'm loathe to cancel the DD at this stage, as they could interpret that as breaking my terms of the agreement and kick up a storm. I'm still 15 years away from 50, when I believe the loans are written off anyway. Chances of deferring for that much longer are pretty much evens in my situation. Now might be a good opportunity to question about it, and go for route b). But it's a gamble as to how vociferously Erudio are going to be in chacing me. They don't have my current address (loan is still registered at my parents home, so I still pick up the post, but I'm not on the electoral roll there). But I don't want my parents to start getting/feeling harassed by Erudio/other collectors. It wouldn't be difficult to track me down id they so desired. I may be in a position to get on the property ladder fairly soon, my credit rating is currently absolutely perfect (never missed a bill/loan payment in my life), and I don't want Erudio to trash it. Just don't know what to do at present? I'm sure that as soon as I get on the radar with them (by returning the deferment form), they'll have me flagged as a live one and are more likely to chace me harder, so it's now or never.

I'm not sure I follow you on this - with these mortgage loans interest has been added monthly (at rate linked to RPI) from the day they were taken out. It's itemised month by month on the annual statements that SLC send out. Or are you saying that link jack up the interest rate if you default, and then back date it? I've just had my paperwork (10 pages of it) through about the sell off. I've not read it in detail yet as it's been scanned and email to me, and it's sideways on my screen. The main gist of it is that the transfer date is 10th March, and after that Erudio "own, manage and are fully responsible for loans until repaid in full". Erudio will be handling the deferments (along with everything else), SLC will have no further involvement. It mentions that Erudio become the data controller, and it sounds like all SLC's records are being handed over to them. There is even a direct debit guarantee statement, and the letter mentions that the DDs will be transferred to Erudio automatically, without even needing them to setup a new one. It's all a bit of a balls up - I'm sure the annual deferment dates are coming up (as it hints about in several places in the letter). But Erudio can't do anything before the 10th March when they take over, and presumably SLC aren't interested in sending out deferment forms for next year. Letter states, amongst other stuff: "If you are able to evidence your eligibility in line with Erudio's deferment process, you may defer your loan payments for up to 12 months at a time. Please contact Erudio on or after the 10th March for more details". "Your account will be reported to credit reference agencies..." At present there is absolutely nothing on my credit records about my student loans, although I've read somewhere that SLC only bothered with credit references if there was something negative to add. But Erudio could well do it either way. And how would that affect me getting credit in the future, specifically a mortgage? Student loans were never reckoned to be taken into account, but if it's on my file, it'll be hard for them to ignore. I've always deferred my loan through low income (think the threshold for deferment is £28,775 for next year). I'm nowhere near that, and in the past I've just submitted the last 3 months of payslips to SLC. Are Erudio going to be a lot more demanding with evidence requirements? I'm almost tempted to jack the whole thing off and and avoid/ignore Erudio, to see if I can get it to statute barred. Or is that totally unrealistic? It's a year since I've communicated with SLC, and they don't have my current address on record (everything still gets sent to my parents address), although it would be pretty easy to track me down. At the very least, I think I'll cancel the direct debit instruction, to make sure Erudio don't start taking payments before they give me chance to renew my deferment.

Oh, and if you think these figures look bad, it'll be far, far worse in 20 years time. These old loans were a maximum of about £1800 per year - so most students graduated with under £10k of debt. With the introduction and increase of tuition fees, students are now able/required to borrow over £10k each year. The government are either delusional or hiding the fact that most of it will never get repaid. Like most things I suspect they are just trying to make the figures look good now, as they know they won't be around when it comes back to bite us all in the future.

I am watching this unfold with trepidation as my student loans are with the old scheme, so must be part of the sell off. My repayments have been in deferment ever since graduating, and I can't see that changing any time soon. What can I expect from this privatisation? I don't think they are allowed to change the terms, or interest rates, so I guess they just enforce them more stringently and employ bully boy tactics? Not totally correct - you are assuming that everyone borrowed the same amount for your straight proportion calculations. It's probably not far off when everything is averaged out, but there could be unknown factors that affect the figures. Also, many of these loans are under 15 years old. I started university in 1997, so was the very last year to come under the old loan scheme. But throughout my course we continued to get loans under the old scheme each year - my last one was 2002, which is probably about the very end of the old scheme. I imagine a big proportion of the outstanding loans are from the last few years. My income has always been low enough to defer, and I can't see that changing in the near future. I am a bit surprised that only 46% of these remaining loans are in deferment. What they are selling off is just the dregs of the barrel of what is left - a high proportion from this era have already been repaid. I guess the new owners will be most interested in 40% that are in default, that's where they stand to make some money back, potentially. My guess is that a lot of these 40% are no longer in the UK, either European students that went home after studying or people that have emigrated. Unless SLC haven't put much effort into tracking defaulters, but I think they've had a reasonable go judging by some of the posts in this section?

My partner had a loan with Barclays years ago. It went into default in March 2008 (after we tried and failed to negotiate a payment plan with them). Default balance was just over £2000, and we agreed and paid a full and final settlement amount of £1000 in August 2008. This was on the grounds that they marked the loan as fully satisfied against her credit records, which it appears to have been. But the default marker from March 2008 still remains on there. It hasn't been an issue, until now - we are starting to apply for mortgages and rechecking her credit history flags this default as a serious issue. It's due to hit the 6 year expiry next March, so presumably it'll be irrelevant after then, but is there anything we can do about it in the meantime?

But it wasn't a Paypal member to member transaction, they were just the merchant's card processor, a bit like if they used WorldPay or Streamline - do they have dispute processes that the buyer can access as well?

I've lodged a dispute with Paypal. They say the seller has 10 days to resolve/provide proof of delivery otherwise I'll get a refund. Sounds reasonable, if it works out like that. I was just surprised at the attitude of my bank - I thought they were obliged to deal with this sort of thing?

It was a debit card payment directly through the seller's website. They must use Paypal for their merchant services. I didn't log into Paypal (just entered card details), and presumably the funds go to the sellers merchant account (Paypal). Interestingly, I never got an email receipt from Paypal for the transaction, and when I spoke to them today they identified the payment from my card details, but the email address that they had received was totally unkown to me. This seems quite odd, unless the seller is spoofing the buyers email address or something similar.

I purchased a product from a small company's website (they may be a sole trader rather than a ltd co), paid with a business debit card, but the goods never turned up. I've emailed several times, and always get a reply admitting that they still haven't sent it yet, but I will receive it in a couple of days time. Last contact was over a week ago, and I stated that I require the goods to be delivered by the next day, or to cancel my order and issue a full refund instead. Was again told I'd have it in a couple of days, but still nothing arrived. I spoke to my bank to request a chargeback, but they told me that they can't do it, and I need start a dispute through Paypal (the card processor, it wasn't done through my Paypal account). I have just spoken to Paypal who say they will look into it, but is it right that my bank cannot perform a chargeback on a debit card transaction like this? I won't name the business, or my bank for now, unless that would help?

Just to update this - we submitted a dispute back in October, and heard no more about it. Until today, when we received a letter accepting our grounds for dispute and reinstating our claim, thus cancelling the overpayment. Which is quite a relief!

How long does it take to for the them to reach a decision on a dispute? And if we 'win' it, should they still notify us about their decision (looks like it, based on their website)? We disputed a tax credits over payment (missed a deadline as their computer systems were down for a few days) back in October last year. But I haven't heard a thing from them since their request for repayment that came just before. I did phone them a week or so after sending the dispute form and they confirmed it's receipt and that their repayment request was on hold until they had made a decision. We are still in receipt of this years tax credits, which haven't been reduced or anything, so I think that this sort of implies that they have accepted our dispute and we weren't overpaid, or that they haven't reached a decision yet. Should it really take this long though?

Today I called the tax credits phone line to confirm our income figures for last year, as per the annual declaration form. The figures are within £500 of what HMRC based our tax credits on, so the payments can't be far off what we are entitled to. However, they told me that it is too late to renew the existing claim, and that we must start a new one going forward - fair enough, it's our fault for not returning the documents on time (although I am self employed, I don't know what my income is for the year until my accounts are made up, which I've only just managed to get done). We were paid tax credits from the 6th April to mid august in anticipation of us returning the declaration form, but we've had paperwork asking us to repay all of this due to the late submission. I thought that as soon as I gave them the figures they would accept that we had been paid the correct amounts for our income (more or less anyway), I expected to loose out from when the payments stopped in mid August to now, but today they are still demanding that we repay all of the £4000 they have paid us so far this year, even though we are entitled to it based on our income. I was told that we could either setup a payment plan or dispute it, and then the phone got cut off before I could discuss it any further! Are they correct that we have lost all our working+child+childcare tax credits for the period between April 2012 and now? Is there any point in us disputing it on the basis that a) we would have been entitled to it, b) I'm self employed to it is bound to take longer to get my income figures finalised? If we have 100% lost all the tax credit so far for this year, and have to pay back the £4000 that they've paid us so far (4.5 months worth), can they offset that against what we should get for the rest of the year - 6.5 months left (or 7.5 if we can backdate the new claim by 30 days from today)?

My mistake, the BC fee is £12 and the Barclays fees are £8 each (I opted out of their 'reserve' facility).

Thanks for your comments. I don't usually run my account close to the limit, there's usually plenty in there to clear payment, but I've had some huge CC bills the last couple of months, and I've been a bit slow to transfer funds in to cover the DD. I've had my Barclays current account for 15 years and never had a bounced payment or charge until last month, but they certainly weren't budging when I phoned up to ask if I was going to incurr a charge. One of them was to Barclaycard, who then charged me two more lots of £8 one for the returned DD, and another for late payment - even though I phoned up and made payment immediately, still on the due date. (They later said that they wouldn't be charging me the late payment fee, still waiting to see if they take it anyway). So I guess I could try and recover the Barclaycard charge, but it's a lot of chasing for £8! It looks like this time I caught it just in time as they payment hasn't been returned (yet). They must take DDs at mignight on the date they are due, and return unpaid ones before 9am, so you don't get any chance to make things right on the day. Guess they've got to fund Bob Diamond's bonus somehow!

I've been caught out a couple of times by direct debits and standing orders leaving my account when there have been insufficient funds (mainly to Barclaycard). Because of this, they have then been returned as unpaid. However, on each occasion I have realised and immediately made a deposit into my account the same day by faster payments (usually first thing in the morning on the day concerned, and the deposit shows almost instantly in online banking). But it seems that this is too late and the payment is still returned. I have phoned up each time, again on the day, and asked if they can reapply the DD, but apparently they cannot, so each time I've reapplied the payment by other means (faster payments). But I still get charged by both parties for the reversed dd. This seems a bit harsh, is there anything I can do to not get charged in this situation? Looks like I've fallen foul of this again today - I transferred money in at 1am, but the DD had already left my account, taking me £3 beyond my limit. No sign of it being returned yet...

Not strictly consumer, as this is a small business account that I have with Lloyds. It is pretty much a dormant account, and has a nominal balance in it. I had a direct debit (annual, totally slipped my mind) taken from the account - value £34, which was returned unpaid due to insufficient funds. Lloyds charged me a £35 fee for the unpaid DD, harsh and excessive, but it was my fault. I immediately contacted the company that was try to collect the DD, explained the situation and gave them my new account details, which they said would be debited instead. However, I've just had another letter from Lloyds notifying a second attempt to collect the same DD from my old account, incurring another £35 charge. Contacted the company concerned who have said that it won't happen a 3rd time. But is there anything I can do about the 2nd DD fee? It seems a bit unfair that I have to stump up another £35 for this. It's frustrating and I tried to close the dormant Lloyds account, but they refused as I still have a business credit card with them (which is actively used). So I have to pay £5 per month fee for a dormant bank account as well.

My other half has one of these accounts after having trouble with going overdrawn and accumulating charges on a regular (Barclays) account. We tried to reclaim the charges, but we were't quick enough to get settled before the high court ruling. Anyway, she had a regular direct debit refused from the Cash Minder account due to insufficient balance last month (DD was for £10, there was about £6 in the account at the time). So co-op slapped her with a £20 charge for the failed DD. Sounds criminal to me - I thought one of the outcomes of this bank charges thing was that they could only impose realistic 'penalties'?? So I asked her to phone them and nicely ask if they might waive the fine as a gesture of goodwill - it's the first time she's ever had a charge imposed in 3 years of banking with them. I've asked before regarding my accounts and had fines waived for minor first offences. So she rang them and not only did they refuse (fair enough), but they were really nasty about it with her - saying things like if it ever happens again we'll close your account, you have a crap credit rating and won't get an account anywhere else, and other little digs in an unpleasant manner. She was really upset by the way they spoke to her, and spent hours crying (she has mental health issues and is quite fragile at the best of times). Is there anything we can do about the £20 charge? Is it worth complaining about the way she was spoken to, or is this the accepted norm now?

I asked on the 18th August for a refund to my Paypal account, and again today. So my only further option is a letter before action and small claims?