I am just drafting a complaint to Erudio ... Deja vu!! This seems to be what the ICO requires before they will look at a complaint. Am going to give the info they requested - name, address and postcode... they've got it already!!! And will also enclose copy of the SAR again.

This is my husband's one - I haven't sent one off for me yet - I got a bit side tracked by my hip operation. I thought it a wee bit odd too. I have just been on the ICO website and I clicked on the "make a complaint " link. You answer various questions, about the time frame etc, and then the answer came up " Repeat your request to the organisation". I have then been trying to navigate the site to see where I can actually instigate a notification of a breach, and try another route to start a complaint but seem to be having a few problems with their site at the moment- it doesn't seem to want to load, and I don't think its problems my end, as everything else is working. I'll try again in a little bit.

Thank-you both for your responses. We've been at the same address for the last 25 years.I'll check the original agreements and see what's on them. I was thinking that it was a bit sneaky saying to ring them. I'll check out the ICO guidance, and see where I go and let you know.

Time for an update: apologies for radio silence, I had a hip replacement and was trying to forget about Erudio for a few weeks! My husband received a letter from DFF saying that they had received the PAP reply and the account was currently on hold. He has since received a notice of arrears letter for each year of loans (from Erudio). Today a letter came regarding the SAR - which made me realise I hadn't been keeping an eye on the time frame for that one. It is an "identification and verification request". This strikes me as odd, as they are asking for the following : Full name 1st Line of address Postcode date of birth Address provided to SLC Contact phone numbers: Home and Mobile The letter then says that the "easiest and most efficient way of supplying your information... is... on the number provided..." It states that "Its important to note that if we have not been able to satisfy our identification and verification to validate your request within 14 days from the date of this letter ..." (which is the 20th NOV) "then we would not be able to proceed further at this point". I am wondering whether this needs to be provided, and are they just stalling, and do I just need to complain straight away to the Information commissioner.

That's the thing, the wording is as follows: "The present regulations provide for (a) cancellation of repayments, if you die and (b) cancellation of repayments ( so long as you are not in breach of any obligation to us) if (i) you are aged under forty when you last enter an agreement to borrow from from us and you attain age fifty or all or part of your last borrowing from us has been outstanding for at least 25 years or (ii) you are aged at least forty when you last enter an agreement to borrow from us and you attain age sixty." The problem being that Erudio say that we are in breach of obligations. (They have the discretion under the contract to say we are not.) There is discretion for "Time and indulgence". Which is what we requested in Sept 2015, and Erudio effectively ignored us. The wording is as follows: " Without any obligation on us to do so, we shall be entitled to grant time or other indulgence for the payment or satisfaction of any of your liabilities without affecting any of our rights or operating as a waiver of such rights in whole or in part. We will do this only if we are satisfied that this represents a more effective means of recovering the sums due under this Agreement than instituting legal proceedings would be. The problem as I see it, is that this will never go away. Erudio don't seem to like the time and indulgence option as often this would mean accepting late deferment forms or SLC deferment forms: and then they would not get any money. Michael Chessum, the ULU (University of London Union) president, said privatisation of the loan book stemmed from "a poisonous ideological motive to make students consumers, with a lifetime of increasingly malign debt". And that is what will happen. I believe it will take court cases to sort this out. In the meantime, how to deal with them...

All gone off now, just wondering, going forward, which course of action to take: Nothing - as I had been doing for last two years - in the hope it gets to 6 yrs ; or send off SLC deferment forms at the correct time - (next ones due in November, then April) and thereby acknowledging the debt every year.

Thank you so very much for all your input, I will get them in the post today. I'm sure I'll be back here once I get a response. It has been massively helpful to have someone to guide me through- thank-you, thank-you, thank-you!!! I have also got all my papers in order now, just in case something kicks off.

Okay, cool, have done SAR and that is ready to go. Have filled in the PAP reply form as follows: Box D ( ticked ) I dispute the debt: pls see attached sheet : There have been ongoing communications with Erudio regarding this matter, with numerous complaints, since they took over the administration of the loans from the Student Loans Company. I have been eligible for deferral to re-pay the sums borrowed for the whole period that Erudio have handled the matter. Copies of the relevant deferral forms for each year are enclosed. Erudio have previously denied receiving relevant communications from me with regard to this matter. I dispute the debt because the conditions required for its enforceability (ie income threshold) have not been met. Box H (ticked) I have enclosed copies of deferal forms Box I (ticked) I have requested by way of an SAR all the information that Erudio hold regarding my case. name and date printed at bottom and not signed.

I'm thinking the SAR is to Erudio and not drydens?

Just to clarify , with the PAP reply form, am I only disputing the debt at this point- and not requesting more documents? Box D ticked and sending copies of SLC deferment forms. (Don't sign the form) Just a couple of further queries - should I redact the 4 individual loan refs on the copies of the deferment forms (or leave them on) and/or just use the one customer ref no that Erudio use for all the loans? Should the deferment form signatures be redacted? Just thinking whilst looking through documents- How come its okay for Erudio to somehow "remedy" the account just before threatening you with court action by providing statements that they should have been providing annually? Backdated. So... Couldn't we all send "Remedy of account letters" and send all the backdated SLC deferment forms? Just playing by the same rules as them.

Thanks again. I will get on with that - is there any need to hurry with it? I was thinking to get it all ready to go and pop in the post just before the 30 day deadline.

Do you think I should send copies of the tax credits awards that would have been sent with the deferment forms?

OK then - thank-you.

I am thinking something along the lines of : Also enclosed are copies of my deferment forms, showing eligibility for deferment. I am also sending copies of these to Erudio, for their records.

I was thinking the same thing myself... Erudio denied receiving letters that we sent to them before and when we complained to the ombudsman they said we didn't send them. From other posts on the forum it seems that they don't always include your letters/communications when you do an SAR too. Perhaps we should all play by their rules...

Ok then, will do that, and see what happens next. Thank-you so much for your help. I will let you know what transpires.

Yes, I've got the same reply form from drydens as in post 4 of the other thread.

With hindsight, yes I can see that ideally we should have done that - we supplied them with 3 years - taking us up until 2016, when we put in our complaint , which, as you rightly point put out was a series of pointless letter tennis. The last two years were so difficult with my husband's health I just couldn't deal with them anymore and stopped. I'm just wondering whether to send the last two years' deferment forms off to Erudio and reply to drydens - but not sure how to - there is no box in the PAP reply form to state that the debt is technically owed but doesn't fulfill the criteria that allows it to be enforced. Do I just dispute the debt ? If I ignore it, do I run the risk of court proceedings And would they see that through? I wonder how that would play out - could you argue that as they had changed the terms and conditions they couldn't then penalise you for not complying with their (new) terms and conditions And that it was miss sold in the first place ? Hard to know.

The number they have used is the reference number that Erudio have been using - Erudio sent four separate letters when they the remedy of account letters and four separate letters about the arrears for each of the loans - but they use the same reference number at the top of each letter for all the loans. This is the reference number that drydens are using - but the wording is as follows: The amount owed is £5341.45... A statement of account is attached. The agreement this debt relates to was entered into between you and student loans company on 9 December 1993... It doesn't refer to the other years, and the statement of account just has the same ref no and just says Start balance £5020.93 Total interest £320.52 Current Balance £5341.45 Statement date 17/09/2018.

Hi dx, Sorry, I can see how I've confused things. All correspondence has come from our current address re the 1993 loan. The letter of claim details the full amount of £5341, and not just the 1993 amount.

Hi dx, I believe that my loan should now be age/time expired as it was taken out in 1990, my husband's however are 93,94,95 and 96, so not quite yet for him. I am worried that if we do not respond that the next communication will be a court claim, and I have no idea how to defend it - perhaps we have no defence , in which case do we try to settle?? We have not, as the person in the other thread did, filled out either slc or erudio deferment forms on a regular basis after they ignored the letters and forms we sent in 2015, in which we gave them income details that would qualify for deferment for 2013/14, 2014/15 and 2015/16. Do we just need to provide them with income details for 2016/17, 2017/18 on an old slc deferment form to Erudio? I just don't know any more. The drydens PAP letter of claim relates to my husband's account and actually I don't know what the dispute is - apart from there were no problems till it was Erudio… So downhearted ...

Thank-you very much for your response-and your directions on where to find what I need. I can't tell you how much it is appreciated. We haven't responded to drydens- the letter came on Fri (28th sept and is dated 26th Sept) and says we have 30 days to reply. I have read through the thread - I think I have worked out what I need to do: CCA request PAP reply form (CAG version) And wait... Thank-you for your response. I am indeed working my way through the posts!

I have just discovered this site and forums, and fear I have made a terrible hash of dealing with Erudio with regard to my own and my husband's old Student loans (My own: 1 from 1990 (unsigned by SLC) for £420 but due to 9.8% interest (!!!!) now over £800 and really should have been written off had Erudio not been involved; and my husband's: 4 from 1993, 1994, 1995 and 1996 respectively and over £5,000). We had been happily deferring re-payment of these loans over the years until Erudio took over. The first inkling that we had that they had been sold to a bunch of debt collectors were involved were the classic "you are in arrears letters". At this point in our lives we were both suffering from health conditions (I had had a nervous breakdown and have since been diagnosed with an autistic spectrum disorder and my husband has since been diagnosed with IBD) - whether this had an impact on our judgement I don't know. We did initially ignore these, and people were saying definitely not to fill in their deferment forms, so we didn't do that either. We have historically been a fairly low income household, and I have never made any re-payments on my loan , whilst my husband briefly made a couple of repayments.(I cannot remember in what year.) We were harassed on a daily basis by telephone calls- often several times a day. My husband's account was then transferred over to Capquest, which did freak us out a little, I have to admit, never having dealt with debt collectors before. The same situation occurred with the letters and phone calls with Capquest. They seemed to be not taking any action on my account. We sent CCA requests in June 2015, to Erudio and received the copies at the end of July 2015. I complained to Erudio in writing about their tactics, their harassment, and asked them to remove the arrears from the account and to consider back dating deferment . I even took this to the FOS - no joy. I complained to SLC and said my loan had been miss- sold - I think I also took this to FOS - also no joy - I was told that I would have been able to access commercial lending operators!! We wrote to the director of Erudio explaining our situation and please could we just defer!! I believe the response was : Capquest are dealing with your account now - talk to them... At this point I became tired and gave up - they just wanted all the money and there seemed no scope for returning to the good old days of deferment. And it seems our accounts would never be written off now as we had broken the terms and conditions - welcome to harassment for the rest of our lives!! Last year Capquest were still harassing my husband - his mental health has been badly affected by his physical health - and he did not work for several months - he works for himself but did not have the money in his businesses to pay himself whilst he was unwell. I wrote to them and told them to back off in no uncertain terms. Neither of us claim disability benefits, we claim tax credits, which has kept us afloat. It had all gone fairly quiet on the Erudio front until a few weeks ago when a "remedy of account" package arrived with statements dating back to 2015, for my husband's loans. Closely followed by default letters for each loan (1993, 4, 5 & 6). And then last week a letter from Drydensfairfax solicitors which appears to be a letter before action. What is interesting is this : ----------------------------------------------------------------- Full details of the debt are set out below: . The amount owed is £5341.45 and no charges/interest are being added at this stage. . A statement of account is attached. . The agreement this debt relates to was entered into between you and SLC on 9th Dec 1993 and assigned to Erudio on 22 Nov 2013. A copy of the agreement can be requested using the reply form. --------------------------------------------------------------- They have stated that the whole amount relates to the 1993 agreement - in which only £800 was borrowed. The reply form also includes boxes where you can dispute the debt. With regards to my account, I have received the same "remedy of account" statements that my husband has, and, yesterday the same default letter. I believe it to be going down the same route. We do not have the money to pay these loans and are still under the re-payment threshold. I do not know what move to make next - as I understand that now they will never be written off, and I don't know what strategy to employ to deal with this new development. Any advice would be hugely appreciated.