Student Loan Deferment Conspiracy ? (long)

[maybelline]

sorry just checked messages, dca called again, very nasty voice

 

 

would prefer not to be harrassed though, surely that is not too much to ask for, prove the debt, take me to court , it is in dispute so STOP HARRASSING. I have sent the harrassment letter so will do another.

[maybelline]

am i right to think then, that the education regs (student loans) are incompatible with the consumer credit act 1974 in view of the fact that slc have an extra RULE that says if they claim not have the deferment form and have not okayed it then your situation does not matter one iota!

 

reading the act it looks like it conflicts?

 

(or the UTCCR then?)

[Marsky]

Im having same problems so will be watching and waiting I need to know what to do to stop this.

And maybe its not a bad idea if we all gang up on SLC (thats normally what happens to bullies).

Good Luck

[simonjohn]

Student Loans are a licence to print money as the debt will always be repaid either by the student or eventually by the government. Debts cannot be written off even through bankruptcy?

 

Just to point out, that loan agreements made before 1998 are made under the consumer credit act 1974 and are covered under section 5 of the limitations act, ie simple contract.

 

I had the same problems with regards to the non process of completed deferment applications.

 

To cut a long story short Their legal department served me with a county court claim, which I defended, went through the allocation questionare stage, received a letter from their legal team saying they were going to add on £600 legal costs and to accept judgement being entered, where they would accept £20 p/m if I agreed, surfice to say that I didn't.

 

Had a final hearing date, and attended the hearing. It was quite a lonely hearing considering that it was just me and the district judge, " Thats right, no one from their legal team had the curtesy to attend, not even an appology or contact from their legal team saying that they could not attend.

 

Surffice to say that the hearing was relativly swift, about 5 mins in total.

The District judge was livid That they didn't have the curtesy to contact the court of their abssence.

 

He reviewed my defence, asked a few questions about deferment, and dissmised their claim. At the time I remember asking the judge what happens next, He said that they have a month to appeal his descision, if they didn't appeal then they would be hard pressed to initiate any further action in this case.

 

Never did hear from S.L.C again.

[daveydavey]

Many thanks for that simonjohn - that info could be just what others & I need. Must have taken courage to stand up to them, did you counterclaim for your expenses etc & defamation if they placed a default notice on your credit file? Do you have any more info re the case, time / date / venue of hearing etc ? Did you get a written confirmation of the outcome from the Court ? Please keep the legal papers if poss, as some people on here might need them!

 

It seems that all the SLC & their associates SLC (Smith Lawson & Co. - one & the same thing) do is *BLUFF BULLY & REGULARLY HARASS* people into paying their Loans back prematurely when many are in difficult circumstances and fully & legally entitled to deferment. If there is no legal basis for the SLC & the SLC to do so, then surely all the phone calls & threatening letters they send constitute illegal and unreasonable harassment ?

 

My latest letter from them :

 

" FINAL NOTIFICATION "

 

You have failed to respond to our previous request to pay your arrears of £xxx.xx [45% of which are unlawful penalty charges for standard letters sent to the incorrect address, including two charges applied for two letters sent within 5 days!]

 

Unless you make payment within the next 7 days we hereby give formal and final notification of our intention to take further action against you for the recovery of all outstanding monies.

 

Failure to respond to this letter may result in legal proceedings being issued against you."

 

etc etc - so SLC are you bluffing again or are you really going to take me to Court for your invalid, unlawful, unreasonable, possibly fraudulent Claim against me ? I am disabled I was in receipt of DLA & Income Support for the whole of the year (2003) your 'arrears' relate to. It isn't my fault you failed to process my deferment application for 12 months. Isn't it wasteful for you to keep sending threatening letters / keep calling my mobile if you're not going to back it up with proper legal action ? You have been doing this for years, round and round, i've even asked you to take me to Court to resolve matters but you won't. WHY IS THAT ?

[daveydavey]

*** case won! *** the SLC has backtracked, removed all charges & arrears from the account, after third stage of formal complaints procedure.

 

Best advice i can give, use the formal complaints procedure - for pre-1998 loans, you can now complain to the Financial Services Ombudsman once the three internal stages have been exhausted.

 

Were you in receipt of benefits during the non-deferred Student Loan period ? argue that these are inalienable under the Social Security Administration Act :

 

Furthermore, Income Support & DLA are both INALIENABLE BENEFITS under the Social Security Administration Act 1992

 

**Certain Benefit to be inalienable **

 

187- Subject to the provisions of this Act, every assignment of, or charge on-

(a) benefit as defined in section 122 of the Contributions and Benefits Act;

(b) any income-related benefit; or

© child benefit,

and every agreement to assign or charge such benefit shall be void; and, on the bankruptcy of the beneficiary, such benefit shall not pass to any trustee or other person acting on behalf of his creditors.

[noomill060]

Told you they would!

 

 

Congratulations!

[noomill060]

If you had gone to court though, you could also have claimed an extra 8% per annum on each charge.

 

Did you also claim back the interest on each unlawful charge?

[maybelline]

today rec'd a deferment form by special delivery, my thread is 'student loans dont listen' they insist I fill in a deferment form even though my old type loans taken in 1992 -5 come under CCA 1974 and I always was on benefits/low income and fully met the criteria, they lost my later deferments and want £3K and although have complained they say they cannot look into it without me signing a new form???? why would I do that, I could be reentering into something or the other and my loan (now I am over 50) is ended as I fully met the criteria to defer the whole time.

 

they say if i dont send it they will continue to add on charges?????? charges to what!

[daveydavey]

sounds like they're pulling the usual SLC trick of messing with your head !

Do you have proof of income / benefits for the relevant years of non-deferment ? Insist that they abide by their own loan agreement & their complaints procedure, maybe suggest that you will refer their failure to reply to your complaint (which stage are you on ?) to the FOS when the time comes. If they won't deal with your complaint just take it to the next stage (state "I remain dissatisfied with your response" in the complaint). Try to get proof of income for the relevant non-deferred period & send copies back to them, e.g. letters from the benefits agency stating your entitlement to benefit, if you have already provided the deferment forms then (further) proof of income should suffice. Don't forget that income-related benefits are inalienable under the Social Security Administration Act, as well as your income being well below the repayment threshold etc. They never asked me to resupply a 'missing' deferment form when they 'corrected' the arrears figure on my loan, nor did they even (again) ask for proof of my income (which had already been provided in the shape of the 'missing' deferment form). It may be that the higher the complaint stage, the more discretion SLC employees have to adjust / correct your loan. If the cancelling of the Loan now that you're over 50 depends on a disputed arrears figure of £3k then it may end up in Court, in which case you should vigorously defend their claim against you !

 

- remember that while you 'owe arrears' your Loan will not be cancelled even if you've reached 50, so this may be why they insist you complete the deferment form as the loan is still counted as owing! So you're in a bit of a catch-22, just another product of the (last) Government's ill-thought-out Student Loans Scheme, which the (present) Government has done very little about, even though the mess of the ill-conceived scheme will result in constant unpleasant harassment by vicious debt collectors of many unemployed, and/or sick, and/or disabled, and/or low-paid, and/or single-parent borrowers until around the year 2023 ! In other words, the MOST VULNERABLE GROUPS IN SOCIETY will continue to suffer as a result of the poorly-administered annual deferment fiasco (but remember: keep it hush hush!)

[maybelline]

done all that, sent them letter provided by DWP covering all the periods they are asking for money for, have complained by email and copied it over to the relevant govt dept, who also dont seem to really know the law on this, have had a reply stating that my first complaint, WHICH WAS MARKED COMPLAINT and sent on their complaints email address, was NOT accepted as a stage one by them and my next complaint is therefore stage one!

 

I have informed them this is nonsense and that I am now at STAGE TWO not ONE, sent my second complaint stating STILL NOT SATISFIED AND I DONT OWE YOU A PENNY and have provided evidence to same, they have responded by sending a deferment and another email reply to say this must be returned to them to defer for the next year?? how frustrating, MY LOANS HAS ENDED, why would I want to defer again. I am not sending this in to them as I have asked for the address of the of the Independent Assossor but they have not provided it. I feel I may as well just go straight to a court claim?

[maybelline]

I definately understood that the loans would be void provided no arrears existed and was eligible for deferment for whole period, I sent in my forms year in and year out and heard nothing more from them. I informed them that I had a disability and that following an accident at work my income would remain below the criteria, as per their suggestions and they never contacted me again, so I assumed it was all cancelled, then suddenly last year they said you owe us all this money?

[daveydavey]

- they have a tendency not to log formal complaints as such as the number of these would be recorded & passed on to the Government at some level.

 

- their website states that complaints beyond stage 3 re pre-1998 loans are now dealt with by the FOS (since April 2007), *no longer the Independent Assessor?* I wrote several complaint letters which weren't treated under the formal complaints procedure until i marked each one 'formal complaint ' etc - I get the feeling they don't like to treat them as formal complaints as it produces bad statistics. Remember the SLC likes to paint the picture of everything being more rosy than it actually is. If it logged every complaint as it should, then maybe the complaint stats would be far higher ?

 

Mark each letter 'FORMAL COMPLAINT - STAGE 1/2/3 etc' 'I REMAIN DISSATISFIED WITH YOUR RESPONSE' etc etc. Remember that you can email them see the email address on the site.

 

Remember you need to be patient, you cannot complain to the FOS until you've exhausted the 3 internal stages of complaint, you have to jump through those hoops first. Again, this is to make it difficult for you.

[maybelline]

Better Regulation Executive (BRE): Let us have your ideas:

[daveydavey]

WOW!!!

 

Pasted here :

 

student loans problem

 

 

- Whilst the maximum deferment backdating is for three months, if the applicant re-submits the form and evidence and the deferment is accepted as applicable to an earlier period , the deferment will be backdated for as long as appropriate.

 

- Applicants should keep a copy of their payslips etc. evidence in case these do go missing in the post or elsewhere.

 

- We do however recognise the inconvenience and cost on both sides when a form /evidence goes missing and the process has to be repeated. Indeed if the situation deteriorates to the extent of arrears leading to legal proceedings, this is a disproportionate situation all round. On the other hand , it needs to be remembered that taxpayers' money is at stake and it would not be right or fair to others if SLC simply took the word of everyone who claimed their deferment application was lost .

 

- SLC is reviewing their deferment procedures as part of its continuous improvement programme and any modifications to the system will be announced in due course.

Back to idea.

 

 

- So what about all those people who've paid their 'arrears' & unlawful, disproportionate charges under pressure from the SLC, SLC ( AKA 'Smith Lawson & Co.') & their bands of nasty debt collectors ? Can they now take retrospective action ?!

[summer30]

Urgh, this is the exact issue we are h aivng with OHs SL

 

He deferred for 2006 yet a year later was told the forms were not recieved and ever since arrears have been building, offers of payments refused and he has been so stressed that they wont even accept payment offers

Obviously now we know better and are throwing the full force of whtever we can at them, but before he thought there was nothing that could be done.

Only thing is since the CCA went in we now have a letter from scotcall, I have just written telling them the arrears are in dispute and will S.A.R - (Subject Access Request) SLC at the end of the month when we have the £10 spare.

 

I think the thing that bugs me most of all is the way they refuse to help and just get narky, one woman kept OH on the phone for an hour, but her end comment was the same pay up or court.

[noomill060]

summer- Dont bother trying to talk to Scotcall. Write to them (RECORDED DELIVERY) and tell them that the debt claimed is in dispute due to deferment not being processed by SLC and unlawful penalty charges debited to the account.

 

Let them know that any attempt to enforce the debt will be vigorously and enthusiasically defended and that a counterclaim would be be made.

[noomill060]

In fact, do not even confirm your identity when they ring. They can only discuss the "debt" with positive ID from the account holder.

 

Keep a note of each call and letter you get from them.

[summer30]

will do, problem is SLC are trying to default the loan as well as the arrears. Have written stating its in dispute, decided against telling them a CCA request was in as they should already know this.

 

Also added in the text about doorstep collections which they are apparently doing lol

[noomill060]

When was the loan taken out?

[noomill060]

I'll have to pop back later- its dinnertime.

 

There is a letter template for you to send regarding doorstep visits.

[maybelline]

WOW!!!

 

Pasted here :

 

student loans problem

 

 

- Whilst the maximum deferment backdating is for three months, if the applicant re-submits the form and evidence and the deferment is accepted as applicable to an earlier period , the deferment will be backdated for as long as appropriate.

 

(another question posted this site since seems to be partially answered and misunderstands basic premis of the question i.e missing forms)

 

- Applicants should keep a copy of their payslips etc. evidence in case these do go missing in the post or elsewhere.

 

- We do however recognise the inconvenience and cost on both sides when a form /evidence goes missing and the process has to be repeated. Indeed if the situation deteriorates to the extent of arrears leading to legal proceedings, this is a disproportionate situation all round. On the other hand , it needs to be remembered that taxpayers' money is at stake and it would not be right or fair to others if SLC simply took the word of everyone who claimed their deferment application was lost .

 

- SLC is reviewing their deferment procedures as part of its continuous improvement programme and any modifications to the system will be announced in due course.

Back to idea.

 

 

- So what about all those people who've paid their 'arrears' & unlawful, disproportionate charges under pressure from the SLC, SLC ( AKA 'Smith Lawson & Co.') & their bands of nasty debt collectors ? Can they now take retrospective action ?!

 

 

it seems to me thats a very valid question, if you can prove you were not in arrears because actually you qualified for non-payment due to your circumstances I cannot see, based on above why they should not refund, my opinion:)

[noomill060]

Here you go:

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/letter-templates/131334-dca-response-threats-home.html#post1380478

[mexico86]

Hi, I've been reading through all the posts on this thread and I am glad that I am not alone in being hacked off with SLC.

 

I hope this is not straying too far from the current subject of this thread, but has anybody else tried to get penalty charges removed from their student loan account?

 

About a year ago I sent SLC a modified version of the standard bank penalty charge complaint letter, but the SLC rejected my claim because they say they administer taxpayers' money. Does this give SLC immunity from being taken to small claims court, or are they just trying to fob me off? (my loans were taken out each year from 1996-1999, if that makes any difference.)

[noomill060]

Yes, mexico86, I have.

 

I got the same letter- read my thread and follow CAG guidelines for a small claim for removal of your penalty charges + interest and court fee.

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/students/78206-noomill-student-loan-company.html