Hi all,

I've read a lot of people in a similar circumstance to my own on here, but thought I'd post my case as it progresses.

I received a letter from some company called Honours Student Loans (HSL) a few days ago

saying that they have 'now located me' and that I owe them £1600 in 'arrears' for a debt of £2500

and they have also applied a 'trace fee' to my 'debt'.

From what I've read on here I'm not the only one,

although a lot of the cases I've read are quite old now,

so not sure if they've changed their tactics at all.

Incidentally my original loan was for £1800 and I paid some of that off in bits so god knows where those figures came from.

my student loan was from 1997,

after which I started to pay it off for about a year,

I deferred for a year,

I moved and continued to defer,

I moved again, informing the student loans company all the time of my address.

I stopped hearing from them,

no deferrment forms.

Long story short

I read in the paper that they were about to go bust and thought that the debt had just been anulled.

That's probably when HSL bought all their loans.

I was 17 odd years ago, last contact was maybe 14 or 15 years ago.

Bottom line is that my debt is statute barred (from what I gather on here).

I ran a credit report on equifax,

I have no CCJ's current or passed, credit rating is good.

today I'm sending the statute barred template letter, royal mail signed for.

After that I guess I'll hear nothing for a while and then I'll get a reply saying I deliberately withheld my address or something, which is nonsense,

(also from what I read on here), then god knows.

Is there anything else anyone can think of that I should be doing at this stage?

Any tips?

Thanks

Oh one more thing,

has anyone actually seen an end to their HSL case?

anyone actually ever received a written confirmation from them that the case is now closed

and they will not be persuing the matter further or anything like that?

I can't find any instance on here, just seems to be a never-ending back n forth...

quite honestly if its that old its statute barred

but I would bother sending the SB letter

just invites lettertennis.

sinply ignore

HSL are a bit like LINK/THESE and Erudio[arrows]

they think they have magic powers to fleece people

you say 1997/8?

can you actually confirm the date

it might help to know if this was the ols style or the new style as you are on the cusp of the 'change'

sadly the new style cannot become SB'd in most cases

dx

Yeah I don't have any of the paperwork at all anymore so can't get an exact date,

I only did one year at Uni and then I quit,

not very interesting but the way I know is that I remember exactly where I was when Diana died(!)

- I was filling in an income/exp form to arrange repayment of my student loan.

Diana died August 1997, so I was already repaying it by then.

Am I right in thinking it is from when you started your course (which I guess was Sep'96)

rather than when you actually took the loan out?

All the same for me as it was way before Sep'98 anyway, just curious.

Well I sent the statute barred letter about an hour ago,

I was tempted to just ignore them like you suggest

but thought I'd better at least serve (unintentional letter tennis pun) them that notice.

Depending on how serious what they send back sounds I will probably just ignore them from now on.

I doubt they'll just be sending me a 'Oh ok we won't be persuing this any further then' letter.

I've seen some of the responses people on here have got to the statute barred letter

and it seems just a load of desperate nonsense to scare people.

Imagine actually being one of these people....like that's your job.

You go to work everyday and try to scare people into paying some debt you know nothing about,

just agro every single day.

Why would anyone do that job over another.

I'd rather sign on.

that's what DCA's and DCA's in sheeps clothing [THESIS, HSL, ERUDIO]

are like

75% of what DCA's fleece out of people they do not legally owe to anyone.

as this was 1996 yours is well SB'd

even though you might have latterly paid 'something'

that is well outside 6yrs now.

dx

A separate royal pain in the doodaa is that I can't get a credit report from all of the credit report companies

because my address as listed with royal mail (which is the postcode finder they all go on) is missing the 'b', as in number 13b.

They only list it as number 13.

Something that stupid impedes me from getting a credit report.

Only ones who would were equifax,

after I rang them and then sent a copy of drivers licence and bank statement,

even then I had to convince them.

So the reason I mention it is that I've only checked equifax credit report for any CCJ's that might have been issued in my absence in last 17 years.

There were none, like I said. But I can't check with the other companies cos of the stupid B on my flat number. Unreal.

You reckon checking the one is sufficient? Or could a CCJ appear on someone else's credit report?

CCJ's would be off by now too I suspect even if they did ever exist

[doubt it as no loans with CCJ's were sold to HSL

and HSL to my knowledge have ever gone to court]

pers I'd ignore the issue.

9/10 CCJ's always show on whatever CRa you use

as its public info and easy to get.

you could check www.trustonline.org.uk

but that's £4 per address.

noddle wont give you a report ?

that's rare, use their on line chat and sort them out.

dx

Ok thanks, I'll try trust online now.

Yeah it was actually Noddle that told me that the flat number thing was why they couldn't give me a report.

I'm guessing it's the same reason experian won't either.

They said to contact royal mail and get them to change the address lists.

Thing is every house in my postcode is split into flats and there's not one of them listed with royal mail so god knows what other people do.

Hi just a quick update to this.

So far I have not had a response from HSL to my statute barred letter,

I suspect I will get some crazy computer generated letter just demanding money again

with no reference at all to my statute barred letter (cos it's computer generated) at some point, but nothing yet.

One thing that is seriously annoying though is that

I sent my statute barred letter 1st class royal mail signed for,

but I can't track it's delivery, so I'm not actually certain they received it/signed for it or whatever.

The royal mail site just continuously says 'item being progressed through our network'

when you type in the tracking number.

Been 2 weeks now.

Maybe they got it and just didn't sign for it, who knows.

Anyway not much of an update. I'm sure I'll get something soon.

Paying £1.10 for Royal Mail's "Signed for" service does not get you any tracking info, only a signature on delivery. If you need to track an item, you should have used one of the Special Delivery services.

If no information is showing when using http://www.royalmail.com/track-trace, try http://www.royalmail.com/trackdetails instead (you may have to wait a while for the page to load).

No I knew that,

I only wanted to see a signature though,

I use the word 'tracking' for want of a better description.

I don't want to actually track it's progress,

just to know for sure that it has been delivered.

Typing the "tracking number" into both those pages (I'd seen them, thanks) to check that it has been delivered

and possibly view a picture of the signature as it promises in their ironically trademarked

'Signed For' service, just brings up 'item was sent from blablabla and is progressing through our network'

- last updated 23/10 (the day I posted it).

Right now (2 weeks later) it's exactly as useful as just normal first class post,

cos I know when and where I sent the thing from, cos I sent it.

Next time I'll do special delivery by helicopter delivered by the A team and a film crew documenting them receiving and signing for the letter that they will ultimately ignore.

Put in a request for a refund for undelivered mail. You can either download the form or pick one up from the post office. I am assuming you have kept your receipts.. advise that your letter appears to be undelivered and that you require a refund of the RD cost. If it HAS been delivered, you will receive a copy of the signature very quickly

If it hasn't been delivered then you will receive stamps to the value of the RD cost.

I suspect it has been delivered in a batch and only one signature has been obtained.. however RM will have a list of all the reference numbers delivered against the one signature. .

Not a bad idea really, maybe if I actually bother to request a refund of £1.72 they'll think I'm crazy and hit me with immediate evidence of delivery.

Sorry, I'm hijacking the forum into a Royal Mail complaints page.

So I asked Royal Mail to check the delivery of that letter, a month after posting it.

They came back a few days later and said after investigating they can see that it did indeed not get delivered, lost somewhere in their system.

They sent me 6 first class stamps as compensation instead. Hahaha.

Imagine if say, oh I don't know..

..that delivery of that letter and proof of delivery meant the difference between being taken to court or not.

Hahaha....ah but it's ok I've got 6 stamps out of it.

bottom line is my statute barred letter did not get to Honours Student Loans.

I still haven't heard anything else from them though.

Now that thanks to Royal Mail I appear to be ignoring them altogether maybe that's just what I'll do.

Wow, this again.

I got another letter today from HSL (nearly 4 months later) to say that they actually received my statute barred letter

(despite royal mail saying it was never delivered, like I was saying in my last post).

In their letter they quote the "limitation act 1980, section 32(I)" and say that

"....where any fact relevant to the plaintiff's right of action has been deliberately concealed........blablabla,

the period of limitation shall not begin to run until the plaintiff has discovered the fraud"

they say that I withheld my address from them for the last 17 years,

and that constitutes me not having complied with my obligations,

despite me having rung the SL company about 10 times to ask for the deferrment letters to be sent to my new address

when I moved all those years ago.

has anyone else had this response,

and/or know what response to give?

Or shall I just ignore these idiots?

ignore the idiots

there is no such rule.

else every creditor [sorry fleecing dca ] remember this is arrows in sheeps clothing

would pull this stunt

I think they are trying to bend this:

32 Postponement of limitation period in case of fraud, concealment or mistake.

(1) Subject to [F26subsection (3)][F26subsections (3) and (4A)] below, where in the case of any action for which a period of limitation is prescribed by this Act, either—

(a)the action is based upon the fraud of the defendant; or

(b)any fact relevant to the plaintiff’s right of action has been deliberately concealed from him by the defendant; or

©the action is for relief from the consequences of a mistake;

the period of limitation shall not begin to run until the plaintiff has discovered the fraud, concealment or mistake (as the case may be) or could with reasonable diligence have discovered it.

References in this subsection to the defendant include references to the defendant’s agent and to any person through whom the defendant claims and his agent.

(2)For the purposes of subsection (1) above, deliberate commission of a breach of duty in circumstances in which it is unlikely to be discovered for some time amounts to deliberate concealment of the facts involved in that breach of duty.

(3)Nothing in this section shall enable any action—

(a)to recover, or recover the value of, any property; or

(b)to enforce any charge against, or set aside any transaction affecting, any property;

to be brought against the purchaser of the property or any person claiming through him in any case where the property has been purchased for valuable consideration by an innocent third party since the fraud or concealment or (as the case may be) the transaction in which the mistake was made took place.

(4)A purchaser is an innocent third party for the purposes of this section—

(a)in the case of fraud or concealment of any fact relevant to the plaintiff’s right of action, if he was not a party to the fraud or (as the case may be) to the concealment of that fact and did not at the time of the purchase know or have reason to believe that the fraud or concealment had taken place; and

(b)in the case of mistake, if he did not at the time of the purchase know or have reason to believe that the mistake had been made.

[F27(4A)Subsection (1) above shall not apply in relation to the time limit prescribed by section 11A(3) of this Act or in relation to that time limit as applied by virtue of section 12(1) of this Act.]

[F28(5)Sections 14A and 14B of this Act shall not apply to any action to which subsection (1)(b) above applies (and accordingly the period of limitation referred to in that subsection, in any case to which either of those sections would otherwise apply, is the period applicable under section 2 of this Act).]

As address was communicated to SLC DCA is buggered on that one.

Yeah it does look like that. And the letter is written in first person, as in "because you didn't inform us", which is a bit weird, they must know that I know they aren't SLC, wether they bought the debts from them or not.

I've never concealed anything from anyone, I communicated my change of address many times. But if they were to try to insinuate that I hadn't, surely it would have to be concealement from SLC not from Honours Student whatever they're called.

And how would they even start to go about proving that I hadn't?? That loan is so old they didn't even exist 6 years after it was issued.

Anyway, has anyone come this far in the endless saga and had this letter, or anything after it?

It is complete rubbish. HSL know that, but they often try this hoping that you can be fooled as it sounds slightly plausible given what the legislations says.

This is an extract from the Money Advice Trust training materials.

'It is for claimants to prove that they could not reasonably have discovered the facts concealed by the defendant (Paragon Finance v Thakerar 1999).

The mere fact that a defendant cannot be traced, with the result that the claimant does not commence proceedings, does not prevent (a cause of action from accruing and) time from running.

Even where a person is deliberately hiding from a claimant the 'concealment' provisions relate only to concealment of the cause of action and not to cases where debtors conceal themselves from the claimant (Lowsley v Forbes 1999)

Hmm thanks those cases might be useful, in the event that my ignoring them completely provokes another letter, although I will probably just ignore that too. Doesn't sound like it's worth any worry whatsoever, hope I'm right!

This reply to my statute barred letter just ends in 'Please phone us on xxxx to arrange repayment' ....yeah right, like I'm going to call you so you have my phone number too. 'Concealment'!? cheeky sods. Yeah I've been living completely under the radar for 19 years like Jason Bourne.

They know it's complete BS so can't imagine they would try anything.

I’ve had another letter from HSL, from their ‘pre-legal department’ (who was the last one from then the pre pre legal department?).

It says pay in 10 days or “…legal proceedings for the recovery of the outstanding balance may be commenced without further notice.”

Then a bunch of guff about how to pay.

Then ends with

“In the event of a judgment being obtained, all fees and costs incurred will be sought against you together with statutory interest.

Ultimately this may increase your indebtedness.”

I received the first letter saying they’ve “now located me”,

I sent statute barred letter,

they replied with nonsense saying statute barred doesn’t apply,

I ignored that, now this one.

So has anyone else had this one?

Reply pointing out the information from earlier in the thread refuting their claim.

Say that if they bring proceedings you will defend and point out to the court they were warned about the false claims they made.

You will also make their attempted deception on that point as public as possible.

I suspect they may have taken your lack of reply as a sign that you might have believed their rubbish.

Hmm well I think these are all computer generated anyway. But notice all the carefully placed "may"'s, as in 'proceedings MAY be commenced' and 'this MAY increase your indebtedness'.

I'm uncertain whether to reply at all, but if I did is there a template for this that anyone has used before? Or am I the first one to get one of these?