Student Loan Deferment Conspiracy ? (long)

[sal28]

so if i start to comunicate with them again.. do you think it is possible to get back to the status of deferred ? I do need some kind of professional advice as its quite alot of paperwork to wade through.. which definately isnt my forte.. so if anyone could recomend where i should go for this I would greatly appreciate it. thanks

[daveydavey]

Update : still contesting the 'arrears' created by the SLC's failure to defer my Loan in 2004: £130 + £60 for three letters (45% of the 'arrears'), including two £20 charges for two letters sent to me 2nd class within a 5-day period, hardly giving me a reasonable time to respond. I was in receipt of Income Support & Disability Living Allowance due to long-term illness for the whole of the deferment period (which they didn't defer). Hardly in a position to earn 85% of the national average income & become liable for repayment.

Just had a very aggressive & LOUD phone call from Smith Lawson & Co. (collection division of the Student Loans Company), I too told them to take me to Court & I will defend it. Still waiting for the summons or any written follow-up. There is scope for them to resolve the situation by showing a little goodwill & granting deferment for the year when I was clearly entitled to it & applied for it in the proper manner. But I will defend their wholly unreasonable claim in Court if I have to & counterclaim for my expenses / time / stress caused by their highly unreasonable behaviour.

Submitted an idea here, currently under consideration :

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

Suggest anyone else who's had problems with deferment does the same - this is currently the first google.co.uk search result for 'student loan deferment problems', so at least submissions will be widely read, if nothing else.

I do not believe it was the intention of Parliament for disabled people in receipt of Income Support to be pressured into repayment of Student Loans when their circumstances mean that they are entitled to deferment.

It is the Student Loans Company which is acting against the intention & interests of Parliament by taking recovery action against borrowers whose income is very low, & well below the thresholds at which repayments become due.

Who is more like the criminal in these cases ? The Student Loans Company / Smith Lawson & Company, or the borrower trying to uphold their right to deferment, not wanting to be penalised as a result of the common problem of deferment forms going 'missing' ?

[chelsea1]

I too am having problems, I am sure that the media would find this interesting. Same story, missing deferrment forms, unpaid refunds, threatening phonecalls. I've just checked out their website and the call centre monkeys are paid £13k plus bonus's. No prizes for guessing what they have to do to get the bonus. There is no incentive for them to help. Anyway if anyone fancies a laugh, take a look at the JD for these guys on the SLC website. The HR dept there are so dumb that the JD is in a format that can be cleverly edited by anyone. Any takers?
https://interact.slc.co.uk/OA_HTML/O...T5nbR1QkxT6IIA..

[emmaf01]

Daveydavey, if you are on DLA try going for a three year disability deferment. I went for that this time, and they can't chase you for any arrears while on this type of deferment!

Its a good idea, needing only your deferment form (a sore point I know) and a letter from your doctor stating you will be unfit for work for the next three years.

[birdkeith]

hi, to almost all the above comments,my loans are controlled by the 1974 cca
but i have to agree with you,they use the same bully boy tactcs with all of us,mind you in my case they did take me to court but didnt bother telling me,
you see i was deffered from april 2000 to april 2001,but in sep 2000 i moved
house and informed them of this,then didnt hear from them again even though
i rang them with my wherabouts evry april,in 2005 i found out they had taken
me to court and got a ccj,a letter to myMP from them states that mail had
been returned to them in nov 2000,this resulted in an external trace agent
being employed to find me,these people informed them that i was still living at
my old address,this taking place six months befor my defferment expired,they
then said they sent defaultment letters to the same address,i hadnt lived
there for over twelve months and could prove it,i got the ccj set aside,but
now they are taking me back but are asking the court to strike my defence
they realy are gangsters, i will fight,but please be careful birdkeith.

[birdkeith]

just a quick addendum to my reply,these search agents,i asked student loans
to send me coppies of these reports,guess what they said? at the time they
were transferring all their paper documents to disc so couldnt supply me with
my request,now i dont know about you,but i find that statement laughable
birfkeith

[emmaf01]

I find most of their statements laughable!

[daveydavey]

Well have sent this year's deferment form & DLA letter 2 weeks ago, took copies of everything & sent by recorded delivery - the only way to send things to these charlatans - applying for a 3 year deferment based on my disablity as I qualify as a disabled borrower, still no reply yet or confirmation of my deferment ! Will see if they claim not to have received the deferment form & then check with the Royal Mail to see whether they indeed have ... which won't look good for them if they take me to Court!

[daveydavey]

SLC now ringing me every 2 days, on my landline & mobile - I keep asking them to take me to Court where i will vigorously defend their false claim & counterclaim for my expenses, the stress caused by their unwarranted harassment & defamation if they've issued a default notice on my credit file ... seems like they are full of empty threats as despite my urging they won't take me to Court, probably because they know their claim is false arising from their own maladminstration of my loan. So why harass me ?

[lferr2002]

oh the joys of student loans....

I too am having mass problems with HSL who seem to have all my accounts now, but am posting a letter to them today about statute barred debt and also a seperate one asking them not to call or visit my house (though I have recently changed tel. number, and have no intention of giving them new one)

No doubt they "won't get " these letters but they will be posted recorded delivery.

[BrainAche]

Originally Posted by daveydavey

SLC now ringing me every 2 days, on my landline & mobile - I keep asking them to take me to Court where i will vigorously defend their false claim & counterclaim for my expenses, the stress caused by their unwarranted harassment & defamation if they've issued a default notice on my credit file ... seems like they are full of empty threats as despite my urging they won't take me to Court, probably because they know their claim is false arising from their own maladminstration of my loan. So why harass me ?

You're right. The Student Loans Company are a bunch of bullies, full of empty threats. As I've laid out in full in another thread, they've been threatening me for several years all over a form that failed to arrive, accompanied by their frequent lies and misinformation. I've been begging them to take me to court, but to no avail. My "case" was sent to their own internal Smith Lawson department, to NCO debt collectors - who decided there was no case to answer,then back to the Studen Loan Company proper, on to Smith Lawson again and then to NCO, who again decided there was nothing the courts could do, so passed the case back to the Student Loans Company ... who are now in the process of starting the whole circus all over again for a third time, issuing demands that I pay them in full, including their non-enforcible legal charges.

When it comes to that lot, "pathetic" is the word that springs to mind.

[maybelline]

Hi, I have posted elsewhere on Student Loans but this thread seems appropriate. Cash Collection Agency (?) are pursuing me, phonecalls, letters, threats for a student loan I have always deferred. I have been on disability benefits of one kind or another the whole time and eligible to defer, however, they say I owe, nearly 4 thousand, in failed deferrments as of 2003, and charges on top!

I have pointed out that I can prove my benefits for the period but they say 'its too late, you have to pay' ???? how crazy is that, what other system can do this, pretend you do not really have the criteria to defer just because they lost or did not receive the form or have messed up the record or whatever happens? it does not alter the facts. I cannot understand why they can suddenly appear out of the woodwork after years of me thinking it was a closed account, and no longer pursuable under the scheme and they turn up now, all rather strange.
I just dont get, either the deferment is designed for those on low incomes or benefits or it is not, to say because of some extra 'hidden' criteria (as in they do not contact you for ages as the above posts say) thus not alerting you to the problem so as to make matters worse, just smacks of dishonesty and some kind of deliberate duping of the most vulnerable, how can this be right!??

[noomill060]

Have you ever applied for deferment?

[noomill060]

And who on earth is the Cash Collection Agency???

Send them a CCA s.77 request to shut them up while we consider how to deal with them.

Send SLC a S.A.R - (Subject Access Request) for everything they hold on you to find out whats been going on.

[noomill060]

Close Credit Management Limited is a member of the Close Brothers Group Plc, an independent merchant banking group founded in the City of London over 125 years ago.
Close Credit Management Limited specialises in the fields of commercial and industrial credit management and also operates in a number of specialist consumer debt sectors including motor finance and insurance.
The names "Cash Collection Agency", "Close Assistance" and "Debt Recovery Online" are trading names of Close Credit Management Ltd.


Pay Close : Homepage

[noomill060]

Close Credit Management, 2 Jessops Riverside, 800 Brightside Lane, Sheffield S9 2RX. TEL: 0114 242 6628

Send your CCA s.77 request here.

[maybelline]

Hi, you are right, reading small print they are Close Credit Management Limited. I have done a Data Protection Act request and have all my copy agreements, they are pre 98 so regulated by CCA I believe. Yes I have always deferred, every year but they say they have none from 2003, which is why I am fighting them, they threatened to take me to court on the phone the other day unless I pay up.
their letter includes an option to defer???? which they state they will withdraw if and when they want to.
another thing, their letter states they will register the debt against my home????!!!