Student Loan Deferment Conspiracy ? (long)

[noomill060]

Are you refered for this year?

[noomill060]

Do NOT talk to them on the phone anymore.

Simply refuse to confirm your name and address/postcode.

Tell them you want everything in writting.

Ignore the court threat they made on the phone. It what they write thats important.

[noomill060]

And of course, keep a note of all times they call and keep all the letters they send you.

If you have evidence of deferment, it would be nice to have them for harassment.

[noomill060]

So they are saying that you didnt defer in 2003 and thats why they are chasing you?

[daveydavey]

hi well i did defer, i sent them the deferment form, familiar story, they say they didn't receive it, leading to the creation of the false arrears figure. However, they backdated the following year's deferment form by three months - why would they do this if they had no proof of income / benefits (in the shape of the previous year's deferment form) to go on ? The SLC doesn't backdate without any proof of income / benefits, so this points to the existence of the 2003 deferment form, i.e. the only way they would have known my income / benefit entitlement in order to be able to backdate !

I am prepared to defend their false claim in Court, as it isn't my fault they took 12 months to process the 2003 deferment form & then only 'backdated' it by the 'maximum' 3 months, yet despite all their harassment & my requests they won't take me to Court, they just continue to harass me with near-daily calls to my mobile.

How can i stop them from harassing me ? Any ideas who i can make a complaint to (which organisation / body) to stop telephone harassment ? The only way i see a resolution is for them to take me to Court , which they won't do as their claim is false. I tried the complaints procedure, gave up as their replies were full of falsehoods (e.g. 'your case is no longer dealt with by the SLC, it is now being dealt with by Smith Lawson & Company, & they ignored the above point re 2003 form in their reply which was the salient point of my complaint!).

[noomill060]

Take them to court for removal of all unlawful debits- fake arrears and charges.

[maybelline]

Hi daveydavey, I am in a very similar position and received a call only yesterday from a very impolite man saying they would be taking legal action, no matter how much I explained (politely) that I had indeed deferred and was on disability bens he just kept asking about my income, and what and when would I pay. I have provided the relevant info but I do not have copies of the deferment forms, (stupidly it seems to me now but I did not think to copy them and did not have a computer or copier at that time), It seems to me that my income at the time must surely BE RELEVANT and not this 'rule' of no deferment form copy, then no deferment?? what business could hope to run in this way,

best of luck, all I seem to have at the moment is opinion and am busy with another case, but I dare say I will have to deal with it soon.

[daveydavey]

hi maybelline I could send you a signed written witness statement if they do take you to Court (my feeling is they won't), stating that i have had similar experiences with the SLC over the non-deferment of my Loan. In fact you could probably get quite a few witness statements from people who've had arrears 'created' out of the SLC's maladministration & failure to process deferment applications - its a very common problem !

So if you do get taken to Court (which I doubt) reply here & we can sort something - they've been harassing me for years but haven't taken me to Court, so i doubt that they will as they have no real legal basis for claiming, but if they do make sure to counterclaim for your costs of defence & the distress caused by their unwarranted harassment, & unlawful £20 charges for letters etc etc. They just try to bully you into paying when you're clearly entitled under the Student Loans Act to deferment.

[maybelline]

the student loans co have now responded to say yet again that as far as they are concerned they did not receive a deferment form and therefore they are entitled to all the arrears (from 2003) they absolutely do not accept any other evidence of being on benefits even though their website clearly states that those on long term disability can apply for cancellation, (which I have done a long time ago ) yet again no reply to that either,

so where in the consumer credit act does it state that you can add a term to your agreement such as if the form goes missing reality becomes unreality????? I believe this surely MUST BE an unfair term as it seeks to take away our rights expressly given by Parliament in the act,

does anyone concur?

[maybelline]

thaks for that, I had another call last week from the same obnoxious person and I said 'didnt you get my letter and evidence' and they said no, long pause, 'oh but according to royal mail track and trace it has been delivered' well were not student loans, yes 'but i sent a copy by recorded to you and student loans and both recorded on track and trace as delivered??' not heard back yet but I do expect they will come back with some more nonsense, thanks, if they take me court I will certainly take your offer of help

[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]

Originally Posted by soma

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
(c) 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!



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