Are you aware of how Student Loans Companies are trying to recover money from you even when you're on a low income, & entitled to deferment? plse read below if you have time! any comments welcome, may help our defence(s) in Court ! Plenty of people on low incomes or benefits due to disability etc are being harassed & threatened with Court Action & Bailiffs and the cancellation of the whole amount of their Student Loan, even though they qualify for deferment due to low income. This is happening because the Student Loan Companies aren't processing all of the borrowers' annual loan deferment forms, thereby creating 'arrears', adding unlawful penalty charges (£20 per letter in my case, including two letters sent in five days!) & then claiming the borrower to be in default ! They're negating the whole 'contingent' principle of income-contingent loans through their own 'maladministration' & then denying any responsiblity! Is this their way of trying to meet recovery targets, as they're obviously not doing so?! The Student Loan Companies are in a system where they are actually *rewarded* for messing up, not acting on, misfiling or 'losing' annual deferment applications, even when sent by Recorded Delivery. If they process them as they should, sum recovered = 0 ! If arrears are created through failure to process the deferment application, & the borrower (rightly) objects, they invoke a '3-month limit for backdating deferments rule', even when chasing the borrower after the 3 months are up! They then claim the borrower to be in default , add lots of unlawful charges for standard letters & unlawful penalty charges & threaten to cancel the whole of their loan & to demand repayment of the whole loan in full, even when the borrower is on a poverty income or in receipt of Income Support due to illness!! This negates the whole founding principle on which Student Loans were introduced, that they only become repayable once a borrower's income rises above 85% of a national average wage. Reposted from other sites : http://moblog.co.uk/view.php?id=101478 part of below :
Student Loans sold to ‘loan shark’ bringing despair and debt to thousands.
In November 2004 the government sold out a whole raft of student loans to the highest bidder, Honours Student Loans, bringing confusion despair and debt to hundreds of thousands of ex-students. HSL have been accused of using tactics normally the reserve of backstreet loan sharks to force students into accepting debts that they should have been protected from, creating a new underclass of ex students. HSL are accused of entrapment, bullying and harassment of an unprecedented scale and of making a mockery of the governments pledge to protect low income students and their families.
When the government introduced student loans it argued that low income students where protected from unnecessary debt and hardship by the 85% income threshold. Those students, it proudly announced, who after graduating found themselves in low incomes, would not have to pay back their student loan. This includes many who went on to use their degrees in public service such as teachers, social care workers as well as individuals who through circumstance or lack of opportunity found themselves on low incomes- often at the minimal wage. The larger proportions of students who fail to benefit from higher wages after graduating are from the lower income families, which the government claimed they wanted to encourage into university.
Thousands of those ex students have suddenly found themselves victims of the confusion around the deferment process and of unprecedented incompetence, harassment and bullying resulting in their being forced to pay back their student loans, despite being on low incomes. This has brought despair, thrown whole families into hardship, brought many to the brink of suicide and created a whole new underclass. They feel that the government has sold them out to the highest bidder and that the DfES (Dept. for Education and Standards) have washed their hands, abandoning them as the victims of a flawed education policy.
Those ex students accuse HSL of incompetence and deliberate entrapment within the deferral process. Deferrals can only be backdated three months, but HSL delayed in sending out deferral forms, then created confusion regarding the process, lost deferral forms and correspondence and only informed the student when they have past the deadline by demanding arrears and immediate full payment of the loan. The monthly repayments demanded are often over £100 a months, more than a low income family could afford and they add their own charges. They are also accused of forcing students to sign new agreements which benefit HSL. Those students that succumb to the harassment and set up direct debit payments have found HSL making regular errors, and HSL force the student to pay extra charges for their own mistakes.
Many students first realisation that they have not deferred is in the form of a postcard telling them that they are in default and that an agent will be calling at their house within the next three days. These postcards are from company called PDR or Pennine Debt Recovery, which just happens to have the same postal address as HSL. It is what happens next that has brought misery, fear and anxiety into those ex student’s homes, the demands and the way they are enforced.
Using an auto dialler system the phone calls start at 8 am every morning of the week, 7 or 8 phone calls in one day is not unusual and some students have been harassed this way for months. This has caused despair and anxiety and many students report that the daily haranguing has affected their health, driving many to the doctors through the anxiety and illness this daily and multiple intrusion into their lives brings, on top of the despair at not being able to meet the payment demands made.
I is also widely reported that HSL and PDR staff who man the phones, have only one script threatening court action and are rude, ignorant and arrogant, adding to the distress and anxiety felt. This is of course on top of the letters which regularly demand payment and threaten court action and debt recovery.
Accusations are also made that the internal complaints procedure is one sided, that of HSL, and that the DfES maintain they cannot interfere. This has driven many students to take their own action, in particular against the telephone harassment. The despair is now at such a level that ex students are organising themselves to put pressure on both HSL and the government. Lives are being made a misery, families placed under pressure and forced further into debt. This is causing anxiety and illness, and there is the very fear that this has and will drive some ex-students to suicide.
15th Sep 2006 10:34
& also (reposted from other blog - link at bottom)
Misery
_________________________ _________________________ _____________
IIf you have reached this page it is probably because you have become a victim to yet another government scandal. You and hundreds of thousands of ex students have been betrayed. Your government and specifically the DfES have sold you down the river to the highest bidder. When you took out your student loan to pay for your education you thought you where entering into a contract with the government, those of you who subsequently got low paid jobs after graduating at least had the reassurance that you could defer your payments. We were told that the low paid, many low paid because of employment in for example local government such as social care, others because of circumstances and lack of opportunity, would be protected from having to pay back our loans. This we were told was to recognise and protect students who did not fiscally benefit from graduate education, and poorer families, to encourage equality of education, to encourage students to go to university from poorer families.
What they did not tell us was that our student loans were up for grabs to the highest bidder (a Dutch Bank) and that they would wash their hands of any responsibility and not give a damn what happened to those students, not care if their promises where broken. They sold our lives to the very worst of street loan sharks for the highest price, Honours Student Loans, and then washed their hands.
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They even confounded the problem by introducing the most idiotic and confusing deferral process that could have ever have been invented leaving us to be mercilessly exploited.
This is what you need to know
All deferrals are to go through SLC or Student Loan Company,
HSL or Honours student Loans administer the loans sold by the DfES in November 2004.
PDR or Pennine Debt Recovery is part of Honour Student Loans and used to apply pressure on students.
Seems straight forward until we see HSL at work their tactics
The Sting
The key-Deferrals can only be backdated 3 months whatever the circumstances.
HSL wait until after three months before contacting you, this will probably be the first time you are aware of their existence, because-
You sent of your deferral as usual to SCL and presume everything is ok.
Circumstances such as illness, for example, meant your deferral was delayed but you had contact with SLC by phone and explained the problem. You were told ok, we will defer you for 28 days and send you another deferral form, please return as soon as you are able.
It is staggering how many students have reported that their deferrals were sent and went missing, along with other correspondence or have had assurance that they have a temporary deferral which is not a problem.
The first you know there is a problem, a major problem, is contact from HSL a company you did not even know existed, until now. Suddenly they are demanding arrears, -you have no deferral, you are in breach of your contract and owe the full amount of your loan, and have arrears that demand immediate payment and then a monthly payment of some staggering amount.
Next stop a card through your letterbox from PDR with your account number and telling you �an agent will call at your home within the next three days.�
Ringing them only gets you informed of your need to pay arrears and make payments or the full amount will be demanded, you are threatened with court action.
Then the telephone rings at 8 am or very soon after, but there�s no one on the other end, not long after another it rings again- an operator asks you to set up a �password�, they are from PDR -now please hold whilst I transfer you, sorry I cannot get through we will ring you back. A short time later they ring again, you are passed to another operator. They demand payment or we will take you to court. But, you say, no they say- you are in default if you do not pay we will take you to court and demand full payment of x thousand pounds.
A short time later another call, it�s PDR, please hold whilst I transfer you, look you say I have just spoken to you, not to me sir/madam, you are in default we will take you to court, but, you say- no they say we will take you to court.
A short time late the process starts again, and at 8am the following morning the process starts again, and the next day and the next day. You can get locked into this harassment anxiety and distress for months.
So what do you do? Write to them explain, get another deferral form or send the delayed one, it seems logical as you are being threatened by PDR to send these to them, wrong.
They do not respond- they have received nothing, no deferral, no correspondence. In a state of stress it does not make sense. Even if they inform you that deferrals can only go through SLC, it is too late. It can only be backdated three months, you owe arrears that must be paid �or we will take you to court and demand full payment�. That three months rule which the student was not aware of is their mantra. You could have sent them full information, but they won�t have received it or �deferrals can only be made by SLC�.
Meanwhile the phone rings at 8 am next morning and the process starts again. The same mantra the same threats. Not forgetting the demand letters that start to appear. Even if you successfully defer through SLC, after contacting them to get another deferral form your problems do not end. In itself deferring twice is no mean feat because you sent the relevant proof, final wage slip etc. to PDR (or SLC), but they say they have not received any correspondence, photocopies won�t do, it has to be that which you can�t produce, so you have to get a letter from your employer, proof from the DWP etc, all this takes time and your arrears and costs mount.
Then there is the old HSL trick of saying you need to sign a new contract with them for your student loan, to get you to change your contract or accept the arrears or whole debt, even when you know that this is morally wrong, that you did send the deferral, have explained etc. etc.
It�s not much better when you want to make a complaint, try getting the complaints procedure, try asking to speak to a manager, in fact that�s the quickest way to get them to hang up the phone. When you do, it�s very one sided, you have heard the same mantra by now a hundred times on the phone. Complaints are not addressed, or simply dismissed. We conform to OFCOM regulations and guidelines, no they don�t, not sections 128-130 of the Communications Act 2003 they don�t. Our records show we have not contacted you more than twice in any one day, not counting of course the times you threw the phone at the wall, left it ringing, answered and no one was there, or you could not be put through because everyone is busy. Best of all �we only use the telephone to gather information�. But, you scream, nothing has changed, not from one hour to the next, or from day to day, nor month to month. Why do they have to check your information several times a day? This is harassment, it is designed to get you to agree to their demands and accept a debt you do not have, once you give in desperation then they have you.
It is impossible here to go through all their tactics and methods. There is another blog at, please take a look it could help you, share experiences, get advice from other students experiences.
This company needs to be stopped, they spread despair and anxiety, they act immorally, they bully and entrap.
How can we fight back
I would urge all to whom the above is familiar with to spend time to do the following:-
1st Contact the DfES and complain- you can do it on line from their website. Or e mail to
Sandra1.wright@dfes.gsi.g ov.uk We need to make the DfES aware of the number of people affected by their policy.
2nd Contact you local CAB at the first opportunity ask for their help. This will not go away and will only get worse; you need their help and reassurance, the sooner the better. Do not agree anything with HSL until you have seen the CAB.
3rd Put a complaint in writing to HSL to Andrea Halls, Operations Manager at HSL.
You need to be seen to be reasonable no matter how distressed you feel and it does not hurt to show them the extent of the misery they are causing; they do not mind harassing students.
4th You can also- if harassed by telephone especially-complain to Consumer Direct on line, or contact your local Office of Fair Trading. Telephone harassment is illegal.
5th If the telephone calls persist you can report this to the Police who will give you a crime number, it may help later in your defence!
We need to fight these people together, we need the DfES to take responsibility, we need to ensure that this despicable practice does not cause misery to other students, but most of all you need to protect and defend yourself.
Talk to other students effected by this issue, you are not alone, share your experience, get advice and pool resources visit;
http://moblog.co.uk/view.php?id=101478 link for above
Student Loan Deferment Conspiracy ? (long) 
Agreement.