Yes, I thought that he was 'playing it safe' by avoiding criticising them. It could well be that this is because he works for the BBC, who seem reluctant to criticise anything to do with the government. However, I think that more of a fuss should be made in the media about it, as this could be something which has major implications for students in the future when more of the student loan book is sold off. I was disappointed that, although Paul Lewis said it was 'worrying' that some people's accounts had been debited by Erudio even when they were entitled to defer, he didn't say what could be done about this.

Paul Lewis is supposed to be discussing Erudio on Radio 4's programme You and Yours at 12pm today. He has also tweeted that he particularly wants to hear from people whose accounts have already been debited by Erudio when they shouldn't have been. Am not allowed to post links because I haven't been a member of this forum for long enough, but his Twitter name is paullewismoney

There are currently big discussions about Erudio's tricks on Money Saving Expert and Mumsnet forums, where many people are concerned about the terms and conditions on Erudio's deferment form. I sent mine off before I realised about the CRA issue, although I'm not so much concerned about that at the moment as the possibility that they might be planning on doing whatever they can to worm out of deferring the loan and demanding repayment. An Erudio direct debit is already set up in my account because they were given my details by the Student Loan Company (who had their own direct debit set up). The Student Loan Company never actually took any money because they always agreed to defer. Many people are worried that, if we cancel our direct debits, Erudio will then claim we are in breach of our terms and conditions and demand full repayment. However, if we are eligible to defer they should not be even trying to take the money. I would suggest that anyone who is pressurised into repaying when they are below the repayment threshold should report Erudio to the Financial Conduct Authority. The new regulations given to the FCA from yesterday were introduced precisely to stop companies trying to extract money from people who cannot afford it - if the FCA finds out that Erudio has been trying to make people on low incomes repay student loans when they cannot afford to, hopefully it will clamp down on them. I would post links for you to both the MSE and Mumsnet discussions on this topic but unfortunately I'm not allowed to post links on this forum as I'm new. Anyone who wants to view those discussions can do so by going to the relevant sites and searching for Erudio (on MSE you will also have to select 'Forum' from the drop-down list which appears when you click in the search box). The discussions on both sites should be the first thing that appears in the search results.

Hi annie. I have been trying to find out everything I can about people's experiences of Erudio so far, as I am very suspicious of their motives. They are already trying it on with me- last week they sent me 3 letters saying they didn't have enough information to process my deferment. At the start of the week I had sent them the requested documents but I have ended up sending them again recorded delivery to try to prevent Erudio playing any tricks. It seems wrong that Erudio is now demanding £2000 from you when the Student Loans Company had an agreement whereby you could repay what you could afford. There is no way you should be giving up your job because of this bunch of sharks. I would advise you to report Erudio to the Financial Conduct Authority, which from today has new powers to regulate organisations involved in Consumer Credit. Earlier today an ITV news report said that the new regulations have been introduced specifically to 'prevent consumers from getting into unmanageable cycles of debt', so I am sure that the FCA would be very interested in what Erudio is trying to pull off with you. Perhaps you should threaten Erudio with the FCA first, but if they won't play ball then definitely report them. There's an active thread on Money Saving Expert about Erudio, where the current last page (currently page 5 of that discussion) mentions the possibility of reporting them to the FCA. Unfortunately I'm not allowed to post a link to that discussion on here, as I'm a new user to this site, but you should be able to find it if you go to the Money Saving Expert website and search forums for Erudio.