student loans dont listen

[maybelline]

The Law Society - Find a solicitor

 

just rec'd a letter from above solicitor, it does not say who they are acting for so I am strictly guessing it is student loans, they say

 

'Please accept this letter as final reminder for payment. Unless you contact us IMMEIDATELY we will instruct a collector to call at your address to collect the outstanding payment.'

 

'be advised that no further warnings will be issued prior to our next action.'

 

from (no name)

 

to me that sounds like a threat, designed to intimidate 'cal at your address' no date or time of intention to call AND SINCE I OWE THEM NOTHING its more than irregular.

 

by the way, they expect to 'collect' over 3 thousands pounds!!????

 

I have already replied to persistent phonecalls with my evidence, but sadly without those 'missing' deferrment forms SLC do not listen.

[Thepower]

CCA right away (the student loan compant)!!!! that will put the "debt" in dispute

 

SLC are full of SH*T:-D

[maybelline]

already done so months ago! I have copies of the agreements from them under DPA sar and would expect to receive same from a CCA request.

 

they just do not accept that I deferred since for whatever reason it is not info available to them, they just keep bleating on about the rule, no form, no deferment!

[maybelline]

student loans, something really needs to be done about them, PLEASE HELP, mods, anyone who knows the law, is it right that they can have this additional term that states if they say they didnt get a deferment form, even though you fulfil the criteria under the signed agreement to not have to pay related to income and benefits - they can still treat you as not the case and accrue thousands of pounds in debt, fees etc??????

 

is this not unfair terms?

[maybelline]

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

[daveydavey]

another one

 

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

[maybelline]

so who is the Independent Assessor?

[maybelline]

this is taken from the Official Response -

 

Safeguards exist for disabled borrowers - for example they can apply for deferment for up to three years at a time if they can provide professional evidence that they will be unfit for work for the next three years Otherwise all borrowers who wish to defer repayments must apply for and be accepted for deferment annually. If borrowers have been ill and unable to action their deferment application, or if SLC has inadvertantly failed to process an application, SLC will treat the situation with as much discretion as they can.But to enable the exercise of discretion, it is essential the borrower maintains communication and engages with the system or has a nominated representative do so his behalf (if necessary).

 

I notice it does state that deferment can be for three years if you can provide professional evidence you will be unfit, I sent a letter explaining I would not be fit but no reply, all I get now, including today is an extremely rude woman talking to me like I am a murderer or something???!!!??

[maybelline]

so, the DIUS ministers

Ministerial Team - DIUS

 

from the response above

 

Undoubtedly the deferment process can be difficult all round, but SLC is obliged to comply with the government regulations for this provision. Given the large volume of forms dependent upon the postal system, it is unfortunately not surprising that some go astray and that some misunderstandings occur on both sides. DIUS is, however, working with the Student Loan Company to review procedures and gradually to implement process improvements, wherever possible.

[maybelline]

another one

 

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

[maybelline]

I have now made my complaint to SLC and to DIUS.

 

Close Credit still calling, being told politely to put their questions in writing and then ringing again immediately, continually, this is disgusting harrassement!

[LyncusBee]

Doubtless it's a computer system that just rotates a list and if the call is answered tries to connect to an available call centre operative; they themselves doubtless have no way to remove you from the queue so it just goes on and on. The most annoying thing is that no-one can be held responsible as they don't know who's going to be on the end of the phone or how many times you've been rung:evil:

 

A recent example was a car insurance company, my partner asked for a quote and having got one (which wasn't wanted) they rung our landline up to 8 times a day for two days to try and put the sales pitch across, I had to just keep telling them she wasn't in it seemed to me each caller had no idea if the system had rung previously.

 

The TPS doesn't seem to mean squat these days, the services industries are way out of order with telephony usage. Harrassment is just an attempt to force copitulation out of a court by causing undue stress.

 

If SLC and associated 3rd parties can use harrassment tactics then what does that say to the rest of the private sector services industries since they are supposed to be working directly on behalf of the Government:roll:

[maybelline]

sadly was the same person, I had to tell them to stop harrassing me!

[LyncusBee]

I would definately start logging the call times get their names and keep a record.

 

Send them a letter (recorded delivery signed etc) using ThePower's post here and adapt it, the first section Re: Telephone Harrassment then if it continues you can prove that you have made it absolutely clear to them you wish to deal with the matter in writing only...

 

See below thread for the template HTH

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/students/114843-cca-request-12-working-2.html

[maybelline]

thanks LnycusBee, I have rec'd copies but am disputing the detb, they say no deferment ever received, pity they didnt say that years ago??? but will send anyway as they are still calling despite my complaint to the email supplied by DIUS Public Communications Unit.

[maybelline]

Safeguards exist for disabled borrowers - for example they can apply for deferment for up to three years at a time if they can provide professional evidence that they will be unfit for work for the next three years Otherwise all borrowers who wish to defer repayments must apply for and be accepted for deferment annually. If borrowers have been ill and unable to action their deferment application, or if SLC has inadvertantly failed to process an application, SLC will treat the situation with as much discretion as they can.But to enable the exercise of discretion, it is essential the borrower maintains communication and engages with the system or has a nominated representative do so his behalf (if necessary).

 

this section admits they do fail to process and I have been arguing this to no avail for years!? now they are taking me to court ****

[daveydavey]

Maybelline, have you tried the formal complaints procedure ? you can email the complaints & this will suspend any collection action. If it's a pre-1998 loan, you can now take the complaint to the Financial Services Ombudsman once the three internal stages of complaint have been exhausted. I was very pleasantly surprised, at the third stage of complaint (at executive level), the SLC backtracked & removed the charges & moved the 'arrears' created out of a non-processed deferment application to the amount outstanding on the loan, & instructed the debt collection agency to stop harassing me for 'arrears'. *case won! *

 

If you start the complaints process, until this has been exhausted they would be unlikely to win any Court case, you simply say the case is being dealt with by the formal complaints procedure & you cannot reasonably be expected to pay arrears while this is being processed. Were you on benefits ? you can also argue that if you are on IS / JSA / DLA that these benefits are inalienable under the Social Security Administration Act & cannot be legally claimed, a ludicrous situation as if you were on benefits for the non-deferred period your income was well below the repayment threshold.

PM me or post here for more info.

[maybelline]

yes, I'm pretty sure I did, using the complaints email address but they just say 'no deferment form traced so no deferment allowed' , thanks for your reply, this is really interesting, so I will have to take it to FOS then?!

 

great news re your case won - yes, on benefits and then pre 98 so expires after a certain age, but say only if no arrears but of course there should be no arrears as I met all the criteria:(

[maybelline]

checking my records it seems I complained both to SLC and to Dfes who merely reiterated the no deferment form argument. so I have had no reply whatsoever from SLC sent in Nov last year.

[daveydavey]

..,. you have to keep complaining - mark each email formal complaint , & state that you remain dissatisfied with their response, state 'stage 2 ' & 'stage 3' etc. also see thread re vulnerable person created by Michael.

 

You need to go through 3 stages of complaint before you can go to the FSO , below is my third complaint , the one which led to the SLC caving in - feel free to use whatever is relevant & appropriate to your case:

 

 

> ref XXXXXXXX - Formal Complaint Stage Three to executive level *** THIS ACCOUNT IS IN DISPUTE ***

 

*** THIS ACCOUNT HAS BEEN PASSED TO CSL, (REF XXXXXX ) - Please contact them to ensure that I am not subject to any further harassment, until the complaint is resolved, including to the independent assessor / financial ombudsman service if needed . *** Please confirm this ASAP in your reply *** I have telephoned them, they state that any suspension in collection action can only be initiated by the Student Loans Company.

 

Thank you for your reply to my formal Complaint (Stage two) .- I REMAIN DISSATISFIED WITH YOUR RESPONSE.

 

The salient point of my last complaint (stage two) was not even addressed in your reply. You failed to process my deferment application in 2004, at least in a timely manner, falsely generating an arrears figure on my account. However when you received the following year's deferment application in the summer of 2005, your Collections Dept has informed me that you backdated it by 3 months. As proof of income or benefits is an absolute prerequisite for deferment of student loans, THE ONLY WAY YOU WOULD HAVE HAD PROOF OF INCOME IN ORDER TO BE ABLE TO BACKDATE before the benefits date stamp on the 2005 deferment application would have been in the shape of the 2004 deferment application you claim not to have received. YOUR CLAIMS CONTRADICT YOUR ACTIONS.

Therefore I believe that you should have applied deferment for the whole of the relevant period, not just for three months, as the 2004 deferment application was sent to you in the summer of 2004, & would have been accepted by you then, not 12 months later. Each deferment application contains proof of income for a 12 month period. You would only have had proof of my Income Support entitlement in order to be able to backdate if you had received the 2004 deferment application.

 

This was the salient point of my previous complaint & even *asterisked* yet you failed to even mention it in your reply. Perhaps you knew there wasn't a reasonable explanation for this. If you do not now apply deferment & clear the arrears in response, I expect a full explanation regarding the contradictions inherent in your administration of my loan.

 

I believe that the arrears have therefore been falsely generated. I have been in continual receipt of Income Support & DLA since the year 2002 due to long-term illness & my income is & was well below the repayment threshold. I was under a psychiatric care plan approach during the year 2004, hardly in a position to earn above the repayment threshold. The threshold for that year was an income of about £1800 / month. My income was about £700 / month, nowhere near the starting point of the repayment threshold. I have applied for deferment in a clear & established pattern before & since. I do not accept responsibility for your neglect of duty in processing my 2004 deferment application. Please explain why I should pay for your maladministration of my Loan ?

 

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

© 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.

 

As IS / DLA was my sole income and were INALIENABLE BENEFITS during the non-deferred period (& remains so), it is unlawful for you to lay claim to them, either in arrears or charges. A ludicrous situation, as on that level of income my 'earnings' are well below the deferment threshold.

 

It is also illegal for you to apply charges to my account, not withstanding the above. I moved in the summer of 2004, & completed the change of address section on the deferment application i sent to you that year. The three letters you sent (for which you charged £20 / time) were not even correctly addressed, to the best of my knowledge, as you failed to process the 2004 deferment application in an efficient & timely manner, including the notfication of the change of address. The £20 charges in no way reflect the true cost to you of producing such letters, and are therefore also unlawful under the Consumer Credit Act 1974, & the letters were only sent in response to a false arrears figure being generated on my account through your failure to process the deferment application, at least until the following year when you backdated by the 'maximum' 3 months. I believe that the charges should also be removed from the account, as they have been illegally, unfairly & unreasonably applied. Two charges applied within the space of five days for letters sent by second class delivery is also clearly unreasonable, hardly giving me any time to respond, even if they had been correctly addressed ! I am aware that when threatened with Court action for recovery of standard letter charges, you have settled out of Court rather than contest them. The agreement between us makes NO PROVISION for unlawful letter charges.

 

If you again require further proof of my benefit entitlement during the year 2004, in order to be able to correct the non-deferred arrears figure, then i would be happy to do so. This has already been provided to you on the 2004 deferment application stamped by the Benefit office at the time, which was the basis for you backdating the following year's deferment application. I believe that the 3 month limitation on that backdating has been unlawfully, unreasonably & unfairly applied as you would have ''accepted' the 2004 deferment application during the summer of 2004, not 12 months later - if you only discovered it had been unprocessed 12 months later than you cannot reasonably apply arrears & charges to the account.

 

It is quite reasonable for me to expect there to be no arrears on the account, as they have been falsely generated due to the above. You could also show a little goodwill & do so, given my circumstances then & now. The central founding principle of student loans is that they only become repayable when a certain income level is reached. Had the student loan been administered under the present system by the Inland Revenue, then this situation would never have arisen - no arrears figure would have been falsely generated. Furthermore, your falsely generated arrears figure could be construed as a fraudulent false representation under the 2006 Fraud Act :

 

The FraudAct2006. “Fraud must give a gain of money or property”

The Act creates a new general offence of fraud with three ways of committing it, one of these is:

• Fraud by false representation

Section 2 Fraud by false representation

(1) A person is in breach of this section if he-

(a) dishonestly makes a false representation, and

(b) intends, by making the representation-

(i) to make a gain for himself or another, or

(ii) to cause loss to another or to expose another to a risk of loss.

(2) A representation is false if-

(a) it is untrue or misleading, and

(b) the person making it knows that it is, or might be, untrue or misleading.

(3) "Representation" means any representation as to fact or law, including a representation as to the state of mind of-

(a) the person making the representation, or

(b) any other person.

(4) A representation may be express or implied.

(5) For the purposes of this section a representation may be regarded as made if it (or anything implying it) is submitted in any form to any system or device designed to receive, convey or respond to communications (with or without human intervention).

 

If you will not correct the false, untrue arrears figure & unlawful charges on the account, please confirm whether the final stage of my complaint should be directed to the independent assessor or the financial ombudsman service, as this is currently unclear on your website - the site itself states that pre-98 mortgage-style loan complaints will be dealt with by the financial ombudsman service, the leaflet states that the final stage is the independent assessor - if you still somehow feel that arrears & illegal charges are due on the account, then please clarify which body I should complain to ? If its the independent assessor, then please provide direct contact details.

 

*** PLEASE REMEMBER TO CONTACT CSL & INSTRUCT THEM TO CEASE ANY FURTHER COLLECTION ACTION UNTIL THE COMPLAINT(S) HAVE BEEN CORRECTLY & FULLY RESOLVED, INCLUDING TO THE FSO / IA IF NECESSARY*** To fail to do so would constitute unlawful harassment contrary to Section 40 (1) of the Administration of Justice Act 1970.

 

Yours sincerely

 

XXXX XXXXXXXXX

 

- Please contact me if you (again) require supporting documents in relation to the above.

[maybelline]

thanks very much, who are CSL? I have had letters from Smith Lawson and now Buchananclark and Wells, part of bcw group registered in Glasgow.

 

I will definately chase up on the complaints side!

 

oh, and Close Credit?? well, just found the email reply, rather rude actually, just restating that as far as they are concerned, I owe the money and it was from someone in the collections team so hardly customer complaints is it!

[noomill060]

"If you start the complaints process, until this has been exhausted they would be unlikely to win any Court case"

 

Sorry, I understand your delight in your excellent result from the FOS daveydavey, but this statement this is absolute BLX.

 

NOTHING repeat NOTHING can limit anyone's right to take legal action agaisnt SLC giving them the opportunity to explain themselves to a judge.

 

I did, they bottled it andremoved everything I told them to with barely a whimper:

 

All charges

 

All interest levied on those charges

 

Court fee

 

AND the 8% court interest I claimed on all of the above, from the date applied.

[maybelline]

I have sent another complaint, I will update any response, I have another big case at moment so will see, I will take it to court if needs be:)

[daveydavey]

noomill i was referring to the SLC taking a borrower to Court over a contested arrears figure due to non deferment due to 'missing' deferment forms etc. not the other way around! Nothing to stop a borrower doing this, but some borrowers may wait for the SLC to initiate the Court action & then defend it if they haven't actually paid the arrears & unlawful charges. I would have if necessary - I'd cancelled my direct debit years ago so I'd never actually paid their false arrears & unlawful charges, they just 'existed' as a false statement on my loan account, so there was nothing i'd paid for me to 'recover'. To be fair to the SLC, their compaints process was very helpful in my case once it got to stage three, this eliminated the need for the case to go to Court or be looked at by the FSO. It seems that there are some good people working for the SLC, but you need to complain higher to reach them.

[maybelline]

SLC argue breach of contract for cancelling the DD that was set up 'way back when' but never paid out, until they lost the deferments and tried to take money they were not due:(