Thesis - gone too far!!

[Disgruntled_Employee]

Partner has a student loan that is now being handled by Thesis.

 

Since leaving uni she's never earnt over the threshold to commence repayment

and has always filled her deferrment paperwork in and sent it off without fail.

 

Earlier this year she started getting letters from them saying as no deferment paper had been received

she must start paying.

 

We immediately wrote to them saying that the paperwork had vbeen sent and here are the copies.

 

We didn't hear anything for a few months then

 

out of the blue they started phoning my partners elderly and very ill aunt

and frequently pestering her for our phone number which she refused to give

and told them not to bother her again (which they ignored).

 

They've ignored every single letter we've sent them,

they demand a direct debit be put in place (on our joint account I don't think so!!)

 

To top it off we've just had a shock letter from my partners dad who she hasn't seen since her parents seperated

when she was very young and back then her mother and her were moved away

and he was forbidden contact for fear of her safety.

 

the letter from him was warning her that HE had been called by Thesis and asked about her!!!!!

 

WTF who do these ******s think they are that they can do that

she's now terrified that he's going to turn up now he knows where we live and talking about having to move house.

 

I am totally gobsmacked that they can just go through the phone book

or use birth records etc top track down her father in this manner

 

now whether they gave the address out or whether he then looked her up on the voting register

I don't know but is this legal,

 

do you think they phoned everyone in that area with that surname?

 

Neither of us is working at the moment i'm sorely tempted to get some legal advice

over this I don't see how what they've done can be legal

 

any advice please

[Disgruntled_Employee]

Sweet thanks very much.

 

We've just phoned them and before the woman could say anything we said

 

"are you recording this conversation?"

 

Then calmly and without being rude or shouting said we're now not prepared to discuss this over the phone

and outlined what they had done such as contacting relatives asking to pass messages to call them on

and phoning her father and that we were in the process of complaining to our MP the OFT

and the information commissioners office

 

the woman (who admitted it was her who called the relatives) went very quiet

(probably panicking about her job at a guess??)

they've now agreed to stop calling and await for contact from us.

 

I lost my job in May and my partner is self employed and hasn't found any work for awhile

so think we'll also follow this up with an appointment with a solicitor as well

(if nothing else than use the initial free consultation) and we'll see where we go from there.

 

Trouble is we can't prove that Thesis gave her dad our address

and obviously don't want to contact him to ask but it seems a bit odd that he gets in touch after 30+ years

[Disgruntled_Employee]

well another day and another letter from Thesis again trundling off the production line again totally ignoring our phone call and all previous letters.....

[Disgruntled_Employee]

Yup consumer direct contacted and OFT contacted too.

 

I would send another letter to them but seeing as they never reply to any of our letters

or even acknowledge them well....

 

Funnily enough the woman that my wife had a real go at at the beginning of the week

claimed that loads of their letters had been marked return to sender

so we said well send them to us and surprise NOTHING yet

 

we did get another junk letter from them so just shows what a great fat steaming pile of BS that was

[Disgruntled_Employee]

Interesting the Thesis complaints go to a PO Box in Caerphilly:

www.thesis-servicing.co.uk

 

Presumably stopping you from sending letters to them registered post and thereby preventing you from having proof they got it.

 

I know you can send to one but they can then just choose to ignore the note to go and sign for something whereas it's less likely to happen when the post is delivered direct to a business

[Disgruntled_Employee]

can i ask something,

 

anywhere on thesis letter does it state it is a trading name or assosciate of Link financial

 

ida x

 

Yup in the usual small print at the footer of the letter

[Disgruntled_Employee]

Just had this back from the OFT

 

Consumer Credit Act 1974 (the Act)

Complaint Against: Link Financial Limited t/a Thesis Servicing

Licence No: 446835

 

Thank you for your email received on 8 August 2009.

 

I am very sorry to hear about the difficulties your wife has been experiencing with the above mentioned trader.

The OFT has no authority to become involved in disputes between consumers and traders,

so we cannot offer your wife any direct help with the complaint or advise you directly in this matter.

However, we take into account the information you have helpfully given us as we monitor this trader’s fitness to hold a credit licence.

 

I enclose a list of organisations which can offer you help and advice. For specialist, face-to-face assistance, or intervention, you may wish to seek legal advice either through a local Citizens' Advice Bureau or directly from a legal adviser. The Insolvency Service has published a guide for debtors which contains an overview of the main debt solutions. The guide entitled ‘In Debt? Dealing with your creditors’ can be accessed from the Insolvency Services’ website at:

www.insolvency.gov.uk/guidanceleaflets/Guides.htm

 

I can confirm that the business you mention holds a consumer credit licence. Under the Consumer Credit Act, holders of consumer credit licences must be fit and competent to do so and the OFT has a duty to monitor the fitness and conduct of all traders who hold such a licence.

 

In considering fitness we take into account whether a business has engaged in improper business practices. Where we receive complaints about the business practices of licensees, we investigate them and where appropriate we take enforcement action; that action depends on the evidence and circumstances. Action the OFT can take includes revoking, refusing or suspending a licence; or placing conduct requirements on the licence of the company or business in question (failure to comply with a conduct requirement can result in a financial penalty being levied).

 

The OFT has issued guidance to consumer credit licence holders engaged in the debt collection industry. The guidance is intended to ensure that debt collectors treat debtors fairly. Non-compliance with this guidance will call into question the fitness of licence holders and applicants. You can view our guidance at: http://www.oft.gov.uk/advice_and_resources/resource_base/legal/cca/debt-collection

 

I have noted the details of your wife's complaint, and we will continue to monitor Link's compliance with both the Requirements and the Debt Collection Guidance. We are therefore interested in complaints that details issues which have arisen after the Requirements were imposed. We will consider these alongside any other complaints we receive and would therefore be grateful if your wife could sign the enclosed consent form and return it to me. Unfortunately, we cannot disclose any details about any action we may take, due to restrictions on the OFT relating to disclosure of information (Part 9 of the Enterprise Act 2002).

 

The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) can help with most complaints about consumer-credit products and services if the consumer has failed to satisfactorily resolve the matter directly with the consumer credit licensee itself. FOS can be contacted at: Financial Ombudsman Service, South Quay Plaza, 183 Marsh Wall, London, E14 9SR; 0845 080 1800, or www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk.

 

Thank you again for writing to us and bringing this matter to our attention.

 

Yours sincerely

[Disgruntled_Employee]

printed and posted already

 

FOS is next on the hitlist

 

TS have already started investigating from what I hear

 

Bastards aren't getting away with it the next thing is a SAR going to Thesis see what they have on record etc

 

This one isn't going away I am going to make them PAY!!!!! (pun intended hehehe)

[Disgruntled_Employee]

Will do

[Disgruntled_Employee]

Letter to Thesis going in the post tomorrow or Monday

 

Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you for yet ANOTHER template letter asking me to get in touch with you totally ignoring the facts presented to xx recently yet AGAIN!

The facts of the matter are as follows:

I have filled in and sent my deferment paperwork in EVERY year as requested when my loan was serviced by The Student Loan company without incident yet since Thesis have been administering it I have had nothing but hassle and grief (which I will go into detail about further down).

Basically my deferment paperwork was obviously lost somewhere between me posting it and you receiving it, you then wrote to me and I immediately sent back copies of everything normally requested in the deferment paperwork, I had NOTHING back from you regarding this.

I then started receiving letters from you asking to get in touch “as we do not want to make decisions about your account without discussing the matter with you in the first instance”. Again we wrote back asking what was going on no reply, in fact we have NEVER had a direct reply to a SINGLE LETTER we have sent you.

You then started phoning my aunt, an elderly lady with serious health issues not the least of which is a very bad heart condition, you then proceeded to demand she pass messages on to me in direct contravention to recent requirements imposed on you by the OFT (copy enclosed). This matter has been reported to the OFT again and has also been passed on to Trading Standards.

 

You then have somehow contacted my father with whom I have had no contact since I was a young child this was due to my parents divorcing and he was not allowed any further contact with me due to SERIOUS concerns for MY safety. Your phone call to him has now prompted him to contact me how he got my address I do not know but going on your current behaviour I believe you gave it to him probably in some way of claiming to confirm my current address. This is a breach of the Data Protection Act 1998 and has been reported to the Information Commissioners office.

I am now in fear of my father turning up on my doorstep or wanting further contact with me, I am even more concerned as I now have 2 very young children of my own. Your disgusting behaviour has placed me in a very difficult position and I intend to take this complaint to every government department responsible for overseeing the shambles and disgrace that your company is.

Having done research into your behaviour I have seen that far from being an aberration your current treatment of me and my debt is how you seem to treat many people in a similar situation including those with commercial debts that you have bought.

I called you Monday 3rd August and spoke to xx xx and informed her that:

“With reference to the wireless telegraphy act 1949 I require ALL communications between us to be in writing”

As you can see from the above I have contacted the various government departments to report your gross negligence.

If this matter is now not brought to an immediate close I will also employ a solicitor to deal with you as well.

xx claimed that a large amount of mail to me had been returned to sender, I asked her to forward it to me again as my address is correct so I have no idea why they have been returned. Perhaps under those circumstances a special delivery letter may have been a good idea? I cannot be held responsible for your post not reaching me, I would wager you were sending them to an old address as we have not had ANY problems with our postal service and are on first name terms with our postman.

xx said she would post these letters to us and what a surprise they have not arrived so I think that she had been caught out in her unlawful behaviour and was desperately trying to cover herself. I do not for a single minute believe these letters exist.

 

 

 

What I expect from you in relation to this letter

 

·I want to know why my deferment paperwork has been ignored.

·I want to know why you feel it is acceptable to phone people up with my surname and ask them if they know a “xx xx” and how many other people in the phone book have you called this way.

·I want to know why you never reply to my letters and never send an acknowledgement.

·I want to know what you intend to do about these cacophony of mistakes to prevent it happening again.

·I expect this xx to receive nothing less than a disciplinary hearing over her conduct calling my father.

·I expect you to leave my aunt alone

·I expect my deferment to be sorted out IMMEDIATELY AND backdated to when all this first started.

Failure to deal with the above points will result in further action being taken with:

1.Financial Ombudsman Service

2.Office for Fair Trading

3.Trading Standards

4.The Information Commissioners Office

5.My MP

6.My solicitor

7.Any media outlet I can get to listen to me

Please be rest assured your continued blasé attitude in ignoring me and these will no longer be tolerated your failure to comply will result in further action. I hope it does not come to this but I expect your reply to this letter in the next TEN WORKING DAYS

Edited August 15, 2009 by Disgruntled_Employee

[Disgruntled_Employee]

The formatting is a bit screwed from the copy and paste but you get the idea

[Disgruntled_Employee]

Letter to my MP

 

I am sorry to be writing to you about a matter that has been causing me enormous problems as I know you and your staff are incredibly busy at the moment and I don’t like to add to the workload but I feel the matter has become sufficiently serious to warrant asking for some help.

Many years ago I attended University and “acquired” a small student loan. Upon leaving there I have never managed to reach the earnings threshold to be required to start paying this money back. All through this time I have sent in my deferment paperwork without fail to The Student Loan Co and never had a problem.

I then started receiving letters from a company called Thesis Servicing who said that they had taken on my loan and all correspondence was now to be with them instead, ok not a problem I thought. I received my deferment paperwork as normal and sent it back and unusually didn’t hear anything back for some time. The next contact I had from them was saying that I owed them money as I had not deferred, again I wrote to them and enclosed copies of everything and once again didn’t hear anything back.

This has been going on for some considerable time, I write to them they ignore me and send me yet another “template letter”.

Thesis then went on to start calling my elderly aunt who has serious health issues the worst of which being a serious heart problem. They have called her repeatedly demanding that she pass messages on to us (which I believe the OFT have already cautioned Thesis for).

The most recent problem being that they have somehow phoned my father. I have not had any contact with my father since I was a very young child and my parents divorced, he was not allowed contact due to fears for my safety. I know they have phoned him as out of the blue and after 30+ years I have had a letter from him telling me that they have called asking about me. Up till this point I had not heard from him at all and now he is writing me letters. I believe that he was given my address by Thesis, possibly under the pretence of confirming my current address. I am now terrified that he is going to turn up on my doorstep and as my mum lives next door and also suffers from extremely bad angina attacks if he did I think it would put her in hospital or worse, not to mention the fact that as I have 2 young children of my own to worry about as well. Luckily Thesis don’t have our phone number or we’d probably now be getting calls as well. This current mess has turned me into a nervous wreck I jump every time there is a knock on the door or the garden gate opens and again if it was not for the fact my mother lives next door I would have to consider moving house.

After receiving this letter I was so upset that I called xx xx at Thesis on 3rd August, she admitted it was her that had phoned him but only because they had had mail returned to them and that she “only worked in the mail department” which I believe to be a total lie. I asked her to send me these letters which she said she would but surprise surprise they haven’t arrived but we are getting post from them as another one of their template letters arrived 2 days later.

I have reported Thesis (a trading style of Link Financial apparently) to:

The Office for Fair Trading and Trading Standards

I also intend to complain to the Information Commissioners Office for breach of the data protection act 1998 and the Financial Ombudsman as well.

I have also written a very stern letter to Link Financial about this as well.

As this whole mess is the fault of the government I was wondering if there is anything you can do to help get this mess straightened out and get some justice for what Link Financial have done to me and my family.

Sorry once again to be writing to you about this matter and sorry for making it such a long letter but if there is anything you can do to help it would be greatly appreciated especially as whilst doing some research I do not appear to be the only one Link is treating in this manner.

I look forward to hearing from you in due course.

[Disgruntled_Employee]

and here's the article proving the UK gov are selling students out to DCA's and generally giving them a right royal shafting

 

Today's Queen's speech saw the government confirm the sale of debt owned by the Student Loans Company to private companies. The “sale of students loans bill” gives permission for the new minister of students, Lord Triesman, to sell part of the SLC's student loan portfolio, including personal information. Around £6bn is expected to be made over the next three years from the sale over next three years, with the total value of the student loan book is sitting at £18billion. If government targets are to be met the value of student loans deb will rise to over £55bn over ten years.

The NUS has expressed concerns that this will lead to students being charged higher rates of interest on their loans. Currently the interest is linked to inflation, so theoretically you only pay back what you borrow. A rise in interest rates on student loans could have disastrous consequences for graduates. Questions were also raised about why the government has chosen to take this course of action. The NUS president, Gemma Tumelty, believes that this shows that the student loan system is unsustainable in the long term. "Recent events in the US show the risks associated with selling off debt and the consequences it can produce in the wider economy," Ms Tumelty said.

The government insists that this will not affect students, and that it would retain control over all interest rates and repayment thresholds. All loans would still be administered through the Student Loans Company, and purchasers will only have information for managing the loans.

 

 

No private company is going to get into bed with this without plans on how to screw as much money as possible out of the students concerned and this is probably why the OFT et al will do NOTHING to Link as it'll mean showing the government screwed up selling our data to these asshats

[Disgruntled_Employee]

oh and this one

 

BBC NEWS | Business | Student loans 'may be sold off'

[Disgruntled_Employee]

Post 29 last para just a minor details I'd take the "be" out.

 

These letters of yours are absolutely brill. Go knock em dead.

We need to get these low lifes sorted out for good.

 

DG:)

 

Yeah I did say originally that these are first drafts just wanted to get them up quickly but thanks

[Disgruntled_Employee]

You might like to copy in the MP for Caerphilly that covers the area Link/Thesis are situated.

 

Good idea will do that as well

[Disgruntled_Employee]

Keep the addresses coming we'll nail these scumbags are any of these MPs labour as it was good old Gordan that has caused this raising his billions selling off not only the debts but all the student info associated with them

[Disgruntled_Employee]

Mwaahahaha can see her wading in and shouting at good old Mr Sell it off Brown NOT.

 

Copies in the post tomorrow to the various parties

 

Actually I take that back she sounds like she might be a decent person after all (apart from voting against the ban on hunting bit that is)

 

I am proudly independent minded and am one of the small number of Labour MPs who voted against a ban on hunting, opposed the war in Iraq, renewal of Trident, foundation hospitals, university tuition and top-up fees, ID cards, and extended detention without trial.

[Disgruntled_Employee]

Letters in the post to all MPs and everyone else today, lets see what happens now

[Disgruntled_Employee]

Indeed I am so angry that this whole mess is basically down to the Government making money of the back of other peoples debt

 

Here are some links to show how disgraceful and underhand the government are over student loan debts

 

Mute magazine - Culture and politics after the net

 

Labour gets the varsity blues - Article - TES Connect

 

House of Commons Hansard Debates for 12 Mar 2009 (pt 0002)

 

scroll down the page on that last link

 

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/student/news/article1524881.ece

 

and lastly another gov promise broken on student loans, why do we believe anything this shower of tards say?

 

Student loans interest rate inflation promise broken | This is Money

[Disgruntled_Employee]

duplicate post

[Disgruntled_Employee]

FOS complaint now filled in as well and in the post hehe how many angles can I take them out on at once I wonder...

 

In the what do you expect to be done bit I put sack the woman responsible and I believe some form of compensation is in order due to the amount of time taken dealing with this AND the stress and anxiety caused by contacting the father

[Disgruntled_Employee]

got a comp slip today from the houses of parliament today confirming receipt of our letters so it's on the move (slowly) nothing from Thesis/Stink yet - surprise!!

[Disgruntled_Employee]

Bored tonight so have written to Gordon Brown asking what he plans to do about these companies he has jumped into bed with

 

Dear Prime Minister,

I am writing to you with regards to a situation brought about by your actions of selling student loans off to debt collection companies with an appalling track record of abuses and actions counter to the Consumer Credit Act.

 

Please find enclosed a copy of a letter I have sent to Thesis Servicing AKA Link Financial, I am sure you will be able to see the problem from reading it but just to recap.

 

I have sent my deferment paperwork in every year as requested, since Thesis “acquired” my student loan they have not auctioned my deferment and continually send me template letters to call them, I have written back to them on numerous occasions yet never receive a reply.

 

Thesis then decided to harass my aunt who lives in sheltered accommodation and has many mental and physical health issues, they demand that she pass messages on for which I believe the OFT has already issued guidelines to Link that this is unacceptable behaviour.

 

This was bad enough but then Thesis have phoned up my father with whom I have had no contact for 30 years as my parents divorced when I was very young and he was not allowed access due to fears over my safety. I know Thesis have phoned him because he wrote to me and told me they had been phoning asking about me, I believe Thesis have provided my address to him which would be a breach of the Data Protection Act 1998 on top of their other unlawful action.

 

I have complained to FOS, OFT, Trading Standards (the OFT recorded my complaint and then passed the details on) and my own MP Norman Lamb and I also wrote to Kate Hoey and Wayne David as Link/Thesis operate in their constituencies and I thought they may also be interested to note their despicable behaviour.

 

I would be interested to know what you would intend to do about this being as it was yourself I believe that originally instigated the mass selloff of student debt to debt collection companies?

 

In the light of this and the many other complaints that I am aware of will you reconsider using student debt to raise funds and furthermore if you do continue to sell the debts off will you reconsider the kinds of company you do business with do you really want your Labour Government to be seen to be working with companies that behave in this fashion?

 

I look forward to your response and I shall also be raising the issue with David Cameron and Nick Clegg to ask for their opinions on the matter.

 

 

 

This is the draft so don't worry about spelling and grammar it's not finished yet.

[Disgruntled_Employee]

Similar letter to David Cameron suggesting perhaps he may like to bring it up at Prime Ministers questions

 

mwaaahahahahahah

 

oh and Nick Clegg

 

I am soooo going to make so much trouble for everyone involved in this debacle muhahahahahaha