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Out of the blue Erudio are claiming that I am in arrears because of a late deferment 4 years ago.
This was resolved satisfactorily with HSL at the time in 2015. I had no inkling that this didn't cover all of my loan accounts.
But now Erudio are claiming that this resolution only applied to the HSL accounts and not theirs.
I am of a mind to dispute this because:
I am particularly concerned about the arrears being brought up at this late stage. I have read that any kind of arrears on the account prevent it from being wiped out (and mine is due to be wiped in a few years).
I have put a more detailed timeline below, hopefully this will provide clarity without making the post a all of text.
Nov 2014:
I moved house and forgot to update my address with the SLC.
July 2015:
HSL called re arrears. I realised my mistake. I called them to explain and request deferment form sent to my new address. The form never arrived. I emailed them twice over 2 months and received no response.
Sept 2015:
Received a letter from Honours SL stating arrears. I wrote back explaining the above. Honours SL replied:
I did this, deferring as normal the following year. I heard nothing more until....
Sept 2018:
Out of the blue, I received a letter from Erudio SL.
I asked for more details.
Eruido (Nov 2018):
"We can confirm we have raised a query with The Student Loans Company regarding the arrears outstanding on your account.. We will be in touch with their response in due course."
Me (Dec 2018):
"Is there any movement on this please? I don’t believe there should be any arrears on this account, so I’m quite concerned."
Erudio (Dec 2018):
"We note your comments and would advise that we received a response from the Student Loans Company (SLC) on 29th November 2018, however, the information provided did not include the dates 2015-2016. We can confirm that we sent a further request to ensure that we have all the correct information to enable us to deal with your query correctly. We will contact you once we receive their response."
Me (March 2019):
"It’s been 5 months and I’ve still received no response to my query. I continue to receive notifications of arrears by mail. Is there any movement on this please? I don’t believe there should be any arrears on this account, so I’m quite concerned."
Erudio (April 2019):
"You were very late with your deferment in 2015. We can only roll back 3 months. Therefore you owe us the difference."
Me (April 2019):
"But I have a letter here that explains the delay and says it was fully rolled back"
Eruido (April 2019):
"We can confirm that the agreement you have mentioned in your recent email was with Honours at their own discretion and this decision would not be applied to your Erudio account. Our policies maximum of 3 months roll back has been applied to your deferment and the remaining arrears as stated above remain outstanding."
This was resolved satisfactorily with HSL at the time in 2015. I had no inkling that this didn't cover all of my loan accounts.
But now Erudio are claiming that this resolution only applied to the HSL accounts and not theirs.
I am of a mind to dispute this because:
- In 2015 I had only ever communicated with SLC and HSL about my loans. I don't think I had even heard of Erudio at that point!
- In my previous dealings, I have only ever had to communicate with a single entity (either SLC or HSL)
E.g. I have only ever had to send deferment forms / documents / letters to one of these companies, never both - The communications with HSL (including the letter confirming resolution) referred to my 16 digit "customer number", not to specific loan numbers
- I received no communications from Erudio about late payments / arrears
I am particularly concerned about the arrears being brought up at this late stage. I have read that any kind of arrears on the account prevent it from being wiped out (and mine is due to be wiped in a few years).
I have put a more detailed timeline below, hopefully this will provide clarity without making the post a all of text.
Nov 2014:
I moved house and forgot to update my address with the SLC.
July 2015:
HSL called re arrears. I realised my mistake. I called them to explain and request deferment form sent to my new address. The form never arrived. I emailed them twice over 2 months and received no response.
Sept 2015:
Received a letter from Honours SL stating arrears. I wrote back explaining the above. Honours SL replied:
"Your Honours SL account has been placed on hold for 28 days. Providing your account is accepted for deferment before 15th Oct 2018 we will process a full rollback on your account".
Sept 2018:
Out of the blue, I received a letter from Erudio SL.
"Under CCA 1974 we are required to provide you with statutory notices to inform you about the status of your account. Due to a system error we haven't always complied with this requirement, and need to re-issue the notices that were missed. You owe us £xxx. Date of non-compliance is May 2016. "
Eruido (Nov 2018):
"We can confirm we have raised a query with The Student Loans Company regarding the arrears outstanding on your account.. We will be in touch with their response in due course."
Me (Dec 2018):
"Is there any movement on this please? I don’t believe there should be any arrears on this account, so I’m quite concerned."
Erudio (Dec 2018):
"We note your comments and would advise that we received a response from the Student Loans Company (SLC) on 29th November 2018, however, the information provided did not include the dates 2015-2016. We can confirm that we sent a further request to ensure that we have all the correct information to enable us to deal with your query correctly. We will contact you once we receive their response."
Me (March 2019):
"It’s been 5 months and I’ve still received no response to my query. I continue to receive notifications of arrears by mail. Is there any movement on this please? I don’t believe there should be any arrears on this account, so I’m quite concerned."
Erudio (April 2019):
"You were very late with your deferment in 2015. We can only roll back 3 months. Therefore you owe us the difference."
Me (April 2019):
"But I have a letter here that explains the delay and says it was fully rolled back"
Eruido (April 2019):
"We can confirm that the agreement you have mentioned in your recent email was with Honours at their own discretion and this decision would not be applied to your Erudio account. Our policies maximum of 3 months roll back has been applied to your deferment and the remaining arrears as stated above remain outstanding."
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