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Sorry, this is going to be quite long winded as it's a long story, but it's regarding Erudio Student Loans that my wife has been deferring since 2000. She forgot to inform them of a change of address and they're coming at us guns blazing because of it demanding the £10.000. Any help or advise would be greatly appreciated. This is her story, many thanks.
I was at University from 1997-2000 paid for with a loan from the Student Loans Company. In the years since my graduation every March I have deferred payment each year as I have always earned less then the minimum requirement to start paying this loan back. As part of the agreement this loan was to be written off 25 years after the last loan was made - this would be 2025.
In 2014 the SLC sold the student loans to Erudio. In March 2015 I deferred as normal, and in March 2016 the same, but this year I opened an online Erudio account which meant they not only sent my deferment paperwork via post but by email as well.
In October 2016 I bought my first property with my husband. Amongst all the many hundreds of things I had to remember should have been to inform Erudio of my change of address, but this alas I forgot to do so. Come the March 2017 deferral date I did not receive the paper work through the post - but for some reason I also did NOT receive an email of the deferment paperwork either (as I had done the year before). Relying on this reminder but not receiving it lead to me not deferring in 2017 and unfortunately the same thing happened in 2018.
The original agreement clearly states that I would be charged any fee's that the SLC would incur whilst tracking down my current address details - implying the the SLC on not receiving my deferment would have made some effort to find my current address to allow me the opportunity to defer. For some reason this did not apply to Erudio (even though nothing was supposed to change with them taking over from SLC).
In January 2019 I receive a letter from a company called Capquest on behalf of Arrow Global Limited (no mention of Erudio) stating that I haven't resolved the outstanding balance of £9641.23. I phoned them and they stated they were debt collectors who were collecting the outstanding balance due to my lack of deferral. I stated that I had been deferring as I should have been up until 2017 and was still not in a position to afford the repayments as per the agreement. Apparently due to me not updating my address with Erudio I had not been receiving the deferment paperwork - yet there had been NO OTHER EFFORT from Erudio to contact me. They had my email (which they were supposed to send the deferment papers to as well - but DID NOT) and they had my phone number. Yet somehow Capquest manged to find my current address easy enough. Capquests scare tactics worked and so I set up a payment plan with them. But then after a day or two of researching and finding out that Erudio had been using unethical ways of collecting outstanding balances, and on the recommendation of my director at the financial advisers I work at, I cancelled the direct debit for fear it was some sort of scam. I then heard no more from Capquest.
In March 2019 I received at letter from Erudio stating that the management of my account had now been transferred to Drydensfairfax Solicitors and they were going to be collecting the outstanding balance. So I spoke to Drydensfairfax stating everything I already had done to Capquest - that this was a simple mistake of forgetting to update my current address with Erudio, they did not contact me with deferment details via email as they should have done, and that I was still not earning enough to begin paying this back.
In July they replied via letter to the issues I raised in the phone call by stating the terms of the agreement show it is my responsibility to update the address with Erudio which lead to the account not being deferred, hence their involvement in attempting to reclaim the money. They did not show me any evidence of where it says in the agreement that if the account is not deferred that I would be forced to pay the amount in full - I have since looked at the terms and conditions and it does not state this anywhere.
I then visited the Citizens Advise Bureau to get some professional help. I was told by them to reply to each letter I receive from Drydensfairfax stating all the information that I previously had done so (outlined above), so this is what I continued to do on their recommendation.
This continued several times up until November 2019 where I received another letter from Drydensfairfax with a Letter of Claim in accordance with the Pre-Action for Debt Claims. I filled this claim out ticking box D stating 'I dispute the debt because I do not owe it' along with the same reasoning's as before and returned it. Now surely if I ticked that I dispute it something would have happened but I did not receive a reply to this dispute, it was seemingly ignored.
Then I do not hear anything until 7th February 2020 where I receive another letter from Drydensfairfax stating that the matter had now been transferred to a County Court Claim and my debt has now accrued further fees (what happened to the previous dispute I raised? - simply ignored like everything else I've sent them). The letter states that I will receive a Claim from the County Court and that if I ignore the Claim a CCJ will automatically be obtained. Obviously now this is getting very scary indeed with the threat of court action so I await this Claim in the hope that I'll be able to raise my concerns with Court about how unfair this whole situation is.
On 17th March I receive another letter from Drydensfairfax stating the the application has now been made to enter a CCJ against me. On March 18th followed by the actual CCJ from the court stating that I had not replied to the claim form - BUT I NEVER RECEIVED IT. Why on earth would I not reply to the Claim form when it was my only possible way of hopefully getting a judge to hear my side of the story?
At this point I am at my wits end. How can simply not updating an address lead to this - a CCJ and a solicitors threatening me with a Warrant of Control (sending a bailiff to my house), an Attachment of Earnings Order, or a Charging Order (securing the debt from my property). All this extra worry on top of the fact the Corona Virus is threatening our every day life as well. So I contact my own solicitor who after several weeks of backwards and forwards have given me no positive routes to go down either.
At the beginning of April in an attempt to try and get some further information I contacted Erudio who stated the the loan was indeed now void due to a lack of deferral - which has also lead to the termination of the 25 year write off period. This being only 5 years away - just in the nick of time for Erudio. They also stated that they would not have sent out emailed deferral reminders if I had not given them permission to do so, yet I have proof that in 2016 I signed up to an online account and they emailed me the reminder that same year. This all seems incredibly unethical of Erudio, especially as they have had issues in the past with various scams trying to get money out of former students just before their agreements were due to be cancelled.
I have spoken to Drydensfairfax as well and managed to get a 30 day extension whilst I attempted to get advice from my solicitor etc. They stated that the CCJ Claim was sent directly from the Courts and the issue of the Claim not arriving with me should be something I take up with them. On talking to the Courts, they said there was nothing they could do regarding me not receiving the Claim, and the only way that I can possibly get the judgement set aside was by filling out a N244 Application Notice at a charge of £255 (money I just can't afford with already investing in a solicitors) where a judge would look into it - chances are though he'd simply think I had ignored the original Claim and would through it out.
The last contact was 7th April from Drydensfairfax with yet another letter wanting me to agree to an affordable repayment plan, and it really now looks like I have no other choice.
I was at University from 1997-2000 paid for with a loan from the Student Loans Company. In the years since my graduation every March I have deferred payment each year as I have always earned less then the minimum requirement to start paying this loan back. As part of the agreement this loan was to be written off 25 years after the last loan was made - this would be 2025.
In 2014 the SLC sold the student loans to Erudio. In March 2015 I deferred as normal, and in March 2016 the same, but this year I opened an online Erudio account which meant they not only sent my deferment paperwork via post but by email as well.
In October 2016 I bought my first property with my husband. Amongst all the many hundreds of things I had to remember should have been to inform Erudio of my change of address, but this alas I forgot to do so. Come the March 2017 deferral date I did not receive the paper work through the post - but for some reason I also did NOT receive an email of the deferment paperwork either (as I had done the year before). Relying on this reminder but not receiving it lead to me not deferring in 2017 and unfortunately the same thing happened in 2018.
The original agreement clearly states that I would be charged any fee's that the SLC would incur whilst tracking down my current address details - implying the the SLC on not receiving my deferment would have made some effort to find my current address to allow me the opportunity to defer. For some reason this did not apply to Erudio (even though nothing was supposed to change with them taking over from SLC).
In January 2019 I receive a letter from a company called Capquest on behalf of Arrow Global Limited (no mention of Erudio) stating that I haven't resolved the outstanding balance of £9641.23. I phoned them and they stated they were debt collectors who were collecting the outstanding balance due to my lack of deferral. I stated that I had been deferring as I should have been up until 2017 and was still not in a position to afford the repayments as per the agreement. Apparently due to me not updating my address with Erudio I had not been receiving the deferment paperwork - yet there had been NO OTHER EFFORT from Erudio to contact me. They had my email (which they were supposed to send the deferment papers to as well - but DID NOT) and they had my phone number. Yet somehow Capquest manged to find my current address easy enough. Capquests scare tactics worked and so I set up a payment plan with them. But then after a day or two of researching and finding out that Erudio had been using unethical ways of collecting outstanding balances, and on the recommendation of my director at the financial advisers I work at, I cancelled the direct debit for fear it was some sort of scam. I then heard no more from Capquest.
In March 2019 I received at letter from Erudio stating that the management of my account had now been transferred to Drydensfairfax Solicitors and they were going to be collecting the outstanding balance. So I spoke to Drydensfairfax stating everything I already had done to Capquest - that this was a simple mistake of forgetting to update my current address with Erudio, they did not contact me with deferment details via email as they should have done, and that I was still not earning enough to begin paying this back.
In July they replied via letter to the issues I raised in the phone call by stating the terms of the agreement show it is my responsibility to update the address with Erudio which lead to the account not being deferred, hence their involvement in attempting to reclaim the money. They did not show me any evidence of where it says in the agreement that if the account is not deferred that I would be forced to pay the amount in full - I have since looked at the terms and conditions and it does not state this anywhere.
I then visited the Citizens Advise Bureau to get some professional help. I was told by them to reply to each letter I receive from Drydensfairfax stating all the information that I previously had done so (outlined above), so this is what I continued to do on their recommendation.
This continued several times up until November 2019 where I received another letter from Drydensfairfax with a Letter of Claim in accordance with the Pre-Action for Debt Claims. I filled this claim out ticking box D stating 'I dispute the debt because I do not owe it' along with the same reasoning's as before and returned it. Now surely if I ticked that I dispute it something would have happened but I did not receive a reply to this dispute, it was seemingly ignored.
Then I do not hear anything until 7th February 2020 where I receive another letter from Drydensfairfax stating that the matter had now been transferred to a County Court Claim and my debt has now accrued further fees (what happened to the previous dispute I raised? - simply ignored like everything else I've sent them). The letter states that I will receive a Claim from the County Court and that if I ignore the Claim a CCJ will automatically be obtained. Obviously now this is getting very scary indeed with the threat of court action so I await this Claim in the hope that I'll be able to raise my concerns with Court about how unfair this whole situation is.
On 17th March I receive another letter from Drydensfairfax stating the the application has now been made to enter a CCJ against me. On March 18th followed by the actual CCJ from the court stating that I had not replied to the claim form - BUT I NEVER RECEIVED IT. Why on earth would I not reply to the Claim form when it was my only possible way of hopefully getting a judge to hear my side of the story?
At this point I am at my wits end. How can simply not updating an address lead to this - a CCJ and a solicitors threatening me with a Warrant of Control (sending a bailiff to my house), an Attachment of Earnings Order, or a Charging Order (securing the debt from my property). All this extra worry on top of the fact the Corona Virus is threatening our every day life as well. So I contact my own solicitor who after several weeks of backwards and forwards have given me no positive routes to go down either.
At the beginning of April in an attempt to try and get some further information I contacted Erudio who stated the the loan was indeed now void due to a lack of deferral - which has also lead to the termination of the 25 year write off period. This being only 5 years away - just in the nick of time for Erudio. They also stated that they would not have sent out emailed deferral reminders if I had not given them permission to do so, yet I have proof that in 2016 I signed up to an online account and they emailed me the reminder that same year. This all seems incredibly unethical of Erudio, especially as they have had issues in the past with various scams trying to get money out of former students just before their agreements were due to be cancelled.
I have spoken to Drydensfairfax as well and managed to get a 30 day extension whilst I attempted to get advice from my solicitor etc. They stated that the CCJ Claim was sent directly from the Courts and the issue of the Claim not arriving with me should be something I take up with them. On talking to the Courts, they said there was nothing they could do regarding me not receiving the Claim, and the only way that I can possibly get the judgement set aside was by filling out a N244 Application Notice at a charge of £255 (money I just can't afford with already investing in a solicitors) where a judge would look into it - chances are though he'd simply think I had ignored the original Claim and would through it out.
The last contact was 7th April from Drydensfairfax with yet another letter wanting me to agree to an affordable repayment plan, and it really now looks like I have no other choice.
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