Erudio woes

[Doogiedogg]

Re: Erudio woes

Hi guys,

Keep fighting and whatever you do, dont give in. This is a war and i am not going to lose it. I am also self employed and have never earned over the income threshold, so my loans have been in constant deferment. I have always provided my tax return to SLC with no questions asked, and why should they be. A tax return is an official government document declaring your income. falsifying this document, as you are warned when filling it out is tax fraud and punishable by a prison sentence. To this extent it should be evidence enough of Income.

Erudio however are refusing to accept this evidence and refusing to place my loans into deferment. I have been in dispute with them since April this year, now that might sound like countless letters/emails, but Erudio takes so long to reply there hasnt been. I have just received my latest reply from Erudio in response to an email i sent nearly half a year ago. I have not spoken to Erudio over the phone nor do i intend to as i am not going to waste my time and money and I want a complete written record of what has happened.

I too was aghast at the pages of info Erudio were trying to collect. With SLC you ticked 1 box on 1 page of A4, signed your name, sent in your evidence, and your loan was in deferment. Erudio want to know everything about your life and personal circumstances. Im not applying for a new loan, i have a loan and the conditions are when i earn over a certain income threshold i have to pay it back, if i dont i can defer, simple as that. It never said you have to declare all your assets and provide details about your partner and how you support yourself and provide evidence to back this up. To this extent, my deferment form, was mostly filled with "none of your business" in all the boxes. I then wrote a long complaint to Erudio about this phishing/data collection exercise and the waste of paper and cost of having to post all this paper back to them.

As Erudio refused to place my loans in deferment they then decided to create a direct debit on my account without my permission, they then started to take money out of my bank account for 3 months until by bank informed me that i was now super overdrawn and they wanted this money back, which i dont have. Erudio never informed me they had set up a direct debit and they never informed me about when or how much money they were going to take from my bank account, so they were in direct breach of the Direct Debit Guarantee, so my bank refunded me straight away.

Erudio, however have still to respond to my complaint regarding this or the bank charges and fees that are not covered by the DDG, that i have to recover from Erudio direct. I expect i will get a response to this email around April 2015. I did however get a letter stating that my account was in arrears due to failed payments. This letter had an overtly threatening tone and spoke about how credit reference agencies would be informed and could result in my not being able to obtain credit in the future. Now as a self employed man that relies on credit this is disastrous if true. The lost irony is that if i cant get credit my business will fail, which means i will still not reach the income threshold and thus not have to repay my loans.

Overall Erudio\Arrow Debt Collectors are a disgrace of a company and the Tories should be ashamed at themselves, for selling our debt for profit to the highest bidder just like the banks did. I have no intention of paying Erudio any money until i am legally obliged to. I will not be sending in any further information until my deferment period should have ended. I will then fill out the form again exactly as before and i will send in my latest tax return. I will be keeping all of this on record as evidence that i have met with the T&C's of my loan. I am happy to continue along this line until i reach the income threshold or my loan expires. Should Erudio destroy my business and personal life by damaging my credit file, i will look into civil proceedings to recover my losses and claim compensation. In this instance i will not be using any of this money to pay back my student loan as i am perfectly entitled to stay in deferment as per my original T&C's, I suggest you all do the same should they ever offer you compensation. Demand that is is paid to you and not written of your loans.

Best of Luck, stay strong and i will update you of any developments.

[Nibbler]

Re: Erudio woes

Have you referenced the FOS in your complaints? If not, do so, saying you will take them to the FOS regardless 8 weeks from your initial complaint, or immediately if that timescale has already passed. Then contact/complain the FOS when appropriate.

Think FOS are doing a holding pattern with Erudio complaints, but at least get one in at the first point you can.

[strapped4cash]

Re: Erudio woes

Hi everyone, I'm now at the point where I've been to the CAB about Erudio demands that I pay arrears due to their delay in granting deferment. I had sent Erudio the SA302 3 times before they granted it, BTW it never had to be officially stamped by HMRC. The only deferment application that worked was one that contained their form with ALL the information and evidence, and was sent by Recorded Delivery. In an attempt to get them to write off the arrears I've now lodged an official complaint with Erudio, which has had to state all the facts and provide all the evidence. You have to do this first before you can approach the Financial Ombudsman. It's disgusting, but then we know what scum these people are. You have to box clever and beat them at their own legal game.

[weevil6969]

Re: Erudio woes

Basically, Erudio are treating people who were in good standing with SLC like criminals upon whom the onus rests to prove they are innocent. The inference with demanding a stamped SA302 from HMRC is that people are fiddling with official government documents in Photoshop to get out of paying money they don't even owe, because they have proven they are under the threshold, using documents that would hold up in a court of law.

Furthermore, it might be in the fine (or not-so-fine) print when you initially apply for a mortgage through a private institution that a stamped SA302 is a requirement of the terms of the loan and credit approval... this was NEVER a requirement with SLC and Erudio are in breach of an existing contract by demanding one without prior written notice of a change to T & Cs and giving us xx number of days/whatever to agree to any new terms, or negotiate new terms with them.

Last time I checked this was still a democratic country, or did I sleep through when Erudio were crowned King and we were thrown back to the days of feudalism?

Why there hasn't been a class action instigated against these a**clowns is beyond me.

[strapped4cash]

Re: Erudio woes

Weevil6969, Your partner is being bullied. I would send Erudio a copy of the HMRC printout, stating how it was produced. It IS good enough, tell them so. Keep a record (with dates) of everything you do and send them, just in case it turns nasty. Send everything by Recorded Delivery or email, and keep those emails. Word everything with a court judge in mind. it's ridiculous that we're all having to think like lawyers, but that's what it's come to. Good luck.

[weevil6969]

Re: Erudio woes

Thanks strapped4cash... that is what we intend to do, but that doesn't make things any less stressful, knowing they are in the wrong. We started a strongly worded letter to them last night, which will have the words 'cease and desist' prominently figuring... with the threat of legal action should they take money they are not entitled to or report negatively to any CRAs.

[snowman]

....

[weevil6969]

Re: Erudio woes

An update:

We've written to Erudio with a 'formal' 2nd complaint (with dates of events, and grievances, and all of Erudio's cock-ups) since they ignored the first, and they are now telling US by post (since we told them to officially cease and desist with the harassment line) what the 'formal' complaint process is even though they haven't followed it themselves! We recited line and verse where they have flouted the current law plus the agreement already in place with SLC (and pointed out how everyone & sundry said the T & C's wouldn't change)...

We copied in, and wrote a separate complaint to the FOS, AND also wrote the Education Sec. Nicky Morgan, AND our local MP to see what they plan to do about it, and threatened to go to the press. We cited all the pre-existing forum chat, and the Radio 4 piece, AND the Guardian piece from spring, et al., demanding someone take accountability for these cowboys who are allowed to make up their own rules as they go along. Too many people are being harassed and bullied for information Erudio is not legally entitled to and we've taken a stand, for ourselves and everyone else they are treating so reprehensibly. Both Erudio and the FOS have clocked out complaint so stay tuned!

[strapped4cash]

Re: Erudio woes

Follow-up: Amazing! Today I received a long letter from Erudio wiping the arrears I shouldn't have accrued, with an apology and a promise of £100 to compensate me for my distress and inconvenience. From now on, everything is being sent to them by email or recorded delivery.

[weevil6969]

Re: Erudio woes

You know what? We got an apology from them too, and my partner finally got his deferment approved... and they wiped his 'arrears' (which were non-existent) and admitted they were at fault!

I am really shocked. So threats seem to have worked. So we'll see what happens next year. Funny thing is, a standard form letter with another threat from them came via 2nd class mail, which crossed in the post with the personal reply from an account manager advising of the outcome. They are so hideously unorganised, it's truly amazing.

[Nibbler]

Re: Erudio woes

Same story on other forums. Somewhere some heads have been banged together it seems.

[PAWS]

Re: Erudio woes

Lions 0 Christians 10 !belly-dance.gif

Congratulations everyone. Let us hope they do the same for all those they have wrongly harassed.

[strapped4cash]

Re: Erudio woes

That made me laugh! I'm very pleased for you. It looks as though they are finally having to back down and do the right thing. If the apology letter you received is anything like mine, it puts the blame down to 'administrative error'. Somehow I feel it is way more sinister than that, but for now, we have victory. I too am waiting to see what happens next year. For sure, I'll be sending everything by email or Recorded Delivery so I have definite proof they have received it so they can't wriggle, and I recommend everyone does the same.

[PAWS]

Re: Erudio woes

Thankfully I don’t have a student loan or anything to do with these gits but because they are infected with the Arrow Global virus I despise them and all DCAs. For me any blow they receive is like getting a big snoggy kiss from Antonio Banderas (without the beard and as he looked in Evita)phew-smiley-emoticon.gif

[Yantob]

Re: Erudio woes

So, just to clarify, did you guys who got a deferment and an apology sign their new form? I'm reticent to do so as this seems to be a way of getting you to consent to a change in original T&Cs. I'd sent off payslips and a covering letter and they just sent a form back asking me to fill it in again. My wife works part time so we get tax credits, I didn't send these off the first time but suppose I'd need to as it's in both our names. Child benefit - how can they class that as my income - it's for my kids and just happens to go into our account. I'm wondering too if they'd view all our tax credits and child benefit as solely my income even if it's in both our names? Are they legally entitled to ask you for bank statements?

Sorry for all the questions but the more I read about these scumbags...