Any experts on UK Student Loan Company debts?

Hello everyone,

Both me and my girlfriend have started university in UK, but have not finished mainly due various psychological pressures. We moved to Germany to start anew. Now, time has come the SLC is on our throats via emails demanding an immediate action and to start paying. They also approached her parents trying to wrench out of them our German address. We have received threats that debt will sell to third party, which will track us down and that we can be summoned to a court here in Germany if we don't respond.

Now, I believe education should be free and student loans especially equipped with interested rate are fraudulent business. The way how young people are being presented the institution of university as something utterly vital to our future lives sounds more like scam to lure students into a life long debt slavery in many cases. Ironically, a lot of people drop out for various reasons and don't even get the chance to 'cash out' on their degree. Anyway, enough of philosophy.

I used to be member of GOODF which is dead, but after some digging I have landed here hoping that some members of the old guard had made their new encampment here. I used to deal with banks in past, but SLC is a whole different kind of devil with a direct governmental support. Whilst reading the old GOODF forums, there was one particular warrior going by handle VisuJulz that seemed to be on the right track with student loans, I wonder if any of you know him or perhaps, whether he moved on here too. Nonetheless, I believe that more of you might know exactly what to do in order to defeat them.

To sum it up - they do have our emails and looked my gf up on internet as she is trying to set up her freelance persona. So they also know her artist handle and have tried to contact her on both email addresses with series of threats. She is scared and quite fragile under pressure. Most worries come from the fact her parents are being approached as well, coerced to give up her whereabouts. They live under an impression that they will become an eventual target if she cannot be tracked down successfully.

Do we know any effective countermeasures? What to actual be afraid of and what is just empty threats from their side? Can we deal with them without give up our current address? It seems that this place is our only hope to find any answers.

Thanks everyone hundredfold in advance for any tip/piece of knowledge or method to tackle this unpleasantry victoriously.

Cheers

Six

I've just finished my first year and reapplied for finance for next year so am not yet in the position you find yourself in. The loan paperwork states that you have to earn over £25000 p.a. before you need to pay anything back. (At my interview I was told I'll never have to pay anything back as I'm unlikely to earn that much - doing Herbal Medicine). Have you checked the small print to see if they have anything to say about paying back if you discontinue? That would be a good place to start.

this is proberbly not too much help, but when i was a "lad"  - student - things were different, student loans were under the CCA 1974 - no longer (since I think 1998) - now something else! so cannot use the Joint Giro to pay it off!

Solosmurf wrote:I've just finished my first year and reapplied for finance for next year so am not yet in the position you find yourself in.  The loan paperwork states that you have to earn over £25000 p.a. before you need to pay anything back.  (At my interview I was told I'll never have to pay anything back as I'm unlikely to earn that much - doing Herbal Medicine). Have you checked the small print to see if they have anything to say about paying back if you discontinue?  That would be a good place to start.  

Well the situation for my gf is even more ridiculous. She started uni at 2010 when tuition fees were still around 3K. However, she moved away to another city out of the reach of her parents to study what she thought was a better option to a local university. So her threshold was actually 18K. Said that, her parents refused to support (despite having the means) her anyhow whilst there and despite studying and working her ass off, she had to apply for also maintenance loan with the same governmental 'loan sharks' (yes they do make profit on those and yes they use coercion). Thus effectively, she'd end up to with a 6-7K p/a for three years, then she dropped because of her peaking psychological problems.

The point is, that GOODF original website had a whole sub-forum dedicated to student loans that is no longer here. I would really want to speak to experts on how to deal with the government mafia - three letters, copyright? or any other most updated strategy that could be used here?

Also, how seriously shall we treat emails if they still have not track us down. Can they really summoned us before a court in Germany?

I hope someone relevant out there will get to this

The starting point for fighting student loans is one the international covenants many govts have signed.

It says that the country needs an educated workforce so the country should pay for it, not the individual. I think the words in the covenant concerned say something like .... education must be free.......

Sorry cant think of the title right now.

are there any updates regarding this?