ExpatAl

Hi all - it's been a while!

What's the deal with repaying student loans out here? What would happen if you don't pay it?

Cheers,
Al

Gavtek

If you're not planning to pay it, you need to go off the grid a bit. They recently ramped up their efforts at going after people. A common tactic seems to be finding people on LinkedIn and calling their place of work and contacting them that way. And if the person doesn't take the call, they'll happily try to embarrass them by informing whichever colleague handles the call all about why they're calling and introducing themselves as "counter-fraud investigation". Basically, if you want to avoid paying, make yourself untraceable through social media.

scrubbedexpat141

So, the mrs repays hers and it's a bit of a shambles, others she works with have avoided it for ages....but here's the play (if you don't want to repay in full):

1. Don't run away from it, it's stealing.
2. Contact them and tell them you've moved abroad.
3. Tell them you earn very, very little and that it's very, very expensive.
4. Prepare yourself for a silly amount to be demanded from them.
5. Send an 'edited' pay slip for a low amount.
6. Receive a much more reasonable monthly repayment figure.
7. Set it up.

Hers went from (no joke) £560 a month to £6. I think we're at about £17 now. But they base some of these decisions on what an internal document they have says the cost of living is in Dubai and whether it's gone up or down...etc.
Ridiculous, she's asked to increase it to something sensible but they're just so awkward and hard to deal with it becomes more hassle than it's worth.

DXBtoDOH

Mildly curious, Scamp, what was Mrs Scamp's debt load for university? What's it like for a typical grad now? Bit fortunate I never needed to worry about funds for university so I can't imagine coming out already saddled with a large debt.

scrubbedexpat141

She graduated a few years back, before the big price hike I believe (grad in 2010 I think).

Her student loan had to fund everything for her, fees, accommodation the works. Think she ended up with about 20-25k on her student loan for her degree and post-grad.

Millhouse

scrubbedexpat141

You probably went when it was free.

DXBtoDOH

Millhouse and I went at a time when it was only £1,000 a year.

I don't know which is more scandalous, that we went practically for free or that today's students are charged a fortune.

ExpatAl

Cheers all - yeah I've seen on the website that they believe the cost of living here is lower than the UK...

Forking out a few thousand dirhams a month wouldn't be ideal!

jam25mack

I still owe some.... but its probably sub 2K GBP.

When I lived in Q8 (2006) they were massively aggressive and used to call me up chasing payments generally a week before the payment was even due. Finally I got a decent guy and said I would send in a chunk of about 1,500 GBP and to email me when it ran out (monthly payments were around 200 GBP) IIRC. Did that two or three times and then never heard from them again..... at a guess the guy left.

Isn't there a time limit where after that they write it off?

Not too bothered so if they contact me i'll pay, however, I'm certainly not going to help them out. They're a shower of cnuts to deal with.

scrubbedexpat141

Honestly, do what you can to reduce what your salary looks like to them and it will help massively.

Their cost of living calculator is broken and years out of date / years to update. When prices drop here, theirs go up and vice versa so one way it's good, the other it's awful.

I believe so and researched it a while ago but can't remember the outcome, it was a way away. You're probably old enough to write it off now though

If they were able to communicate over email it would make it easier but phone, fax and post is just ****ing atrocious for such a huge money lender.

Such is, avoiding it is stealing.

Millhouse

DXBtoDOH

I didn't pay a fils either. Parents covered everything.

Someone mentioned to me the real reason why today's youths are so pro-Labour despite the awfulness and hypocrisy of Corbyn boils down to university tuition fees. It doesn't matter that Labour is equally complicit but they are the only party openly talking about abolishing them and that's pretty much the answer there. And I am sympathetic in this regard. It's really not fair to force most of today's students to borrow so much for their worthless degrees from third tier toilet universities when people born a decade or two earlier got to go to Oxbridge for free.

Millhouse

Who said it had to be fair? The same generation won't be getting a pension or free-for-life healthcare.

UK fees are still cheap compared to many other places. Personally, I think only certain degrees should be free based on forward commercial needs - but there goes the arts.

nonthaburi

I left debt free with a mild drug addiction.