Hot on the heels of the Wonga scandal, UK university graduates who have fallen behind on their loan repayments have been receiving threatening communications from what purports to be a third party debt collection agency but is in fact a pseudonym for the Student Loans company.
Whilst Wonga are currently in dialogue with the city of London police with regards to its previously employed spurious practices, it has emerged that letters have been sent to indebted graduates from a ‘debt collection’ company known as ‘Smith Lawson & Company Recovery services’ as revealed on the Buzzfeed News website.
The letters which are said to contain phrases such as “We are instructed by our client” would suggest that Smith Lawson is an independent third part company and the company’s voicemail makes no mention of a the Student Loans Company.
It is only detailed in small print at the bottom of the letters that Smith Lawson is in fact a trading name for the Student Loans Company, a government body.
The Student Loans Company is reported to have said that Smith Lawson was introduced as a cost effective measure to save having to pay commissions to external debt collection agencies.