Be Excellent To Each Other

1. If you don't pay your student loan for a certain number of years does it get written off? (I think it used to be about 5 years?)

2. Is it illegal to put leaflets under car wipers?

3. Can you take someone to court if you lent them money (credit) and they stopped paying it off (back) but you only had a verbal agreement and one witness?

It's been ask GJ today, like I'm the font of all knowledge.

1. Used to be 25 years I think, but they changed the system a couple of years after I started ('98?) so it might be different.

If it was only 5, I'd have seriously entertained the possibility of bumming around until they wrote it off.

I should probably have phrased it better as I'm posting on "the internet forum with the largest amounts of implications of bumsex."

Yes, it's fly-posting. That may need should qualification with "Yes, if the local authority has banned it". I'm not sure.

I think this depends on the reasons why you didn't pay it.

Yeah, I'm fairly sure it's only written off if you're below the earnings threshold for X years, not just if you didn't fancy paying it.

Yeah, that's what I meant sorry, got a friend who did her HND seven (I think) years ago, she's not got to the income threshold yet so was just wondering.

Yes, you can take them to court. Your chances, however, are probably no better than average.

In Scotland you definitely can, but we have a completely different set of laws regarding verbal contracts (and contracts in general) to the rest of the UK. For a fun fascinating fact, this is why a lot of companies that sell a service (say, for example, Sky TV) base their call centres in Scotland - it provides them with much more legal weight in someone agreeing to something over the phone.

Cripes, I'd often wondered why that was. Another of life's mysteries solved for me, there.

Hmm, can you cite this? It seems unlikely to me that it would be Scottish local law that would apply under those circumstances.

I thought the prevalence of call centres in Scotland was due to plenty of cheap labour, and some surveys which showed that out of the various provincial accents in the UK the Scottish one was preferred by customers and easier to understand on slightly bad quality phone lines. Similar reasons have led to quite a lot of call centres in South Wales.

Also, of course, once there are a lot of call centres in an area, there are lots of call centre staff, which means future call centres are more likely to locate there.

I know you're really busy, butt

actually thats just reminded me I got interest free store credit when I bought a guitar and rang up the company I had to pay it back to, and had a really nice chat with a scottish guy who used to live in south shields, and I didnt mind paying my 300 odd quid over then and thought does anyone have nice conversations like that over the phone and wondered if he broke his companys policy by being friendly.

I was chatting to a nice chap at Natwest call centre about making my overdraft a bit more accommodating and he turned out to be in the same CS clan as me.

friendly and geeky isnt the same thing.

Unless it's a TV judge like Judge Judy.

You'll win every single time in those courts.

How did this come up in a bank conversation?
Also: Did he bump it up higher because you two were buds?

And they're cheaper than Indians.

I find that legal stuff about Scotland very hard to believe. If they cold call me from Scotland, and I'm in England, why should Scottish legislation apply? Surely they've approached me on English soil? Or we've met somewhere in the technology ether, somewhere around Newcastle?

Indeed, if it were true they'd just base the call centre somewhere like Zimbabwe with no laws whatsoever.

Isn't that what they've done?

*ring ring*
"Hello?"
"Hello Sir. You are now in a twelve year contract with O2 just by answering the phone. This is the law in Zimbabwe".

Plus Fife Council tends to dish out large helpings of welfare to the larger corporations. See for example the massive, brand new but mothballed factory just up the road with a large sign outside marked: Hyundai / Motorola / Some Hopeless Letting Agency.

Proper LOL from me then, birthday-boy.

"You now owe us $234,543,736,236,295,953,246,693,969,694.25...

...excluding VAT."

VAT in Zimbabwe is 9000%

I didn't have time to apply for a credit card because I had a CS match in five minutes.

No, he couldn't get me one at all, the loser.

PWND

HA><0R

More...

1. Can you drink alcohol on Emirates planes? (All of my friends are alcoholics..)
2. Can you get floor tiles up with a wallpaper steamer?

Emirates website say they have a wine list on their planes, so I guess so. I wouldn't be surprised if they're a bit less indulgent of drunkenness than BA or easyJet though.

Not sure about the tiles - I'd imagine steamers only work on water based paint. I have no idea what tiles are stuck down with.

Me again, I decided to stop taking over the B&B thread.

If someone has low intellectual abilities, or has learning difficulties, are they classed as disabled? I would have thought that having a low intellectual ability or a learning difficulty was a disability in it's own right as it makes you less-abled than others?

I ain't touhing this one, sorry!

If they are "statemented" (have a statement of special educational needs) Then I think they are. I think what actually determines whether they are or not depends on if they get disability allowance, or if their carer gets disability living allowance.

And they are determined by how much help they need "above and beyond the needs of a typical person"

I think.

Malc

I'm pretty sure that Student Loans get written off if you're out of the country for more than x years where x is the I can't find a reference to this anywhere, but it is a strong hunch.

A strong hunch is a disability.

Hmm, thanks Malc.

If you live and work abroad for 10 years it gets written off.... thats my plan anway!

It's possessive and there are three researchers so it's plural too. Where does the apostraphe go? Chris? Anybody?

researchers'

That was my thinking, I hope we are right.

Thanks MaliA.

The law with apostrophes is put it after what you would say if you weren't being possessive.

They are the researchers. So it goes after the S.

That is why people often get it wrong when the plural of something doesn't end in 'S', and why some things look wrong even though they are right.

Or something.