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Published on February 10, 2008

Lt-Colonel Prajin Chatjoho said he had received a letter from SLF claiming that his daughter Nattayanee Chatjoho owed Bt65,000 in student loans and must start repaying with Bt26,000 by March 31 or the SLF would revoke the contract and collect the whole amount.

The letter also said that if she failed to repay the whole amount, Prajin, as her father and guarantor, would face legal action. His daughter died in August 1981 from encephalitis as a result of chicken pox when she was only one-and-a-half years old, he said, presenting Nattayanee's birth certificate, death certificate and the SLF invoice to reporters. He also said he had not been able to reach anyone at the SLF phone number on the letter so had asked for his daughter's "loan application" documents from the Nakhon Ratchasima Educational Area 1 Office but been told that the documents had been sent to the SLF. He therefore decided to file a police complaint so officials could investigate how such a thing could happen, he said.

Police Senior Sgt-Major Nikhom Jaemsuwan from the Ratchaburi Internal Security Operations Command filed a compliant with Muang Ratchaburi police on February 5, saying that the SLF had sent a letter demanding that he repay Bt12,056, when in fact he had graduated over 30 years ago and never taken out a student loan.

The letter he received identified him as a "Miss Nikhom Jaemsuwan" along with his correct identification-card number and student code, he said, and it stated that the student loan was Bt7,008 plus Bt1,880 interest. Since Nikhom had not contacted the fund to repay the debt, the fund also fined him Bt3,158, thus the total amount to pay before March 31 was Bt12,056, he cited the letter as saying.

"I am puzzled, because I graduated over 30 years ago and never borrowed money to study. I'm not sure if it's a mistake or a criminal attempt to get money from me, so I've lodged a compliant with police." he said.

A source at SLF said that the case of Nikhom had been reported to SLF Manager Thada Martin, and he had ordered debt-management officials to check what had gone wrong. The result should be ready for Thada on Monday. As for the case of Nattayanee, SLF officials would soon inform Thada about it.

The source admitted there had been several cases like these that had not made the news because they were data errors rather than criminal attempts to extort money. The source said the SLF had checked civil registration information with the Interior Ministry and found people with the same names or last names, thus these cases might be data errors.

The Nation

Nakhon Ratchasima