Martin Lewis explains how millions of people can claim back thousands in overpaid loans

The Money Saving Expert has revealed graduates could be owed ‘hundreds or thousands’ if they fit within a certain category.

If there’s one person we can always rely on to let us know when we’re owed money, it’s none other than Mr Martin Lewis.

And this time he’s taken to TikTok to warn us that some of us might actually be owed in the region of ‘hundreds or thousands’ of pounds. Have a listen:

His latest video is aimed at anyone with an outstanding student loan, and we know that whenever you put ‘student’ and ‘owed money’ in the same sentence, a lot of people are having a good day.

Martin says that if you do have one outstanding, then you may be ‘one of up to a million people who overpaid it unnecessarily last year’.

And the best news is, you can claim it back!

Martin said: “There is no backdate to how far back you can reclaim, so there are a lot of people out there who may be due money.”

Instagram/@martinlewismse

He firstly talks through all of the different ‘overpayment categories’, the first and biggest one being that 833,000 people repaid when they weren’t earning enough to repay.

The next category is made up of 165,000 people who are on the wrong student loan repayment plan.

The vast majority of people start repaying their loan when they earn over £27,000 annually, Martin says, which is known as ‘Plan 2’.

But a select few people are on ‘Plan 1’, which is where you earn over £22,000 annually.

If the company you work for doesn’t know what plan you’re on, they automatically start the loan repayment at £22,000, Plan 1.

Meaning that you might be owed some cash!

Another group of people who could be owed money is 57,000, who carried on paying their student loan even after it was paid off.

Christopher Bill on Unsplash

And the final category is 49,000 people, who start paying off their loan too early.

Martin told his TikTok followers that they can only start paying it back obviously if they earn over the threshold, but also not until the April after they graduated.

He also shared a shocking statistic with viewers, that only 20% of people who are on repayment ‘Plan 2’ will ever pay off their student loan in full.

And the best thing about this whole situation is that it’s super easy to claim your money back, or to find out whether you're owed some.

Martin said: “Get in touch online or phone your Student Loans Company.”