WTF? Student Loans Company.

[Gwadien]

I've never seen such an incompetent company in all of my life.

To go through my history over a year is disgusting.

So, initially, they tell me, I'm entitled to £3.5k for the first year of University, but because my Dad started his own business, I decided to do a self-declaration form, to predict how much he'd earn, which meant my loan&grant went up to £6.5k.

So come to this year, we send in the forms and stuff, and ring up; 'Yeah, dividends aren't counted by us.' So here's another £2k for last year, and a massive loan/grant for this year.

Ring up again because my loan/grant went down massively; 'Nope, Dividends do count, now you've sent in evidence of them, they do count!' - So they send me another letter, saying I got a pure loan of £4.1k for last year, and £7-8k for this year, OK, odd I think, but it pays off my £3.5k debt of grants that I wasn't entitled to.

Oh no, next day, they make another letter telling me I still have the £4.1k loan, but I still have a £3.5k debt to them because they over-paid me.

I'm not bothered about the fact that they over paid me, I'm happy to accept what I'm entitled for (even though I think it's a stupid system that really punishes lower-middle class families.)

It's the fact that they've screwed me around so much, waving money infront of me saying HERE TAKE IT, then taking it back really fucking quickly, it's stressed me out to no end, and they're all useless fucks.

Where can I complain to, where it actually makes a fucking difference?

 

[Moriath]

I am guessing just the management chain in the company. Unless there's a public watchdog for them.

 

[Athan]

You could write to your MP about it, but that's a lottery on how much action it will lead to.

I did, however, do just that in light of SLC seemingly screwing up transferring my ancient 'mortgage style' loan to Erudio Student Loans. The first I actually knew of it was EDL activating the transferred Direct Debit (yes, that's a thing) to take money out of my account. I got my bank to reverse that, but am still puzzled as to why EDL didn't have my current OR last address (or apparently ANY address other than where I was resident in 1995 when I took out the final loan!) when I phoned them to try and find out why they'd not informed me of the end of deferment and offered me a chance to defer again. I did get the fresh deferral, but also included a letter asking them "WTF?", and sent a similar one to SLC and my MP.

Sure, I moved house last December, but I'm positive I informed SLC of this, and I had a Royal Mail redirect active until 21st March. The SLC website states that the loans were transferred on 1st March 2014 and they should have sent letters out starting 17th February 2014, so my redirect should have caught it if they'd somehow failed to update my address across their system.

SLC is apparently looking into my complaint, they still have about 10 working days to get back to me. No word from EDL other than confirming my new deferral (and I need to chase them if they don't send me a copy of my original loan agreement soon as they cashed the £1.00 cheque I sent for that), and only an acknowledgement so far from my MP.

So, yeah, shower of bastards etc.

 

[Gwadien]

It just seems to me they're behaving like loan sharks, my dad's firm did a lot better than he anticipated, and as a result, I get punished for it?

They letters to tell me I need to pay them back £3.5k was a totally different letter head, seemed a lot more formal and legal.

£2k of that money is THEIR fuck up, not mine, they gave me money that I didn't ask for, £1.5k of it, I thought I was (as I say, business did well etc)

I'll be paying them over £56k over my life time, I don't see the reason why they can't add a measly £3.5k to that debt, rather than forcing me to pay it by the end of my studies, let's face it, for me to find that amount of money in 2 years time, as a student is going to be stupid.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Did you have to take/spend the money and did you know it was extra money?

 

[Athan]

Did you have to take/spend the money and did you know it was extra money?

He trusted that they'd done their calculations correctly.

Had this been benefits rather than a student loan he'd be well within his rights to tell them to fuck off, as there's no reasonable expectation for him to know that they'd mis-calculated. (Yes, that happened to me when Greenwich council decided around a year after the fact that they'd mis-calculated some Housing Benefit and tried to claim it back from me. Having long since spent it on, you know, rent, I quoted their own website at them and informed them I'd not be paying it back).

 

[old.Tohtori]

I was asking if he knew it was too much. Because if you know that a government agency paid you too much, then you know there's a buttload of a chance they'll take it back and it's best to stash the money until they do.

 

[Gwadien]

I was asking if he knew it was too much. Because if you know that a government agency paid you too much, then you know there's a buttload of a chance they'll take it back and it's best to stash the money until they do.

Okay.

As I said, my Dad started his own business, so yeah, we predicted the amount of money he was going to earn, so therefore I was aware they could be potentially be taking money off me, if my Dad earned more than he predicted, which he did.

The fact that I rang up after getting an extra £2.2k off them in a grant, saying, look, why have I got this money, I don't understand, they replied with, Your Dad said he got paid in dividends, meaning that we don't count that, meaning you're entitled to that money.

So at that point, I was like, Yes, Great, I get all this money for fuck all, fucked up system, but it's legit.

I got back from Holiday, and I thought, I'd just check again, (after my Dad sent in a document proving his payment in dividends) and it turned out that my loan went down, and I was entitled to no grant anymore.

I rang up to be told that yes, Dividends do count, and that I need to pay back the £3.5k, which in all fairness, I thought I could keep, because after all, I was told that by the Company.

Luckily, I've only spent like £150 of it or so, but I was window shopping for all sorts of shit, thinking great, it's all sorted, for them to turn around and be like; NOPE!

The thing that grinds my gears about it is that they're so quick to send you the money, and fire letters at your direction (There's a letter called the Letter of Entitlement which shows you which you're going to be given.) I've been given probably around 20 this year, and 3 in the last 2 days, I mean, they checked it on the 27th of August, sent me a letter, then decided that was wrong, so send me another one on the 28th.

In a nutshell, you're right, I sort of expected all along that this would go tits up, but with all the conflicting messages that they send you with their woefully untrained staff, I was convinced otherwise.

It was very naive of me, but end of the day, these people are paid to do this job, that they do so badly, I shouldn't be worrying about it, they should be.

Also; In the small print of their letters it always says:- 'We reserve the right to claim back any money that we fuck up with.'

 

[old.Tohtori]

Well luckily you didn't spend more then that, otherwise the interest would pile on top and so on. Just pay it off and be done with it(unless this is your only cash at the moment, in which case you just have to prepare for the payback during the years). Might i suggest noodles? Also i did misunderstand your rage-target, my bad, missed that "it's not about the money" bit in the original post.

Only thing i know about f*ck ups like these, friend worked at one of these f*ck up agencies, is that they're probably woefully unstaffed and overworked. So i wouldn't take it out on the people working but the agency as a whole.

All i can really offer in advice is that I'd just rage at this one incident as long as it's out of your system, because it's only going to get more f*ckuppy later in life

 

[Gwadien]

Well luckily you didn't spend more then that, otherwise the interest would pile on top and so on. Just pay it off and be done with it(unless this is your only cash at the moment, in which case you just have to prepare for the payback during the years). Might i suggest noodles? Also i did misunderstand your rage-target, my bad, missed that "it's not about the money" bit in the original post.

Only thing i know about f*ck ups like these, friend worked at one of these f*ck up agencies, is that they're probably woefully unstaffed and overworked. So i wouldn't take it out on the people working but the agency as a whole.

All i can really offer in advice is that I'd just rage at this one incident as long as it's out of your system, because it's only going to get more f*ckuppy later in life

That's my point - What's the point me paying off £3.5k, when there is 0 interest on it, when I'm debt to them with about £56k + more (the more has extremely low interest on it)

They just seem to be so strangely organised, THEY fucked up on suggesting certain things, they should be saying, right, you owe us money, usually if you were totally in the wrong and blatantly lied to us then we'd ask for the money back by the time you finish Uni, but since this is our fault, we'll just add it the end of the huge debt you're already in.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Just a thought, not a judgement(have to pre-state this); have you considered suggesting this to them? No idea if it works that way over there, but around here i was able to "pause" my payback on a student loan by a year, giving me enough time to ave up etc. Also perhaps they'll accept a payment plan.

Just saying that it's atleast worth a shot to ask them and come up with an agreement.

Why they want you to pay 3.5k with 0 interest istead of 3.5k with itnerest is beyond me though, you're absolutely right(even if it's cheaper for you).

 

[Gwadien]

Just a thought, not a judgement(have to pre-state this); have you considered suggesting this to them? No idea if it works that way over there, but around here i was able to "pause" my payback on a student loan by a year, giving me enough time to ave up etc. Also perhaps they'll accept a payment plan.

Just saying that it's atleast worth a shot to ask them and come up with an agreement.

Why they want you to pay 3.5k with 0 interest istead of 3.5k with itnerest is beyond me though, you're absolutely right(even if it's cheaper for you).

Because I think they see it as, Right, you lied, we want out money back, also it's a grant, not a loan, I'd rather if they turned it into a loan with a little bit of interest though.

That really isn't the case.

Frankly, I think it'd be easier to walk to Glasgow and knock on the door, because getting through the pathetic levels of management when calling them is beyond a joke.

 

[Tilda]

In the SLC I have never met a more contemptible incompetent oxygen bandits.

It's worse for second degree medicine because half of them think you can't get any loan (you can) and fuck everything up. Almost every postgrad I know on my course has had problems due to the SLC's incompetence.

They do have a special email address if you mysteriously have spent the money and can't afford to pay it back. It is worth getting your MP involved, mine was useful in getting them to sort things out.
They're utter dicks if they pay your fees by mistake because they can snatch it back from the uni account they pay into, and then suddenly you have your uni going crazy saying you need to pay your full fees for the year or else you'll be kicked off the course.

 

[Gwadien]

In the SLC I have never met a more contemptible incompetent oxygen bandits.

It's worse for second degree medicine because half of them think you can't get any loan (you can) and fuck everything up. Almost every postgrad I know on my course has had problems due to the SLC's incompetence.

They do have a special email address if you mysteriously have spent the money and can't afford to pay it back. It is worth getting your MP involved, mine was useful in getting them to sort things out.
They're utter dicks if they pay your fees by mistake because they can snatch it back from the uni account they pay into, and then suddenly you have your uni going crazy saying you need to pay your full fees for the year or else you'll be kicked off the course.

I know someone at uni was fucking around with Student Finance once, and the Uni started threatening him, I think it's because Student Finance threaten to stop the loans for fees.

Basically, who ever has the money wins.

SINCE WHEN?! :O

 

[SilverHood]

In the SLC I have never met a more contemptible incompetent oxygen bandits.

It's worse for second degree medicine because half of them think you can't get any loan (you can) and fuck everything up. Almost every postgrad I know on my course has had problems due to the SLC's incompetence.

They do have a special email address if you mysteriously have spent the money and can't afford to pay it back. It is worth getting your MP involved, mine was useful in getting them to sort things out.
They're utter dicks if they pay your fees by mistake because they can snatch it back from the uni account they pay into, and then suddenly you have your uni going crazy saying you need to pay your full fees for the year or else you'll be kicked off the course.

They are massive c*nts. I had so many issues, and they pale in comparison to what happened to my youngest brother. The worst I experienced was having them approve to pay for my fees and putting it into my student loan, then not paying the uni on time, so I had to front the money myself or be kicked of the course. Then when they did finally pay, several months late, I couldn't get either the uni nor the student loans company to pay me back, each wanted me to claim the money back from the other.

My brother's story is the stuff of nightmares. We had to write to our MP several times to get his stuff sorted. And she did, fair play to her. Then she had to resign during expense-gate.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Basically, who ever has the money wins.

SINCE WHEN?! :O

Ran by EA.

 

[Gwadien]

Ran by EA.

Student Loans Company uses a old and outdated system which is poor and has terrible customer service, but people have no choice but to use them.

Yup. EA.

 

[Raven]

I didn't have any problems with finance for my student loan a few months back, took about two weeks from application to the Uni getting the funds.

Might be different because its through the OU and I am not applying for any beer money.

 

[Gwadien]

I didn't have any problems with finance for my student loan a few months back, took about two weeks from application to the Uni getting the funds.

Might be different because its through the OU and I am not applying for any beer money.

Yeah, it's because yours is relatively straight forward i'd imagine, how much do you earn, okay, here's your money, mines a lot more complex, and they don't deal with complex well.

 

[Gwadien]

Hahaha, to top it off, they just sent my parents a letter asking them if their income is the same me as is it for my brother who's also starting university.

Wat.