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How long does student finance take?
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Been waiting a month for them to acknowledge receipt of my evidence...So still rather anxious at this point...0
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Flickering_Ember wrote: »Been waiting a month for them to acknowledge receipt of my evidence...So still rather anxious at this point...
My son's is now sorted. It took about 7 weeks for my payslip to be returned and then another week before we received his notification that it has been sorted. They must be up to at least 13th April with the evidence because that is the date they received my payslip.
I have some other evidence that they received on the 30th April and that hasn't come back yet so they must by now be up to somewhere between the two dates evidence wise.
I think you possibly have two or three weeks yet to get to the top of the pile, so I wouldn't worry too much just yet that they have lost it or anything.0 -
Began the process of getting finance for son back in March 2010 and still no nearer getting it sorted.
Have had emails requesting info already sent; and now find that details for husbands self employment tax return were not in correct format! Funny that since we used them in that same format for previous children in previous years; no problems then.
If they had told us the problem back in March it might have been sorted earlier, but their generic emails asking for evidence don't give you a clue as to what they want.. and as for phoning up, well it just depends whether you get someone who knows what they're talking about.
They asked for my marriage certificate and kept it for 2 months, returning it when I complained about that. Still not sure why I had to send it; never done that before.
Have complained via the complaints address about the poor service 2 weeks ago and they didn't respond.
If it was a business it would have been shut down years ago, its a poor service.
Anyone else having problems this year?0 -
I am really relieved that ours is sorted but I am not looking forward to next year when I have both boys applying.
What did help though with ours was getting my son to give permission to share so they could access his acount when I phoned up. It was only when they could do that that we got some idea of what was causing delays in our case. My Son is in the Midlands and we are in Kent and it was so much easier when one of us could phone and they could access both accounts. Everytime he phoned they told him something different about what evidence they were missing. It was our evidence that seemed to be the problem so it made sense for me to phone them because I knew what had been sent and he didn't.
I agree it is pot luck when you phone up whether you get someone who knows what they are talking about. They also didn't answer my email so I don't know why they bothered putting an email address on my audit letter.
A lot of our problems have been caused by their refusal to accept a hand written P60. It was on the proper form but handwritten and not typed and they won't accept it. Well they did last year but changed their minds when they decided to do an audit and asked for all last years evidence again.
I am still waiting for my 2008/2009 P 60's to be returned. It is lucky I don't need them for anything else.0 -
a) Never send original documents-they'll lose them
b)Always use recorded delivery-last year they seemed to have a 2 tier system for regular/recorded post
c)Get names for everyone you deal with ,their section and dates and times
d)Last year they were operating from two locations.Darlington finally produced a result
e) Watch out for the 'debt collectors' that's them in disguise. My daughter transferred universities but it took 3 months to convince then that 'withdrawn' didn't mean she's opted out of the system. They tried to bill her for £360
f)Ensure there is permission for you to ring on behalf of a student otherwise the tactic is to get them to ring on a mobile
g)If you don't get sense say you want to record a complaint-they'll say they don't take telephone complaints, but it wasn't true last year.Daughter applied in July and finally got the money in the following February0 -
I sent in my application (means tested) on 26 May, today I recieved an acknowledgement that it is all being processed, I phoned yesterday and they say it is being entered on the system at the moment. They said they were working on post from end of April.
I cant help feeling a sense of dread that all the payments will be late like last year (I am a new student)
I also cant help thinking that they are already 6/7 weeks behind already and the cut off date for the new starters on means tested finance isnt for a few weeks, what kind of backlog will there be then, I think its pretty shabby for a government dept to have that kind of a build up, its not like they dont know this will happen every year why dont they staff it properly0 -
I've been doing a 6 year degree so my experience might be different to new students. For the last 2 years of my course I was unable to complete the online application due to their limited course year options. If last years !!!! up was anything to go by, filling out the paper version was the best thing I ever did!! My applications have usually been sent and processed within 6 weeks (last year it took 3) and I have always sent the paper form direct to my local authority student finance department, rather than via the central online processing centres (wherever they are). Last year I received a call from the lady who was processing my form about 4 days after I posted it, just to check my details and confirm that she was entering my details onto the system - evidently 1000x more efficient then the organisation dealing with the online applications!! Based on last year, be prepared to receive your money late and take appropriate precautions. Beware the online application...0
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I have always used recorded post as its the only way to know its got there.
I complained about the service (they took 2 weeks to respond) but they finally caved in and agreed that they all the info they wanted after all. Son has his loan 3 months after they had all the documents they needed in the first place.
Ironically, they also emailed me about someone else's complaint - what a state of affairs!
Next year will be better as only new students have to go through Darlington and our LEA is efficient with loans.
:j0 -
my daughters application submitted in March, with our forms for 08-09 and evidence
they lost my husbands form and did not tell us until May, re-sent it along with current year's assessment forms as our income is way lower (< 20k) as not working now, despite being sent 6th May they can't tell me if they have got there safely yet & have just got a letter saying the 08-09 evidence is rejected so have to do it again
meanwhile the on-line system shows evidence is all OK!!
really worried, telephoned today but man said they were inundated with paperwork and were still working on April 27th stuff - like I should feel sorry for them!
aaaggghhhhhh:mad:0 -
I can't remember when I applied, must have been beginning of the year.
My application is means-tested, and we sent off all our evidence, eventually got a letter with the amount for if we were non-means tested! I rung them up at the beginning of May and they said they were still processing April's evidence.
However, I did get a letter today which said I was getting what I was expected to get.[STRIKE]Seventeen[/STRIKE] [STRIKE]Eighteen[/STRIKE] Nineteen(!) year old student - dim at the best of times0
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