Money Student Finance claimed was paid into my account is missing

Tigersilly

Student Finance claim that they have paid a maintenance grant into my account in Oct, however the bank has no details of this transaction.

Student Finance has told me that to their knowledge the bank has accepted the money and the transaction has gone through. I have been contacting the bank and SF all afternoon and both parties are claiming that I need to raise the issue with the other.

SF has suggested that they can put a trace on the money and will charge me £15 for this. They have told me that it is the bank's fault and they refuse to incur any costs made for the fault of the bank. I feel that if it is the fault of the bank as SF claims it is, then SF should be willing to incur any charges and then ask for a refund from the bank, if it is indeed found to be the bank's fault. As I am the recipient of the money, I don't believe that I can ask the bank to refund money to me should I incur any charges that turn out to be its fault.

I'm really quite worried about the issue. Can anyone offer me any advice on what it is best to do next?

Lokolo

Have you checked what bank details you have supplied? You can check online.

Tigersilly

Hi,I know that SF have the correct bank details because I received my maintenance loan and the next instalment of my grant and loan in January. I just don't know where this money has gone.

The_One_Who

From October?! It's nearly February now.

As Lokolo says, you should check the bank details your provided. It's easy to mistype a number.

Tigersilly

I have been contacting my bank and SF since Oct and I was told that I needed to send in a bank statement to SF to prove the money was missing. I did that via recorded delivery and although it was delivered, they have no record of this.

The_One_Who

You should be able to put in official complaints with them.

Taiko

I will guess you are income assessed on parents/partner. If that's the case, I might be able to get it resolved a bit quicker for you. Drop a PM if needbe, and I'll see what I can do.

Tigersilly

I'm not actually assessed on my parents' incomes as I am over the threshold age.

rb10

If Student Finance sent the payment incorrectly, then the money could have gone into a holding/unidentified credits account.

Who have you spoken to at your bank? Just people in the branch/telephone banking, or a specialist department? Given Student Finance's general uselessness, it would be worth trying to sort it out with your bank if you can.

You want to speak directly to someone in the appropriate department - this will be called something like Payment and Clearing Services (different banks will call this slightly different names). They should be able to give you a definitive answer as to whether the money was received by the bank or not.

If this fails to recover the money, then make a complaint with Student Finance. Use 0141 243 3600 rather than the 0845 number - it's much cheaper. (Number taken from https://www.saynoto0870.com)

I think that at the end of the day, it's far more likely that SF have made a mistake than your bank.

jollyme

perhaps more likely - I don't know. But banks do make mistakes

Tigersilly

rb10 wrote: »

If Student Finance sent the payment incorrectly, then the money could have gone into a holding/unidentified credits account.

Who have you spoken to at your bank? Just people in the branch/telephone banking, or a specialist department? Given Student Finance's general uselessness, it would be worth trying to sort it out with your bank if you can.

You want to speak directly to someone in the appropriate department - this will be called something like Payment and Clearing Services (different banks will call this slightly different names). They should be able to give you a definitive answer as to whether the money was received by the bank or not.

If this fails to recover the money, then make a complaint with Student Finance. Use 0141 243 3600 rather than the 0845 number - it's much cheaper. (Number taken from https://www.saynoto0870.com)

I think that at the end of the day, it's far more likely that SF have made a mistake than your bank.

I phoned up my bank on the Telephone Banking number. I was told that SF have to put a trace on the money.

SF had actually given me some sort of transaction number which I tried to enquire about but the two people I spoke to at my bank stated that they would not be able to check anything using this number. Apparently they cannot gain access to the information without SF liaising with them.

SF informed me that in order to put a trace on the money it wasn't a case of contacting the bank directly, they would have to charge me a £15 fee (I don't know what this fee is actually for). This on top of everything really got my blood boiling!

Do you still recommend that I communicate with the Payment and Clearing Services department at my bank? I have a feeling that SF will not do anything unless I pay a fee and put a trace on the money. If the money is found and something did go wrong at the SF end, I doubt I'd ever get the money back.