SEELB, Dundonald, are useless!!

Legacy_user

My daughter is studying at Newcastle upon Tyne University and this year, her third, she is in China studying Mandarin, she left on 27 August.
Now as per usual she applied for her student loan and this year supplied a letter from the university confirming that she would be abroad. She also told them on numerous occasions that she would be abroad but they have mucked everything up.

First they sent a form they should have kept to the Student Loan company who promptly sent it back to her. This held everything up for a few weeks. Now she has been sent a letter confirming her loan and telling her it is conditional on her presenting it at registration in Newcastle upon Tyne. She's in China!!

We have been in touch with the SLC who won't talk to us due to data protection and SEELB don't want to know and I didn't hear any of them offering to pay her flight costs just for her to come home to sort this mess out.

This is so frustrating. Meanwhile, thanks to a generous early 21st birthday present from her grandfather, she has just about managed to pay her accommodation fees in Beijing (£1000) and we are having to find money to sub her until this fiasco gets sorted.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to get either of these bodies to listen to us or is she going to have to try to call them herself which could be expensive?

Wee_Bargain_Hunter

What about ringing SLC again & asking them what sort of letter/fax they need from your daughter to get around the dpa problem. Probably something along the lines of:

"Ref no

---

.
I __name__ authorise __name__ to act on my behalf until summer 2007 when I return from my studies abroad" etc

If they accept that, then at least you'll be able to speak to them.

Or perhaps she can e-mail them if the info is not too sensitive?

Alternatively, maybe the university can help - they must be used to things like this, ie students not being present for all the registration stuff.
Good luck!

IvanOpinion

Pam I have no idea but would suggest that your daughter needs to somehow contact the board and arrange you to act on her behalf (as per repsonse above).

We all shouted for and demanded a Data Protection act .. unfortunately there are some occasions when it gets in the way of sensible business (I have had a similar problem with a bank recently .. but they are only following their own laid down Data Protection policy)

ivan

System

Well the money was supposed to be paid on 25/9/06 and guess what there is none there. This is despite sending the university student abroad officer a copy of the payment schedule in the hope that she could register my daughter as appearing for her third year and hence satisfy the SLC requirements.

I contacted my daughter and got her to send me a letter of authorisation for the Student Loan Company (SLC) but was told today that there was not enough information on it for them to speak to me and I have had to email my daughter again to try to find out if she has access to a fax machine so she can give the SLC whatever it is they require.

However during the course of the conversation the very helpfull Scottish girl explained fully what should have happened. This might be helpful for other N Irish parents/students in the future.

Normally when a student is spending a year abroad as part of their degree their education authority passes the information on to the SLC who then ensure that loan funds are released approximately 25 days prior to the normal university term start date. In our case the SEELB failed abysmally to pass that information on to the SLC and my daughter is stuck in China with rapidly diminishing funds. Luckily I have been given the name of a senior officer in SEELB whom I will be contacting on Monday in an attempt to sort this mess.

I hope this will finally be sorted but I will keep you updated in the hope that any other parents/students learn from our experience.

everythingblogcast

SEELB, Dundonald, are NOT useless!!

There are better then the rest of the LBs. Its down to the Student Loan Company.

BigAl94

I found SELB Dundonald to be totally efficient.