student loans advice

bringmidnight

i have recently been in battle with student loans and wish to know where i stand in the situation.

i had joined university in september 2010 and due to my mum being a widow and herself going to university, i applied for the financial support bursary.

i applied for student finance in febuary 2010 and handed in my mothers financial information (even though this was all on her account) in september. i had waited for around 2 months before calling them. i had called them to find out what was going on, and they had forgotten to assess my paperwork. so 1 week later they assessed it and claimed i was entitled to no bursary or loan. i had contacted them to which they said i entered the wrong course, although i copied the code straight from the universities website.

they then ammended it, but still no bursary. from december to february i was calling them 1-2 times a week where they said either "i have not sent in the right information", "i have not sent the information" or "you have sent information we dont need". all i did was find exactly what i needed from the advisors and relay this information direct to my mother.

eventually my first and second bursary payment was made around march time, by this time i was in debt as my bank said "theres nothing we can do for you", debt that forced me into a fulltime job and drop out of university to avoid debt collectors.

now last december i received a letter saying that because i dropped out of uni, i owed 540 pounds in bursary repayments. i had seeked information as to why, and it was only at this time i found it was because i dropped out.

i sent them an email to the same address they repied with, and stated until im in a more financially stable position i can pay £5 per month. i had no reply, until today when my mum stated they had sent a letter off to my nan.

im not debating i dont owe the money, i dont have a problem paying it back. but time and time again i phoned them before and it was like trying to bleed a stone, so i found email was the best.

its like they chose to ignore my payment offer and send letters to family members about my debts, making more hassle for my nan and making me look like a black sheep avoiding repayments.

so where can i go from here? as ive said before i am not disputing the money, i want to dispute their absolutely shoddy service which has caused me debt,embarrassment and made me feel depressed.

thanks.

rhoda

I don't know much about the SLC - apart from hearing that it is in meltdown - so hopefully someone will come along who can help. However, the SLC must be covered by the data protection act therefore they should not be sending your information to a relative. I recall that when my niece was at Uni and her mother tried to sort out her loan for her the SLC would not speak to her - data protection - this was despite my sister having to provide her financial details to the SLC.

You should complain in the strongest terms about them sending letters to your nan. Is there anything on their website about their duties regarding data protection?