Can this be right????

Davidboy

Hi, my daughter decided in January that the uni course she was doing was not right for her, so she gave up the course, and has since applied and been accepted at another uni starting in Sept this year.

Now heres where the problems start. Student Finance Company!!! My daughter wants to start off at the new uni in Sept with a clean slate so wants to pay off the loans to date. Easy you would have thought...no way. Yes she paid off the Accommodation loan last month, so this month she has tried to pay off the tuition fees. This is what she has been told.

The uni confirm their bill is approx £1,200 up to Christmas (when she has given up), today the Student Loan Company say they have paid the uni £1,500 so that is what she needs to pay back, not only that even though ALL parties were told she had given up her place at uni in January, the SLC say it is too late to stop the second payment of £1,500, which does not go out until 1st May 2007. So the way it is working, she has to claim back £300, from the uni for the first payment of tuition fees, then claim another £1,500 from the uni for the second lot of tuition fees even though she won't be at uni. The SLC rep was very unfriendly and was insistant the the second payent to the uni was too late to stop even if we had called in Dec...is this right anyone else has this fiasco the SLC?

Any advice greatly recieved, where do we go from here because as from May she will owe another £1,500 to the SLC for a course she does not attend and of course incurring interest on the loan.

Sorry long winded, very annoyed with SLC at moment.

Thanks in advance.

D

dmg24

The first thing I would do is contact the Finance Department at your daughters previous university, and get their viewpoint on the situation.

It may be that the university will return the next payment and the previous overpayment to the SLC, so you don't need to worry about it.

Let us know what they say x

Blacksheep1979

I'd go over whoever you spoke to's head and make a complaint along the lines of you've given more than enough notice and shouldn't be penalised for their incompetance.

Savvy_Sue

If it really is too late to stop the May payment now then surely she can just pay it back the day it hits her bank account? Minimal interest on that, surely?

Blacksheep1979

I think she's saying the part that goes to the uni for fees.

Savvy_Sue

Ah, sorry, I'm still behind the times because DS1 is on the 'old' fees and DS2 won't be there for another couple of years ...

Davidboy

Theres a lot more to this story yet.....

After speaking to the uni, again they confirm £1,200, also emailed me regulations as to what SLC should be following, so another call to SLC, after another heated call seems that they have not been told that my daughter has stopped uni!!! It now transpires that the Uni have to let the Local Education Authortity know she has finished, in turn they let the SLC know.......As far as I can find out the LEA have not told the SLC.....it's all a flippen nightmare!!!

So now I have to find out how and when the Uni told LEA and IF the LEA told the SLC and go from there. And yes because it's the tuition fees, it gets paid directly to the uni.

I'll keep you updated...gulp!!!


D

dmg24

Glad you are on your way to getting it sorted.

Don't you just love red tape?!

hostie

I´d suggest that you avoid call centres as they will frustrate you and get little done. With something this important (that needs sorted ASAP) I´d send letters and I´d send them recorded delivery. Conversations and information passed on by telephone invariably gets ´lost´ or forgotten.

Davidboy

hostie wrote: »

I´d suggest that you avoid call centres as they will frustrate you and get little done. With something this important (that needs sorted ASAP) I´d send letters and I´d send them recorded delivery. Conversations and information passed on by telephone invariably gets ´lost´ or forgotten.

Yes I think you are right......

At the moment we are at a loss due the fact that the uni are blaming LEA and LEA are blaming uni and SLC, SLC are so unhelpful. Would you believe the guy at SLC said when we asked to speak to a supervisor "I don't have the facilities to transfer you"!! So we asked for a name of a manager so we could write, his comments "Due to the data protection act I am unable to give a name of a manager" Trust me I am not lying, that was his words exactly, can you believe it???? Lastly I asked the guy as you have been paid £300 to much how do we get it back, "Tough..don't know"

My wife and I gave up at that point, not sure what to do next. Any suggestions?

changkra

If you have a look on the SLc website there is a form to download and print off which you fill in and send back to them giving your reasons for either deferring your course of leaving. You should have been told to download this. My son deferred for approx 6 months and was told to print the form off and send a covering letter which he did. This suspended any payments from them. When he went back in Jan this year he contacted them again and sent the financial forms off and that opened his file again and was told he will receive 2 payments in April and his course fees will be paid then. It does sound like SLC haven't given you the correct information which unfortunately happens quite often but always check on the website as all the info you need is on there.