SFE - Recovering costs due to SFE mistake?

Kraka

Hi,

I'm currently a student and receive the Maintenance Loan, as well as few grants (I'm a mature student with Children and a parter so we get things like Parent's Learning Allowance, Adult Dependants grant, etc, these grants make up the bulk of the money we receive throughout the academic year.

When the last payment was meant to be received (23rd April) we only got the Loan portion of it (financially we pretty much live day to day so this small amount of money was gone in a couple of days paying off rent, some of the more urgent outstanding bills etc). The grant part is a much larger financial figure and is the main source of our income while being a student, it is always paid in separately (usually the same day, but sometimes a day or two later).

When we realised 3 or 4 days later that we hadn't received it we telephone SFE and enquired why. We were told it was because my partner had been asked the previous year to send proof of her income. We had sent this (twice - to be succinct I won't go into the reasons for this, except to say SFE couldn't hold a **** up in a brewery). The last time we had sent the required information was February, when we we're told it would be processed within 2 weeks.

When I contacted SFE regarding why we hadn't received payment the "help" line guy looked it up and confirmed receipt of the requested evidence had arrived in February and he couldn't understand why it hadn't been processed yet. He apologised and said he'd send an e-mail to the correct department asking them to look at it. Of course, no payment arrived. I can't stress this enough, after a couple of days waiting - we were calling them every day, sometimes multiple times a day to try and get them to clear the payment as we were absolutely skint (not good with 2 kids to feed and a pregnant partner).

Everyday we rang we were told a different story, "the paperwork was missing", "it had been delivered to the wrong department", "the department had it first in the queue and we should expect payment the next day". We asked to speak to the department directly but were told that they don't take phone calls from the public, even in extreme situations. We asked them to escalate the problem, ended up speaking to someone who was just another guy in the same call centre, who again made numerous promises of payment (tomorrow, 3 days, this weekend, etc).

This went on for over 5 weeks (I eventually got help from the our Student Advice Centre - but even then it still took a couple of weeks to receive payment).

During this time we occurred numerous charges for failed payments to creditors, bank default charges, credit card charges (we'd got to the point where we were having to use our credit cards over the agreed limit just to buy food). Every day we were receiving half a dozen letters demanding immediate payment for this, that or the other. With threats of cutting off our electricity, gas, etc. A summons to court for non-payment of council tax, etc, etc. Some things did get cut off for non payment (mobile phone for example).

We were finally told that the letter had been forwarded to the wrong department and now it was at the correct one. Payment should be received within a week. Once we had finally received the money half of it went straight into repaying loans, credit card limits, bringing bank balances back down so we weren't overdrawn, paying missed direct debits, paying missed bill payment plans and repaying missed credit agreements. Of course all of these incurred extra charges and have now ruined my previously unblemished credit record. These charges probably ate up half of our grant (if not more), leaving us in a total financial mess as we don't get another grant/loan payment until September.

We've receive no letter of apology from SFE. The stress we were under throughout this period put a serious strain on everyone in the house.

Anyway, my question is; can I take SFE to court to recover the charges we've incurred through their negligence?

Thanks in advance

Kraka

P.S. Just noticed this is the Student Saving Board, I just saw the "student" bit and thought it was the correct place to put this post. Please feel free to move it a more appropriate section of the board.

Taiko

In theory, you could launch a civil claim against SFE.

In practice, you'd most likely lose. This would be on two points:

1) The costs you've had to pay would've needed to have been paid whether or not you were applying for student finance.

2) You are not given an entitlement until full assessment, so in effect have budgeted using money that, at the time, was not yours.

I think in the circumstances, the most you can hope for is an apology.

melancholly

I think it's doubtful they'll even apologise..... Which doesn't mean that they aren't sometimes rubbish and that they did put you in a bad position, but it's just not a fight you'll win.

If you are living day to day with money, have you thought about your uni's access to learning fund? Might be worth looking at - in general, your uni can be very helpful when there is financial hardship but a lot of people don't realise (and they don't often publicise it).

Kraka

You are not given an entitlement until full assessment

Just to clarify this: full assessment was made for the 2011/2012 year. The evidence they required (and received by them in February but not assessed until 31st May, when it should have been in done within "2 weeks" according to someone I spoke to), was the for previous 2010/2011 year.

What effectively happened is that they decided sometime between January (when we received payment in full) and April (when the next payment was due but not received), that because they hadn't received evidence for the 2010/2011 year, we owed them £4000, so they wouldn't pay any grants until that figure was paid off. Except of course they had received that evidence (twice - as I said, this is where it gets complicated and I originally omitted this above due to how long the post would get, but I'll explain here).

Some time in the middle of last year they asked my partner to send her p45 to prove she wasn't working, which she sent them. Several months later they wrote back and said the p45 only covered the period between April - April (well - duh! of course they do - seriously you couldn't make this up) and the academic year ran up until June.

So they required further evidence beyond that which they'd already asked for and received. So she had to go the jobcentre or the tax office or somewhere (I forget where) asking for a letter saying she hadn't been in employment between May and June (quite how they work out adult depends grant from May to June is £4000 is anybody's guess, I wish it was that large an amount!).

So the reason had nothing to do with assessment for the qualifying period, it was because they asked for the wrong information, then they didn't, for whatever reason, process the correct and full information we sent (which they've confirmed they received) for the previous academic year.

If you are living day to day with money, have you thought about your uni's access to learning fund?

Thanks for that, I was aware of the access to learning fund, but apparently I've missed the boat for this (last) academic financial year.

As for living "day to day", I would argue that most people in the country live like this unless they are lucky enough to be wealthy or in a very, very well paid job. Even those with a decent income couldn't afford mortgage payments, etc for more than a couple of months if their source of income dried up. Whether working, a student or unemployed, very few people (comparatively) have instantly accessible and substantial savings. Especially, I would argue, students.

Taiko

Just to add, if they're asking for an academic years income, then it'll be for supplementary grants such as PLA and Childcare.

Being assessed for those, you are only ever given a provisional assessment until after the end of the academic year, when documents are requested to produce a full and final assessment.

melancholly

Kraka wrote: »

As for living "day to day", I would argue that most people in the country live like this unless they are lucky enough to be wealthy or in a very, very well paid job. Even those with a decent income couldn't afford mortgage payments, etc for more than a couple of months if their source of income dried up. Whether working, a student or unemployed, very few people (comparatively) have instantly accessible and substantial savings. Especially, I would argue, students.

It wasn't meant as a criticism- plenty of people are in the same boat... Was only meant to be a suggestion since a lot of students can panic and look externally for money and ignore the options at uni......

As it goes, having been unemployed for a period of months in the past, I scrimped in my first few months of employment to build a buffer. Wish I'd done it before the problem, but never want to be in that situation again! Students don't usually have the opportunity to save up like that.... But there can be emergency funds that can help. Just because plenty of people are in the situation doesn't mean that it's a good position to be in! I'd sooner focus on solutions rather than just ruminate on the problem...

fishybusiness

Write to Student Finance at customer_complaints@slc.co.uk

State your case, if you can giving evidence, and tell them what you want from them.

Taiko

And probably expect a reply along the lines of Arkell vs Pressdram.

Voyager2002

In principle, you could reasonably expect SFE to meet the amounts you have lost in late payment fees. In practice, court action would probably fail on the technicalities. I do suggest that you ask your student support people to handle this, in the first instance requesting an ex gratia payment from them, and so forth.

Many of the late payment fees would be waived once the organisations understood the circumstances. Try contacting them, explaining, and asking nicely.