Are Student Finance scammers?

Chocolate_Cupcake

I just wanted to know if I was the only one having this problem. I am in full time employment (for the past 3 years) during this time Student Finance have not failed to take money from my pay slips (no problem) the issue is the amount on the statements they have sent has not changed, so I have no idea where my money is going. I called but the guy seemed reluctant to help me? What should I do?

Janie4Now

Does the statement show the payments you have made?

If not, call Student Finance back and ask for an up-to-date statement of what you owe given that you have been paying the loan back for 3 years now.

I wouldn't be asking where the money goes because I don't think anyone at Student Finance would know exactly what happens to the money!

19lottie82

Do you mean The Student Loan Company?

How much did you owe when you finished uni / college and how much are you paying back PCM now? If the former is quite large and the latter quite small, you may only be paying the interest (if that).

RDG

Also the staement only update once a year after they recieve the information regarding how much has been collected from HMRC. My last statement only showed what had been payed up until 2010.

The confusing think is they will send you a statement with the amount of interest your acruing but not the repayments. Then once they have the info from HMRC this all gets updated. Basically its not SLC but HMRC which arecausing the confusion. You just have to wait. If you know how much you owe and how much you have paid then you can estimate your outstanding amount out easily enough.

Taiko

If you were earning £20,000, you'd be paying off £450 a year.

Might be a case that the interest per annum is higher than the amount you repay each year.

Chocolate_Cupcake

All in all, I owed the Student Loans Company (don't know why I said Student finance) just under £8000 something like £7853. 3 years later after paying £230 a month I still owe £7853, i know thats not life changing but it should at least make a small difference in the total amount... right? I did speak with them and they just sent me the same statement showing the interest I owe for that year but no repayment break down. The operators are clueless. I thought as along as I was on top of payments they would be on top of paperwork (guess not) should I make a written complaint to get a hold of all the information they have on me?

19lottie82

OP, yes, something doesn't sound there. I'd assume it would have been almost (if not fully) paid off by now.

I'm not sure the best department to contact tho.....

Tixy

The statements you are seeing probably show all that they know about your current balance.

SLC do not know how much you are paying each month. Its only after the financial year end that your employer informs HMRC how much they have deducted from you towards your student loan, then HMRC eventually inform SLC.

That said a statement sent now should definitely reflect what payments you made from April 10 to March 11, if not yet the payments to March 12.

Chocolate_Cupcake

Thanks for the feedback guys

eilidh_s

Keep phoning until you get someone helpful. I had almost the same issue a couple of years ago, it turned out they had sent me the previous years statement so it looked like no balances had changed, no interest added and no payments deducted. I had to phone a couple of times until I got somebody sensible who sorted it out.

OneLife_OneShot

They are a bunch of incompetent ****s.