Application approved and attendance confirmed but still no payment a month later! :(

imnotaveryhappybunny

My application was approved on 12 September 2013, the website tells me that I do not need to do anything else as they have everything required, my university has confirmed my attendance and double checked this several times, and I STILL have not been paid any payments and I have now been waiting one calendar month for my first instalment. The 'payments' section of the website lists my application progress as 'progressing' but yet I've received my Notice of Entitlement to Student Finance and returned the declaration and I am getting fed up of this now.

On many occasions between 23 September (my expected payment date) and 1st October I telephoned SFE and my university, SFE were repeating that they were waiting on confirmation of attendance from my university, but university confirmed to me several times that this had definitely been done

Around the second week in October, some two to three weeks after my expected payment date and confirmation of attendance, I pressure the university and SFE to give me some answers. SFE still claim that nothing can be done whatsoever at their end, but the university also claim that they have definitely confirmed my attendance. I am in the middle of this, what am I expected to do!

The university then called student finance to find out what the problem is and then told me that SFE said to them: That SFE are waiting on manual authorisation and this was started on 1 October and could take up to 30 days. Sorry, but this is absolute rubbish. My application has been approved and my attendance been confirmed, the 30 days is the time it takes for a new application to be fully assessed NOT the garbage that they have told me, I've no idea what is going on and considering mine was approved on 12 September 2013 I am not happy that I find myself in a situation that I can do nothing about and I still have not been paid and even as of today (24 October) my account status still says progressing

I have no idea what is going on! They have my NINO, they have the signed declaration, university has confirmed attendance, it says on my account your application is approved but then on payments "Progressing" OMG it is really annoying I feel like swearing my head off and punching a wall at the incompetence of SFE because I really can't see a problem. This 30 day manual authorisation is rubbish otherwise many people would be waiting 6 weeks after their payment date for payments, there's something they are not telling me?

nimbo

the 12th September is not tat long ago - SFE encourage people to apply early as it takes time to sort the volumes of applications they receive.

it is frustrating when you are stuck between the two agencies both saying they have done their bit - but if they have said it will take up to 30 days from a certain date than all I can advise is to be patient. They will have a lot of issues for students that they are trying to resolve, and they tend to sort applications in the order they were received.