Student Loan and HMRC - help I am in hell!

ajyoung

Hi everyone

Thanks in advance for reading this. any advice would be greatly appreciated.

At the end of July this year I phoned the Student Loans company and repaid the remainder of my balance. I was told a stop notice would be issued immediately and because there was at least 4 weeks until my next PAYE date, in all probability the stop notice would have been addressed and no more money taken.

It turns out the stop notice was not actually issued until the end of September. This means that a large chunk of money was also taken from my September PAYE. I had been underpaid at work and the correction that was issued in September resulted in a larger than normal monthly wage. Which meant a much larger student loan contribution being taken - £1200.

I called Student Loans, explained the situation and they said they would start the process for a refund - that this would take two weeks and no problems. I called a further 2 times over this 2 week period and each time was told everything was progressing as it should.

On the date I was meant to get my refund it didnt get sent to my bank account. I called SLC and this time was told they had received a notice regarding a discrepancy with my 2016/2017 tax return from HMRC and no refund was to be issued. They said there was nothing more they could do - and there was no acknowledgment that they had basically lied to me over the 2 week period.

I called HMRC. Eventually I got through to someone who confirmed there was a £40 discrepancy. He called SLC, explained the situation and that they would issue a communication to revise the amount owed to 0 - so that the money could be released to me.

I called SLC to confirm. Who had no knowledge of this call and could not help further.

I decided to wait a few weeks in order for communications to be issued and received.

Today - one month on I called HMRC to check that the issue had been resolved. I was told a letter was issued on the 25th September to SLC and there was nothing more they could do.

I called SLC and they have no record of this letter. They are unable to help.

I dont know what the next step is. I am basically missing £1200 and no-one can help.

Any advice anyone can give would be greatly appreciated

Voyager2002

What I would do (although I don't know if this is the right thing) is contact your MP. An MP's office has access to telephone numbers for people in government departments who have the authority to get things done.


You can also ask your MP to refer the problem to the Parliamentary Ombudsman: despite the name, this office oversees all public bodies and so can solve problems arising from sub-optimal behaviour throughout the public sector.

merchcon55

Why not tell your story to one of the financial assistance columns in say The Daily Mail?? Quite often they contact companies on your behalf to get a result they can then print in the paper.

Also I think it's a story more people should know about.

gatters

I had problems with SLC when my loan came to an end. It wasn't quick, but I resolved it by raising a complaint with SLC.

If you can evidence all payments this tax year with payslips, SLC should know about all previous payments, so I don't see how they could dispute that you've overpaid. Surely any other issues you have with HMRC are irrelevant?