Student Finance Direct has Messed me around!

braken2000

well i phoned up, and they said that will be definiately after i enrol at uni, but she said it wouldn be long, ill have to use what little is left of my O/D. Oh dear, the stress keeps on coming.

kittiwoz

The SLC will never tell you that your application has been ballsed up without your asking. For example my LEA once sent me loan application forms for the previous year. Neither I nor my mother noticed the mistake and we filled them out and sent them off. The SLC did notice the mistake nd therefore didn't process my loan but didn't make me aware of it. Why, I wonder, are they so unhelpful and uncooperative? Could it perhaps be that they recieve your loan money from the government at the begining of the application process and so the more hopless they are the longer they hold the money andthe more interest they acrue? This of course is cynical hypothesis only. I don't understand the workings of the SLC and it may be that they are just incompetent and inefficient.

claysam

stuwilky wrote:

Ive had my loan and grant payment schedule this morning. But in their wisdom Lancashire LEA have decided not to assess any childcare grant payments until next week, so they will not be paid until at the earliest the beginning of October, and I have a full terms fees to pay on the 19th Sept.

Cheers Lancashire CC.

(sorry had to get that off my chest!)

Cumbria County Council are doing the same thing. :mad:

But they won't say when they will be looking at their forms :eek:

smkelb

i too am still waiting to hear back from my lea(leicester)about what help i'll be getting and when.
Granted i did send in a late application,31st of july,but there were mitigating circumstances.I would of thought they would be some where near finishing mine by now but every time i ring they say in the next 4 weeks i should hear something.
I thought surely there can't be that many people who applied late in leicester for them to still not have got around to looking at it after 9/10 weeks now.
Mad they drive me crazy.heard about a fast track service but according to them it can only be done if you applied online.
How crazy is this whole system.
Im a single mum of two with no loan,tuition fee's paid or even the form for my childcare grant and they couldn't care less!
sorry rant over...

stuwilky

If you ring and ask for the Childcare Grant application form you can be getting on with that, ratehr than have to wait for it. They will probably send you more black ones, but ignore them. At least that way you 'might' push yourself a little higher up the waiting list.

Its silly that they assess you for the main grants and THEN send the childcare app forms for you to have to wait again. Im sure it would be easier for them (as well as you) to submit the lot in one go.

Legacy_user

I am as annoyed as the rest of the people here with student finance direct.

They are one of the most hopeless, inefficient organisations I have dealt with.

My loan request was submitted months and months ago, and I was assured that it was all going smoothly and I had been approved and payment was ready as soon as I enrolled at university.

Where am I now? At university and no loan payment. I have been at university for two weeks now and nothing has come through. As you can imagine I need the money. I phoned student support direct and was told "There's a problem with your LEA and they've made a mistake on the paperwork. We'll have to resend it through and it should only take two or three weeks". Well thanks for telling me. Now I've got to go pleading at the university for hardship funds.

Thanks student support direct.

chugalug

I am one relieved student. The LEA had my application in May (2nd year) so it couldnt have been difficult to assess me. I enrolled 2 weeks ago but no money. After ringing and hassling every day with everyone telling me something different I will finally get my money on Monday - the 10th of October!!! The problem is if there is a problem no-one tells you. You only find out when you dont' get your money - then they all tell you something different and you go round in circles. Bad enough if you're a single student but if you're a single parent its an absolute nightmare. My kids are also still waiting for their money - one for EMA and one for the Adult Learning Grant. Of course, so's everyone else so the lines are constantly blocked. Education, education, education eh!!!!

smkelb

well i decided to be pro active and download a form for the childcare grant off of the student finance direct site.quickly filled that in and sent it off.
Had been checking student direct to see if my details had been registered or not and until now it kept saying application to be processed.
Now it says application submitted,so excitedly i started checking all the details the had down for me and lo and behold they have me down as having no dependants,not wanting any grants including childcare.
I swear i am at my wits end with these clowns.I rang student finance immediately to see how even with birth certificates and letters from child benefit submitted they could have put me down as having no kids.
The women on the other end had no idea what i meant and kept saying a decision about my loan hadn't been made yet,but eventually she said she'd e mail them to make them aware of my concerns.
So i figure this is never going to get sorted,so ive got to go down there myself and do it.
So off i went feeling totally ill with the flu,out in the rain with my little one who was also suffering, to stand there for thirty minutes and be told they didn't no what was going on but hopefully id hear by the next 2-3 weeks.
I tell you i could have cried,they really are baffoons.
So i too am still waiting,with no hope left.

Phonix

The student finance website / computer system cost them £300 million, and it hardly ever works. If they were a proper bank and people had the choice of where the student loan came from, they would have no customers at all!

lol goodness me.

who made it, microsoft?

Mac21

braken2000 wrote:

Some help is needed.
After the joy of exam results i am now hitting earth with a huge bang. I sent my application for support 2 days after the deadline and thought great shouldnt be held up that much. I also sent, well my mum did, all the financial details they requested a couple of weeks later. I have now recieved a letter saying they want the information again! This rings alarm bells and makes me think that my application is going to be seriously late in processed. The woman at SFD was not helpfull and as such i have provided my mums details on the internet. Has anyone had this problem before? What should i do?

Thanks in advance for your help

Braken
:mad: :mad: :mad:

OMG I had a similar problem with the student finance, I sent my forms and all the proof of income for a loan etc PERSONALLY to my local borough so they can photocopy and verify that all the required documents have been given.
Everything was okay and they stamped my letter with the date etc..
(I applied around august 05)

Then a couple of weeks later I received a latter saying that I either didn't complete the form or I didn't apply for a loan and if I wanted to apply for a loan I would need to fill in a form :mad:

I was really :mad: and at the same time, so I phone the student finance section in my local borough and they said they had LOST IT. !!!!!!!! (Photocopies of My passport, my dads P45, tax credit,etc all the documents got lost some how??????? :mad:)
They said I gotta reapply again for the loan and grant (A couple of more weeks, great :rotfl: but the confusing part is that I went to check my account on the student finance website and they have confirmed that I have provided evidence for applying a loan. ????? :mad: :mad:

So with no other choice I had to complete another form and send it off again.
I got my grant now but am still waiting for my loan :mad: