[help] Student finance is such a joke...

Hi there, I want to put my case forward and see what you guys think.
Basically, I send off my paper application using special delivery in mid-May and I was expecting it to be delivered by the next day. BUT I received nothing from Student Finance neither posts nor email after 2 months of waiting! So I called in the agent said to me my application is NOT processing at all!!!!! They received my application on JULY! :angry:

<<< as if the post takes TWO MONTHS???!! Seriously!! This is a very unacceptable excuse!!
Anyway, the agent then gave me a reference number and was told to wait 10 days for the application process. So I logged in, there's nowhere I can find my application but I thought that's okay maybe it takes time. A few days after, I logged in again to see whether it's processing BUT there is still nowhere I could find my application! arghhh It's driving me crazyyy my course is commencing on 23 september! Why are they so unprofessional?!! :frown:

Sorry for the long post, any advise will be appreciated.

Reply 1

Klix88

17

Original post by missd_momo

Hi there, I want to put my case forward and see what you guys think.

I think your agent is ripping you off. Do you have unusual circumstances which mean that you need someone to act on your behalf? It will always be faster to deal direct with SF.

If you live in the UK and you sent your application using "Royal Mail Special Delivery Guaranteed" direct to Student Finance, then it should have reached its destination the next working day. You would have been able to check for yourself whether it arrived - you will have been given a reference number when you posted it and then you could have tracked it online. Your agent would not have been able to do that on your behalf. If SF didn't get your application until July, you can check whether this was delayed in the post and at least get compensation from the Royal Mail.

If you sent it via your agent, then it would have arrived with them the next day (again, you could check this for yourself) and any further delay would have been their responsibility. Either they should have been using the online delivery checker and chasing Royal Mail, or they should have forwarded it to SF faster.

If you're outside the UK then there's no way anything would have happened the next day. Presumably you;re not though.

Bear in mind that even in mid-May, you're very near the 31st May deadline for receiving your Student Finance at the start of the 2013-14 academic year. Even if your application had been received by SF the day after you posted it, you're most likely caught up in the mass of people submitting applications in a hurry before the 31st.

I understand that at present, there's a six week backlog.

Basically, SF can only process applications when they arrive. If you're certain that it wasn't delivered to them until July, then your beef is with your agent or Royal Mail, not SF. If you sent it direct to SF yourself, then you should have used the online tracker to check it was delivered and taken action much sooner, rather than waiting to see what happened.

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 2

rachel.h

16

Student Finance are an absolute JOKE. They are completely useless.

The only way I ever got anywhere with them was to sit on the phone for hours and hours and badger them to death. I find you have to ring back and speak to a different person just in case the first one lied to you.

I'm afraid that, in my experience, what KIix88 is saying about Royal Mail probably isn't true. I spent a small fortune on registered and recorded delivery of documents and it didn't make a slight bit of notice to my application. I even had SF confirm they had received documents and then a few days later they stated that they'd 'lost them'.

Reply 3

Klix88

17

Original post by rachel.h

I'm afraid that, in my experience, what KIix88 is saying about Royal Mail probably isn't true.

But it's simple to check online with Special Delivery Guaranteed - no "probably" about it. In the OP's case, he could have tracked it himself and not left it to a third party agent to chase.

With that type of delay - which the OP only seems to have found out about now, three months after posting the application - whether the delay was due to Royal Mail or SF, the agent wasn't doing their job.

Reply 4

rachel.h

16

Original post by Klix88

But it's simple to check online with Special Delivery Guaranteed - no "probably" about it. In the OP's case, he could have tracked it himself and not left it to a third party agent to chase.

With that type of delay - which the OP only seems to have found out about now, three months after posting the application - whether the delay was due to Royal Mail or SF, the agent wasn't doing their job.

I've tracked letters to SF and been assured they'd arrived. Then I had an adviser tell me they had my documents directly in their hand and would process it immediately. Then my application never went any further. Stuff can arrive there fine, too bad it goes into the Bermuda Triangle and ****s off when it gets there.

Granted, OP should have chased it up sooner.

Reply 5

missd_momo

OP

Original post by Klix88

But it's simple to check online with Special Delivery Guaranteed - no "probably" about it. In the OP's case, he could have tracked it himself and not left it to a third party agent to chase.

With that type of delay - which the OP only seems to have found out about now, three months after posting the application - whether the delay was due to Royal Mail or SF, the agent wasn't doing their job.

Sorry if i made you misunderstood, it's meant to be adviser, the one who answered my call. I don't think I got any reference number when I was sending the post :s-smilie:

.
I have already called in twice in the morning being on hold listening the god damn music, I'm so done with it. Why don't they employ more advisers to answer our calls :angry:

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 6

missd_momo

OP

Original post by rachel.h

I've tracked letters to SF and been assured they'd arrived. Then I had an adviser tell me they had my documents directly in their hand and would process it immediately. Then my application never went any further. Stuff can arrive there fine, too bad it goes into the Bermuda Triangle and ****s off when it gets there.

Granted, OP should have chased it up sooner.

So have your issues been sorted out? Yeh I should have, sigh I am very likely to be withdrawn from uni for not paying tuition fees. :frown:

Reply 7

ash1011

10

Original post by missd_momo

So have your issues been sorted out? Yeh I should have, sigh I am very likely to be withdrawn from uni for not paying tuition fees. :frown:

Please do not worry about being withdrawn, it very rarely happens if student finance is late. This is a quote from the University of Sunderland (first one I found):

"I am worried about my fees being paid. Can I still start my course?
Again, do not worry. The answer is YES.

If you have applied for the Tuition Fees Loan from Student Finance England, you should simply inform staff at registration that you have done so and are waiting for their reply. You will be allowed to register, and the university will chase this information up later."

All Universities encounter late student finance applications and have a similar procedure to handle them. Simply inform them that it will be late. They may request proof, just send them a photocopy of the any correspondence from student finance to show it is in the processing stage

Reply 8

balotelli12

9

Why do you people think special delivery means anything to SFE? All it means is you know the time and day that it arrived at SFE.
It will then have been thrown in the pile in the the corner like everyone else's application to be dealt with at their leisure.

Reply 9

applicationa

2

Original post by rachel.h

I even had SF confirm they had received documents and then a few days later they stated that they'd 'lost them'.

This is probably because you call up to badger them over the phone again and again.

Almost all correspondence that arrives into the Darlington office is put through a batch scanning process. Then the scanned images of the correspondence have to be sorted against the correct account. At peak times it can take about a week to ten days for this process to take place. Until this time, nothing will show on your account.

So if you call them before this and you get an inexperienced advisor who might not take this timescale into consideration...

Reply 10

rachel.h

16

Original post by applicationa

This is probably because you call up to badger them over the phone again and again.

Almost all correspondence that arrives into the Darlington office is put through a batch scanning process. Then the scanned images of the correspondence have to be sorted against the correct account. At peak times it can take about a week to ten days for this process to take place. Until this time, nothing will show on your account.

So if you call them before this and you get an inexperienced advisor who might not take this timescale into consideration...

I had to call them every year for 4 years after the **** hit the fan. I always completed my application within days of being able to. If you never hear from them again, what are you supposed to do? Turn up to uni with no tuition and no loan?

Reply 11

applicationa

2

Original post by missd_momo

Hi there, I want to put my case forward and see what you guys think.
Basically, I send off my paper application using special delivery in mid-May and I was expecting it to be delivered by the next day. BUT I received nothing from Student Finance neither posts nor email after 2 months of waiting! So I called in the agent said to me my application is NOT processing at all!!!!! They received my application on JULY! :angry:

<<< as if the post takes TWO MONTHS???!! Seriously!! This is a very unacceptable excuse!!
Anyway, the agent then gave me a reference number and was told to wait 10 days for the application process. So I logged in, there's nowhere I can find my application but I thought that's okay maybe it takes time. A few days after, I logged in again to see whether it's processing BUT there is still nowhere I could find my application! arghhh It's driving me crazyyy my course is commencing on 23 september! Why are they so unprofessional?!! :frown:

Sorry for the long post, any advise will be appreciated.

There are two possibilities here. Either they really did lose your application, or you forgot to send some evidence they were expecting with your application.

When you apply online, the application is fully entered into the system, and you send in the evidence separately. But when you apply on paper, you are expected to send certain pieces of evidence with the application itself (these are marked with a red 'e' on the form).

If a form is received with any of these missing, then the application may not be fully data entered by the pre-assessment team. They should send correspondence to you requesting the evidence, and then it will be fully data entered when they have it. If it isn't fully data entered it will not show on your online account.

The same thing happens if you leave a required section incomplete.

You need to call them up and ask them to find the notes from the pre-assessment team on your account to see why they did not data enter the application fully.

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 12

sazzylou

Original post by missd_momo

Hi there, I want to put my case forward and see what you guys think.
Basically, I send off my paper application using special delivery in mid-May and I was expecting it to be delivered by the next day. BUT I received nothing from Student Finance neither posts nor email after 2 months of waiting! So I called in the agent said to me my application is NOT processing at all!!!!! They received my application on JULY! :angry:

<<< as if the post takes TWO MONTHS???!! Seriously!! This is a very unacceptable excuse!!
Anyway, the agent then gave me a reference number and was told to wait 10 days for the application process. So I logged in, there's nowhere I can find my application but I thought that's okay maybe it takes time. A few days after, I logged in again to see whether it's processing BUT there is still nowhere I could find my application! arghhh It's driving me crazyyy my course is commencing on 23 september! Why are they so unprofessional?!! :frown:

Sorry for the long post, any advise will be appreciated.

Hi, sorry to hear ur having trouble with them. When you sent off the form by special delivery you should have received a receipt with a tracking number on it. Enter the tracking number into track and send on Royal mail website and it will not only tell you exactly what date and time (to the second) it was received but will also show who signed for it too. I also had problems this year, sent off application, evidence in early april and was messed around for 14 weeks. Everytime I called them I got a new person to speak to, each one gave me completely different advise to previous person, they made me do multiple applications and send off my evidence 3 times. I spent £21 on special delivery and god knows how much on phonecalls. In the end, I wrote a complaint letter to the manager detailing everything, used it as a last resort but it worked; if I hadn't I would be having to seriously think whether I could afford to go to uni. As a result of my complaint letter it took just one week for them to fully process and approve my finance. I hope you get it sorted out with them :smile:

Reply 13

missd_momo

OP

Original post by sazzylou

Hi, sorry to hear ur having trouble with them. When you sent off the form by special delivery you should have received a receipt with a tracking number on it. Enter the tracking number into track and send on Royal mail website and it will not only tell you exactly what date and time (to the second) it was received but will also show who signed for it too. I also had problems this year, sent off application, evidence in early april and was messed around for 14 weeks. Everytime I called them I got a new person to speak to, each one gave me completely different advise to previous person, they made me do multiple applications and send off my evidence 3 times. I spent £21 on special delivery and god knows how much on phonecalls. In the end, I wrote a complaint letter to the manager detailing everything, used it as a last resort but it worked; if I hadn't I would be having to seriously think whether I could afford to go to uni. As a result of my complaint letter it took just one week for them to fully process and approve my finance. I hope you get it sorted out with them :smile:

What pisses me off the most is the fact that phonecalls are not free, and most of the time they put you on hold forever due to high levels of calls, which is wasting my money and time for nothing. :angry:

Writing a complaint letter is a very good idea!! But my english sucks :ashamed2:

Can anyone help me with this? any advice?

Reply 14

sazzylou

Original post by missd_momo

What pisses me off the most is the fact that phonecalls are not free, and most of the time they put you on hold forever due to high levels of calls, which is wasting my money and time for nothing. :angry:

Writing a complaint letter is a very good idea!! But my english sucks :ashamed2:

Can anyone help me with this? any advice?

Could you approach the uni you are going to and ask student services if they can help with the student finance situation. My uni (Leeds) will help contact student finance if having problems. Do you have any family/ friends who could help you put a letter together? Hope you get it sorted in time and try not to worry too much; as previous posts have said universities tend to understand problems with student finance and will do everything they can to help you.

Reply 15

missd_momo

OP

Original post by sazzylou

Could you approach the uni you are going to and ask student services if they can help with the student finance situation. My uni (Leeds) will help contact student finance if having problems. Do you have any family/ friends who could help you put a letter together? Hope you get it sorted in time and try not to worry too much; as previous posts have said universities tend to understand problems with student finance and will do everything they can to help you.