student finance direct :@ grrrr

[Swafe]

anyone else finding these guys TOTALLY useless ??

they are the guys who sort you out for uni, your fees, grants, and loans


f***kin useless, i applied 10 weeks ago now, wel before the deadline to get my fees, or some of them paid for me as i cant afford em all meself, so here i am waiting

first off i get a letter, dear mr anthony anthony - ok they got my first name mixed up with middle name, as with my surname with my middle name, screw up number 1

then i get an 'ART' ID, which is a code number, so hthey know who you are when you phone up, shame it doesnt work, and they have to ask me 20 questions before even telling me anything, which is usually that ' have no more infmration on your application' thats AFTER ive battled my way thru over a 30 minute queue longer than any ebuyer customer service

thirdly, i got a 'secret answer' so i phone up to confirm it works, as nothing else seems to, and guess what? its completely wrong, they sent me someone elses so i got to wait for another one to show up


now, after enuff feck ups, youd think that was it, right? WRONG

phone them up earlier and say when am i getting my letter saying if your paying my fees or not, and how much, she says not till october, OCTOBER?? i start uni in a week and a half and have to pay the fees in enrolment

she then goes on to say about its goin to be late as my application was recieved late (after june the 2nd) well guess what? it was sent in may the F****wits, so what? cos they screwed up ive gotta pay 1150 quid of uni fees, MONEY I DONT HAVE, and might not even get a place at uni if i cant afford it

why ? cos of the dumb eejits who sit and drink coffee all day and do f/a work , its a form, it would take someone whos been trained 10 minutes to 'process it' but 10 weeks later, and it seems they still havnt even looked at it



makes me wanna throttle them i certainly gave the unhelpful up themselves smarmy assed git of a person on the other end of the phone a piece of my mind, its been annoying me so much


anyone else getting hassel off them ? pretty much everyone i know goin to uni is getting crap off them

[Swafe]

oh yeah and ontop of that i cant check my progress online, because the site doesnt work, they havnt put the log in section yet, so cant even see whats happened

[MAS]

I wouldn't freak too much, if you're still having problems when you get to uni just explain to them and tell them you're waiting for them to sort the fees out. They're normally fine about it.

[Swafe]

they better be, i can hardly afford 150, let alone 1150 quid....if they tell me to pee off cos i cant afford i i wont be best pleased

[Byatt]

I'm having exactly the same problem - they've managed to assess mine incorrectly as well, I'm paying £400 more for fees this year than last yet my financial situation hasn't changed at all. However, as MAS said, don't worry about it - your university will wait so long as you inform them what's going on. As for their website - I'm not even going to get started.

You also might try ringing your local LEA rather than sfd - worked for me, well worked to the level of the fact that they're reassessing me now, rather than sitting on their arses.

Good luck with it.

[Swafe]

sounds like a plan, hopefully the local council wont be as hopeless as these guys, they just seem to be constantly messing me around and getting nothing done

not sure if it is or not, but student finance are blaming the LEA for their problems, they told me that it was delayed because the LEA didnt send the details, etc in on time, but still even if they didnt theyve cocked it up enough times themselves, think there just using the LEAs as a scapegoat

[MAS]

No, it does happen, I had the same thing I think. Like I said, just tell the uni what's going on, it happens a lot, believe it or not

[stytagm]

Don't know if this will help but it did for me when I started at uni 'bout 5 years ago now and I was trying to sort out fees and loans.

Rather than ringing the LEA, find out where their offices are (county hall in our case) and pop in. We were just nice, polite and smiled sweetly and they filled in the forms for us. And because they deal with the forms 1000 times a day they know how to fill them in and which bits are most important, only took them five minutes where it would have taken me on my own days.

Edit: Oh yes, and don't worry, universities are very accomodating about fees especially with first years, they'd rather let you stay and get your money some time than throw you out. Which uni is it btw?

[Theo]

Also had similar problems with Student Finance. Luckily, though, I SHOULD be receiving £1000 (ish) left over from last years application on the 17th. Fingers crossed for me and you, dude. Hope it gets sorted ASAP.

[Swafe]

good luck to you too

warwick uni im off to, kinda posh uni so they might look down their noses at me if i cant pay, its not my fauly my overdraft isnt big enough

[Elmo]

when i started uni 2 years ago i didnt get my letter in time for the start of term, but you just explain to them when you go to enrol and show them the letter they sent you and give them your reference number and they can find out for you, however, you have to remember how many people are applying to uni this year, more than ever before, and so they have A LOT of applications to process! Its no excuse but it's quite likely what the problem will be.

Anyhoos, my problem was with the student loans company/SAAS, but they do the same thing.

[Swafe]

yup, there royally useless, i imagine all they have to do it put your average income into a program and it works out how much your entitled too, guess there is loads tho, just annoys me how ive waited over 10 weeks, nearly 12 and i havnt heard a thing when they said they would let everyone know within 10 weeks *sigh*

[Theo]

Heh... just checked my balance and my student loan has gone in EARLY! Quite happy atm, as I'm no longer in the minus.

[Swafe]

lucky you nice one

my mate goin to manchester had a call of student finance direct the other night saying, he wont get his loan till he actually enrols at uni incase people just quit uni to get the free loans

tight gets

[Flash]

lets start a send Swafeman to Uni fund

[Theo]

Yep. Spent 50% of it, 12 hours after receiving it, on essentials.