Review Time
My wife is applying for a teaching education to become a teacher for PGCE primary schools. We were under the impression that UK need and wants UK teachers so we moved from Norway to UK, believing that UK would support us and help us especially given what our true intentions are.It's been nothing but an absolute nightmare and I'm getting the impression that we're being scammed (as in they've promised my wife support in terms of covering tuition fees and giving her maintenance loan). Both me and my wife have been on several phone calls with student finance and each time it sounds like they're making random excuses to stall my wife receiving her student tuition payment and maintenance loan. Now because of this, we're in huge debt after spending our entire savings AND we have 2 children whereas one of them are attending nursery and because of the delays from student finance, we can't even get the child funding grant which forces us to pay the full price for our child's nursery fees which is over £1000. We've been here for over a month now and I've been trying to support her ever since we've arrived but now my savings are being quickly depleted and we're at risk of going financial bankrupt.Student finance claims they record calls, and so have I on every call I've had with them. Thanks to the records I've made lately they've been nothing but contradicting and spewing lies. My wife has given consent to share over on the phone at least 2 times but latest they claim she needs to be physically present. She's given every evidence they've been requesting, even as far as writing handwritten letters for her proof of address that has to be sent physically and not digitally. They've told us that "this" is the last of their requests, however whenever she sends in the exact requirements, they come with NEW requests.Honestly this is a horrendous experience and it's shocking that this is from a governmental website.Personally I've had my share of bad experience with office people from NAV (Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration) and UDI (The Norwegian Directorate of Immigration), however I've never experienced as bad as student loans company. This is as bad as scammers I've encountered when I've tried to purchase used laptops or mobile phones from marked places such as Facebook market.At this rate, I think we'll be forced to move back to Norway and leave UK for good (my wife is british and raised in London). I personally wanted to give it a chance, given how UK wants to "copy" Norway AND the fact they need teachers but I think we've overstayed our welcome.My advice would be to not even bother with these guys as clearly I can see they've got tons of other terrible reviews and they've done nothing to improve their service. Go study in another country and hopefully they'll provide better support than Student finance. I know personally Norway's service (statens lånekasse) are WAY better and more professional than this from my own experience and my network who's been using them.
Really poor customer service. Send threatening letters but only way to contact them is by calling them during working hours. I previously asked for an email address and advised to contact me via email as calling me during my working hours is not going to get them anywhere. When I call them outside my working hours the lines are always closed. It infuriates me that I have to go through 50 options to select only for them to tell me the lines are closed. Why not say it as soon as someone calls? Tried to check what I need to pay them online. It says the site is not secure or doesn't exist. This was a link on their website so not sure what is going on there. I live abroad so calling them is not only time but also quite a bit of money. Called just now during my working hours and the cue is 30+ min for a line I have to pay for. Ridiculous. Please contact me via email as we are not getting anywhere.
Shockingly hopeless. Nobody knows what’s going on with the important personal documents you send them. Everybody you speak to will have a different excuse for their rubbish system. You send them all the documents they want by special delivery, they are unable to apply them to your application then ask you to send the documents you already sent and put you to the bottom of the 4-6 wait queue again. I absolutely do not trust them and have no confidence in them what so ever. Who knows if I will ever get my original personal documents back. No one takes any responsibility for anything. I am in debt so that I can start my course because they have mishandled my application and I have no idea if I am just going to keep going round the same loop whilst my personal document have been sent to the wrong department with the wrong description. They absolutely could not care less. The stress and anxiety they are causing students and parents is hideous
Firstly, why did i just receive an email from Student Loans Company at nearly midnight!? the email is incorrect about my status of employment. I have responded to that email.Secondly, i had emails before that about updating my employment status - yet when i log into the account, i couldn't see where the section was to inform the status - i had emailed back to the email i received about it, and await response.Thirdly, and this disappoints me to have to do this as obviously the purpose of the Student Loans Company was to ensure that those few who had talents to go on in life to higher education but didn't have the financial support to do so would have this made available - when i was younger (in 2007) i had particularly unusual circumstances that didn't fit the typical 'tick boxes' and thus i had approval for additional support as well as a portion of my loan as a bursary i wouldn't need to pay on. I was also told before i filled out the form, and long afterwards, that 1) i wouldn't be paying anything back onto the student loan till i had a certain amount of income from a work salary (the Student Loan Company kept true to that) and that 2) after a certain amount of time, regardless of how much or not had been paid, the loan would be waived, and finally 3) i was also told the loan was free from interest.I really don't want to have to leave a partially negative review, but a review must be left in order to see a point for improval, but i certainly didn't expect to see just how bad it was on this review page.
I’m not really sure how but since I went to uni 10 years ago they have actually managed to get even more incompetent. But yeah we will pay 6.5% interest for you to act like dumb frogs. Also waited almost an hour to be told she couldn’t discuss my own child’s account with me and now asking him to phone again and be told they can’t do anything. Really just hopelessly crap.
I’ve never experienced a company never mind a place where people are supposed to receive fees for education, be extremely poor.It’s shocking and I have decided not to pursue my studies in the United Kingdom over this.After applying for SFE from Ireland since July, I had to ring up multiple times + speak with multiple “chatbots”. The funny part is that they even asked for my passport to verify why I would need a maintenance loan, even though they repeatedly say on their automated voice over for “online uploads”. Let’s just say thank God I did not send my passport to them.Bear in mind every time I’m being placed on hold for 30 minutes and longer.Eventually get through after dialling 10 minutes after they open. Been placed on the call for 1hr 4m! The representative was kind however this is shocking. I had to hang up mid call because I was late for work.I’m supposed to start on the 23rd of September 2024 at Birmingham. Looking very unlikely now as I’ve received a letter after all that saying I won’t be receiving SFE.Making it extremely difficult asking of share codes, EU settlement etc. I’m from Ireland for goodness sakes what’s the need for all this?I do believe the English government need to look into this as soon as possible. It seems they are understaffed, undertrained, no qualified representatives on the line, 0 courtesy. I will say a pray about this not just for myself but for everybody considering studying in the UK. Disgraceful to say the least
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Student Loans Company is a non-profit making, government-owned, organisation in the United Kingdom; providing loans and grants to students in further and higher education.
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