student-finance.service.gov.uk Reviews 

Aplied for student finance, in September, they received my documents on the 2 October, ie: my passport for ID, they emailed 3 times saying they have received the passport, even though I got the tracking number and was signed for at 11:23 October 2nd, after several conflicting emailed, and was told to tell them i have to report loss or stolen myself, on the 10 of November they eventually emailed me and said they have sent back to myself and needed to sign for it, when the letter come to my house it was posted and not signed for and no passport, they said that the HMPO have asked them to send it back to the passport office, I ring the passport office they have no record of my passport, furthermore they can help me due to the lack of information on the letter not telling me a tracking number for the passport plus what passport office, leaving with no funding also no bursy to travel, and no accountability from student finance, they do not care regardless of your situation, im now in debt of £4000 without any support to get to college and the college asking me to set a direct debit to pay, on top of this i am recovering for stage 3 bowel cancer.

My girlfriend has had an awful experience with student finance from day one of her third year at university. She lives with her nan and supports herself on income she had earnt on a gap year. When she filled in her forms applying for her student loan for her third year at university they told her that she could not have possibly supported herself on the income that she had stated in her form. What in the world does that even mean, she struggled but she clearly didn’t starve to death as she’s here applying for her loan again??
She did infact support herself for that entire year paying rent to stay in her nans house and paying for all of her own food and necessities.

Despite this weeks later they asked her to get her mum to fill in a secondary form about her income.
She has not lived with her mum, received any money from her mum or had any support from her mum since she was a small child so what her income has to do with anything I don’t know.
She printed off the form and had her mum fill it out. Bear in mind it has now been 3 weeks without any uni loan and they give her a minimum amount to tide her over this gets used on food and public transport until it runs out. Her mum fills out the form so she scans it in and sends it back to student finance.

She rings up and asks if they have received it after being on hold for almost an hour they confirm they have received it and let her know it will take 21 working days to review which is 5 weeks. A very long time to wait.

After the 21 days is up she received an email saying the form was incorrectly filled out.
So she rings up again on hold for almost an hour.

She is met by a very rude man on the other end of the phone who talks down to her and say things like “ well I have no idea why you’ve submitted a scan and not just edited the form”
This form was sent in pdf form, not as an editable document. He also informed her of the fact that she had missed off a page from her scan ( the front page which was just a logo).
She asked if she will again have to wait 6 weeks and he very bluntly sneered that it isn’t 6weeks it’s 21 days as if that makes absolutely any difference.

It’s absolutely ridiculous and I am furious on her part, all this emphasis on going to uni. How is anyone supposed to have the motivation to turn up to uni each day when the funds needed to function are not available. The government claim to care about the mental health of young people when very clearly this is a lie.

This organization it's a absolute BULLSHIT,staff is arrogant and disconnect the calls if they not like something,not support to customers,and honestly the reason why I will stop my education will be the SLC.2 weeks before start my education i start with application and up to now my application is still not ready,Slc make me delay and in the end I need to pay for my education year,when I wait for finance.Please solve this situation,I already surrend and will apply to cancel my education because SLC.

The WORST service I've ever used in my life.

I am a full time student ,looking after my disable father as well ,applied for extra help ,approved last year this year rejected when my financial circumstances never changed .I had to apply now for financial hardship to get an early payment ,I felt like the student finaince advisor just wanted to end up call quickly ... and waiting time over 40 minutes...a joke of a company .

Been waiting for over a month should have been updated by the 24th October 2024 as my class starts 4th november now they telling me updated will be 22 november 2024????
2hat a waste of my time as i won't be able to attend classes if it carrys on like this as i have no funds to do so.
How can it take staff over a month to look at 9 pages of evidence.
Complaints allready emailed.
Absolutely horrible for students who really want to study but no help from these lot.

Have never dealt with a agency like it for a government operation my lad is so stressed his rent is due and now they will look at his application in November absolutely a joke . No one updates the notes I’ve been cut off different answers absolutely raging .

Denied my son tuition fee loan for his university because he previously had to withdraw due to mental health reasons. He got an anonymous decision and the person who received his evidence did not read it because if they had, they would have seen that it proves exactly what he said in his appeal! Shocking faceless thoughtless beurocracracy!

4 months and still didn't receive the payment. They blocked my application because they weren't sure about my adress, but didn't bother to tell me. When I contcted them on the chat, they said I will net to wait one more month...5 month for nothing...rude staff. The chat officer close the conversation without giving me the chance to add a word

So, its been a week since i have spoken to student finance and still waiting for the aproval status. Had an email about the tutorw fees but states i can still have the maintanance payments but yet still says procesing on my application form.

Disgusting attitude to issuing refunds. They'll hold onto your money as long as they can... wouldn't be surpised if they earn interest on it considering how long they take to issue a refund. 28 WORKING DAYS. Helen came across as totally lacking in empathy and honestly a bit of know it all. Disgusting.

Student finances really need to work on the customer service. That the customer service was horrible and they seemed unbothered the whole time and he kept on sighing which seemed like he did not want to help. Also, I was on hold for a very very long time when the answering machine said the waiting time was 5 minutes.

maxine, if you see this, know you're probably one of the best workers who work for sfe. like, she was so helpful and kind, i didnt feel stressed when talking to her. genuinely so sweet and kind

Whole service is just completely terrible

An inept organisation with absolutely no accountability and almost impossible to contact. Say, for instance, they fail to meet their own extended deadline to review your application, you will be greeted on the phone by a automated chatbot telling you 'you don't need to contact us'. Somehow, you navigate the loopholes to speak to an advisor...you're on hold for half an hour and finally, you speak to a human! Alas, she pretends she cannot hear you, hangs up and you begin again.

It's as though they exist to demean and antagonise students. Awful people.

I wouldn’t even give a star!!! The government need to look into this shower asap!!!!! I can’t believe how inept these people are. I have been on hold for over one hour and 120 mins… to give my updated yearly income… no manager available or supervisor or another colleague.. constantly put on hold… I hope these calls are monitored so they can train their staff properly.. they don’t understand English and can’t answer a simple question.. that’s why we are on hold constantly…. If this is the future forget it!!!! I lose the will to live… whatever happened to customer service… this should be closed down and set up by someone who can actually deliver a service… who is actually overseeing this company to make sure customers are getting the correct information and that everything is being done properly.. speak to them and you’ll see what I mean ….
It beggars belief!!!!

Can only echo what everyone is saying, was on the phone with them to answer a fairly simple question they asked about my tax code.
Then started an hour of complete incompetence.
Once finally through the advisor couldn't speak English very well - not normally a major issue except she couldn't grasp the simplest answers from me, and had to constantly put me on hold for around 5 minutes a time to ask someone else. After what felt like the hundreth time I'd got nowhere and had to hang up for a meeting (and my sanity).
This shower take being professionally inept up to a whole new level, which is worrying when you think of the responsibility they hold for people's futures.

AWFUL CUSTOMER SERVICE:
There's no email address to contact or send forms. Forms have to be sent by post and there is a minimum 6 week wait time! I got an email from my university that my tuition fees had increased and that SFE refused to increase the loan amount.I also received a letter from SFE that the university was requesting a higher fee and I had to change the loan amount. I submitted the loan increase form by post. Since then, I received the same old document with the old fee amount 3 times! After 6 weeks, I called them up, waited in line for 40 minutes before being answered. The advisor had an unclear way of speech, I tried to explain to her what I wanted, she kept putting me on hold. After repeatedly asking her my query, she eventually hung up on me! I have no one to speak to and now and my university is only being paid half my fee for the year! Customer service here is non existant!

Anyone else is suffering the fake incompetence, hypocrisy, abuse and neglect of this racist people who takes months if ever to put a sharing code to check pre settle and settle status and do their job? The fact that is a GOV department says everything about England how they really are. Nearly all at the very least.

WHERE TO START!?

This is a branch of the government, so I can't give SFE any leeway. This company is absolutely appalling. They have made me stressed to the point of being physically sick on several occasions.

They have sent me money by mistake and then demanded it back. They have affirmed loan amounts, and then a month later they have withdrew the offer to "review more evidence". They have told me two directly conflicting things within the same day, which could have cost me £1,300 had I not called to rectify it. They have misdirected money I have sent them by mistake on several occasions. They have littered my parents' house with letters due to a system error. They have missed crucial deadlines on multiple occasions.

I am speaking literally when I say that I am unable to think of a single instance where this company was helpful, and we have shared about 50 phone calls together. Every single time the call was stressful and unpleasant, not to mention the 15-30 minute waiting time.

Note: I put 'Date of experience' in today's date, but the issues I faced were in 2016, 2018 and most prominently in 2024 for my masters' degree. Due to their incompetence, despite them saying I can do the course, and my spending thousands in preparation, now it is becoming likely that they won't fund me for it, as they changed their mind once again to "Review more evidence", and keep pushing back my notification date to the point that now I would be starting my course before I even know if I can pay for it.

If I could rate 0 stars or minus stars I would. I hope this branch gets shut down. It's an absolute mockery of our government.