Only A Geordie Can Save You Now

This blog thinks that an omelette is, in fact, a female omel.

Right, that’s it. It’s time. I’ve been trying not to write about this, but I have to. Too many of my friends have been yelled at, so now I need to get it out of my system.

Student Finance England.

As a student, I need student finance. I need a loan, or at least something to stump up the three and a half grand I have to pay in order to learn. I don’t have that kind of money just knocking around. And so Student Finance England seem like the best bet, not having amazingly rich parents or a dying billionaire relative willing to throw me some cash.
And aside from rich parents, relatives with fatal diseases, money laundering or theft, the Student Loans Company are the only people you can turn to. It’s not like with banks, where you can wander around looking for the best rates of interest or other bank things I don’t understand with various acronyms. The Student Loans company are the only option. One choice. All the students in Britain have to go through the proper channels and be assigned their various geographical hub of the Student Loans Company. Thus, for me, it’s Student Finance England. Now, I don’t know about the other companies, never having been able to use them, so I’m just going to have a whinge about SFE, although I imagine the problems will be similar across the UK.

Firstly, the fact that they’re the only option means that if I want to get some money in order to be able to afford to be a student, I have to go through them. They only seem to have pretty much one job; to help students out with funding, and they suck at it. They suck pretty hard.

Three years ago I had my first encounter with Student Finance, which didn’t go as smoothly as I would have liked. Being new to it, I assumed that any problems I was having was just because it was my first time enrolling, and once my information was on the system, the next few times would be a breeze.
(I’ll give this some context, just in case you’re unaware of how the system works:
Three years ago, I started my first Semester at my first uni, doing a Foundation Degree in Digital Design. The promise was that once we’d completed the initial two years, we’d be able to transfer courses no problem, straight onto the third year of a degree course and that’d be it. That was, apparently, all a lie, and so I decided not to get a degree in Graphic Design but, in fact, try and get a degree in Media, something that I actually wanted to do. So I left after the two year course, got myself a Foundation Degree and moved city in order to try my hand at something new. Hopefully with my previous experience, I would be able to walk right into the second year of the course and I’d be able to carry on pretty much where I left off. Unfortunately, I didn’t qualify for that and so had to start again, my Foundation Degree proving to be approximately £7000 worth of useless. Unless you end up doing what they call a ‘Top Up Course’, as opposed to starting a new course like I did, you only get 4 years worth of Funding. This means that in my first year of my new course, I don’t have my tuition fees paid for. This causes many complications as I will explain later on.)
So, with my first few attempts at trying to get my Student Loan application sorted, sending off Passports and all manner of documentation, they were supposed to send me a letter which consisted of all the T’s & C’s that no one reads, and a little box marked “Sign Here:”. After a week, the letter had still not arrived, so I rang them up, and after being on hold for twenty minutes, I had a thirty second conversation which resulted in whoever was on the other end clicking a button to order me a new letter. After about a month and a number of similar conversations, one very friendly Scottish girl answered the phone, and kindly informed me that since they had sent about seven letters to my house after all my phone calls, why didn’t I just print the form and send it back?
“Well”, I replied, “No one had informed me that that was an option.”
She subsequently gave me a website address, I printed off the form, signed it, sent it off and within a few days, I had myself some lovely free, pretend, student money*. (*Free, pretend, student money not actually free or pretend.)
So that was my first encounter, and the next year I went through a very similar process. After my year out as a Barista/Bar Tender, I had to go through the whole bloody ordeal again. And here we begin.

As I had applied for a loan before, my details were still partially on their system, by which I mean, my login still worked… Just… All the rest of my details had mysteriously disappeared, meaning I had to fill in all the form again.
Fine, I can cope with that, it’s tedious but okay. I began this process in March.
Now, having lived away from my parents for the required period of 3 years, I would have though that I would apply for ‘Independent Student’ status, their requirements being that you are estranged/orphaned/have lived away from your parents for three years. They even have a helpful little bit on the website (once you can navigate through the fucking thing. One of the least user friendly websites I have used ever) where you can click the box that says you think you meet the requirements for ‘Independent Student’ status. To prove your status, you need to provide them with a Passport/Birth Certificate/Something else, and P60′s for the past three years. Now, as I was a student for two of those years and didn’t have a job in my first year, I didn’t have the necessary P60 forms. Also, never thinking I would need it, I don’t have my birth certificate in my possession, and wasn’t sure if I had a valid passport (why it needs to be valid I’m not sure, I’m the same person whether or not the passport is in date), it turns out that I did have a passport at my Father’s house, but on the website they apparently preempt you not having whatever documentation is required with a check box that allows you to select ‘I do not have any of this information’. No matter how many times I clicked this box, the same message would always remain on my home page; ‘We’re still waiting for information from you’. Why bother having the option if you need the information and can’t continue without it? So, once again I called them up. Apparently, you need to have been earning a minimum of £7500 a year for those three years that you claim to have been living away from your parents. Now, the one year that I did have a P60 for, I hadn’t earnt enough, apparently (badly paid job, not enough hours, just managing to scrape by, only just being able to afford rent, etc). This astounded me, given that assuming I’m earning less than whatever, you’d assume I would be in need of the loan more than someone who had been earning however much. But apparently not. So I had to change my application.
It was August by the time I had discovered that they did, in fact, need the information, and so I got to work sending off my passport (if I didn’t have a passport, I would have had to go to the registry office in the town that I was born in and buy a new birth certificate, which would have been a bit of a bloody hassle, if I’m honest.)
So, after speaking to another useful Scottish girl after a string of English morons, they got me to print off a bunch of information to fill in and send back to them, as you can’t amend certain parts of your application online once you’ve clicked the ‘That seems fine’ button. So I had to do this all by hand, filling in the forms, getting my mother to fill in similar forms, sending it back to them, not receiving any confirmation that they had received any of it, calling them up again, getting nowhere, waiting a bit, calling them again to be told that they had received the forms, they were in administration and until they’d been processed “There’s nothing you can do”. Those were her actual words.

By now we’ve reached September, and I’m getting a bit bloody anxious about Uni and not ever having any money to be able to pay them. Remember that I started this process in March, so they’re taking their sweet time about it. Alongside this, I also have to send the University evidence of my Foundation Degree grade, A level results and GCSE results. Again, not forms that I have in my possession, I would have thought that a Foundation Degree would do, but apparently a C in GCSE english is also necessary. I was half expecting them to want my SAT results and any evidence of ‘Finger Painting’ and ‘Use of Crayons’ I might also have, perhaps to assess how proficient I would be at ‘Advanced Crayola Theory’.
So after back-and-forthing with the University and Student Loans lot, and after many emails and phonecalls (although the emails were less successful, given that finding a contact email address for the loans company is like finding the Holy Grail and even when you do track it down, you’re met with a ‘This service is temporarily unavailable’ message, although ‘Temporary’ seems to be used quite loosely here, since every time I’ve tried to use it in the past six months I’ve been met with the same message) I’m finally at my wits end. And then a receive an email on September 27th, responding to a message I sent on August 11th, stating that they can ‘Confirm you have applied for Independent Student Status; Please send us P60 forms, etc.”

And that was it. I lost my rag. That was the straw that broke the camels back. I’d already sent off my forms and information to the contrary, and I was furious. I called them up one last time, and I was out for blood. My hands were physically shaking as I punched the keys on my phone in response to the “Press one to go fuck yourself, Press two to bend over and let us fuck you” robot. Finally, after being on hold for 22 minutes and 19 seconds, constantly being assured that my call was important to them and that they were particularly busy at this time of year, and I was met by the lilting tones of a Geordie accent. Confirm ID number, date of birth, what can I help you with?
“Hi, is there anyone I can speak to in management, or at least higher up? I’m really quite angry right now, and I know that what I’m angry about has nothing to do with you whatsoever”, I was tempted to add at this point ‘and to be honest, even if there’s no one in management I can speak to, you seem very nice, just patch me onto someone in your office you don’t like’.
I was in a rage, I was going to yell at someone, but I wanted it to be someone who deserved it. I was ready and willing to kick off almost instantly, but with their advanced combat tactics, Student Finance England has sensed my rage and deployed a Friendly Geordie Lass. But I was not perturbed.

“Well, if you want, I can have a word with management and see if I can get someone to talk to you, but if you want to explain what the problem is then that will help me sort out who it is you need to speak to.”
Fine. I would suppress my wrath for a while longer. I explained basically what I’ve told you up until now, from March onwards, and she could confirm all of it, having all the details of letters I’d posted, emails I’d sent and every time I’d made a phonecall up on her computer. She understood. She made all the right ‘Uh huh’ and ‘I understand’ and ‘Yeah, I know’ cooing noises into my ear. But I was angry. The red mist had descended. They weren’t going to get past this angry bastard just with some friendly Geordie. She explained that she would put me on hold while she spoke to a supervisor, and then we could sort things out.
Damn right we’re going to sort this out. Either you tell me what I want to hear right now, or the SFE building is going to become Nakatomi Tower, and I’m John McClane. I’m taking off my shoes.
“Right” she said, the receiver click having ended the Muzak they had been playing at me, “Here’s the situation.”
Fortunately for them, they chose the first option. They’d sensed my fury, they were willing to play ball. They’d fucked with this guy one too many times, and they knew it.
She sympathised with me, told me how she understood it can be a stressful enough time becoming a student, let alone with all this bullshit. She informed me that they were going to look up all the whatever they had to do and I would get a letter in a couple of weeks, regarding the information about my loans. It came yesterday. If it hadn’t they had one more week before I stormed Student Finance Fortress with a big stick.
Fortunately for them, Friendly Girl from Newcastle saves the day.

From this, I can surmise only that, if you work in a call centre, the further north from the equator you travel, the more useful you become. I have spoken on the phone to maybe thirty different people at Student Finance England in the last few years, and 3 of them have been helpful; Two scottish girls and a geordie.

But what the fuck? Student Finance, the only option you have, is one of the least organised organisations I know. Every year, around results time, they seem to freak the fuck out that they’re getting so many calls. But it’s not like this is a completely unexpected phenomenon.

They’re worse than The Whole Of England when it snows. I can tell you that, come winter, it’s probably going to snow. Get the gritters out when it gets cold. But instead, the first day there’s frost, everyone freaks the fuck out. Trains stop running, the news broadcasts exclusively news about snow, how it’s ‘Colder than last year and subsequently the coldest day ever‘, shops close, miles of motorway become traffic jams, people trying to escape the mysterious cold, wet, white substance floating gently down from the sky. I’m surprised I’ve not heard the words ‘Apocalypse’ or ‘End of days’ yet. England, get your shit together. Winter means it’s probably going to snow. It’s been this way for FUCKING AGES, it happens every year, get a grip.

Student loans company, you’re even worse. You don’t have the highly-technological-but ultimately-mostly-useless equipment the meteorological guys have to work with, you’ve got something even better. A fucking calendar.
The date for A Level Results is told to you months in advance. You know when you’re going to get busy. It’s there, in writing, telling you ‘This day, you’re going to get a lot of calls’. Perhaps put a few more members of staff on? It’s not like it’s a surprise, I can tell you when you’re going to be busy. Sort your shit out.

To conclude, the Student Loans Company are shit. But they don’t know this, because you’ve got to be fucking Theseus in order to find the complaints button in the first place. They’re the only option, and they don’t work. Student Finance England, you’re a bunch of incompetent bastards, but you’re the only choice that doesn’t involve Robbery or Parricide.

On a lighter note, to end the blog, remember that I’m Movember-ing this year, and donations and team-joining can be done here. Failing that, there’s always the Facebook page here where ‘Like’s will be viewed as support, and support is most welcome.

Big love,
L

PS. If you’ve been affected by any of the issues in this blog, you’re welcome to try and find the complaints address on the Student Finance England website, and good luck to you. (The complaints button at the bottom, by the way, goes to the Student Loans Company website, so if you -do- manage to complain, it takes forever to get back to Student Finance England. This was the only way I could contact them via email, as far as I could work out. There doesn’t seem to be anywhere to write to if you don’t want to complain, and if you just want to ask a question.)

Tags: anger, call centre, complaint, finance, money, phone, phonecalls, student, student finance, student finance england, uni