Student Loans Company Avis 

I have been updating my employment status every year, as they request, and have sent them very personal and confidential information via the gov.uk web. It seems they have lost it and they are saying they cannot process my assessment because of insufficient evidence. So they want me to send everything again. I called them and the phone conversation with the advisor was a waste of time as he didn´t know how to answer to any of my questions about the documents I had sent. They do not treat the information sent to them with care and seriousness. I asked to speak with an assessor and I was denied that right. So I wrote them a letter demanding to be contacted by someone serious and with authority. They have gone silence. I have sent them a second letter. No reply. I am sure their next communication will be a letter from a debt agency. These people are incompetent and dangerous.

These people are scum. They have made zero attempt to contact me before sending my details to a debt collection company. They had my phone, they had my email so there is zero excuse. The UK has become a country where people with ambition are punished for it and the Student Loan Company is the face of that. Let's hope they don't exist for much longer.

Called to ask about second degree loans and turns out I’ve been given completely false information by the student finance customer service rep. Now have wasted a month applying, going to interviews wasting money on ucas- only to be told I was given the wrong information and the course I’ve applied for isn’t covered as a second degree. Called a further 2 times today and was again given completely different info from 2 different people! Making a formal complaint but won’t change the fact that my future plans have been completely trashed because of this horrendous company.

Not surprised to read the other reviews. Always a 30 minute wait to call them. Finally paid off my loan this week & was advised that a letter would be sent through the post to confirm this (why on earth aren't they doing everything online / via email as standard in 2024 is beyond me) and it would take a minimum of 20 days so demanded an email with attachment (they only do this if you flag as an emergency) to send to my payroll provider to stop the payments. Just generally really bad customer service and an unpleasant experience.

This company is infuriating to deal with.

I changed employment in June, and was immediately bombarded with aggressive texts, emails and phone calls from SLS about updating my employment status.

I hadn’t had a paycheque yet so waited for my first paycheque to do this, and calls, texts etc escalated in the meantime.

Submitted my new details in July and the calls stopped. In October they started up again (I had not changed employment status since last submission) again getting increasingly aggressive.

Trying to get through on the phone was impossible, they put you in a ‘callback queue’ but then either never call back, or call back then immediately hang up when you answer.

I couldn’t get through to a person so have resubmitted the same info I submitted in July. But are we seriously expected to do this every few months even if our employment doesn’t change? Why are they not transparent about this?!

Rude and incompetent customer service, asking for details or evidence that you can't provide, because it's not possible to get, treating people like they are gods.
Worst ever ever customer service.

So my daughter at uni was overpaid due to ST mess up she was then constantly harassed by them with letters and txt demanding repayments.
I stepped in and arranged with them to make monthly payments to pay off this debt which when they looked again at the information sent was reduced .Some 4 payments later they then start with the txt again demanding payments, she phones them again to find out my repayments have been lost in the system so i call them the ignorant woman on the end of the phone constantly talked over me I asked to please stop talking over me and let me speak she then hung up on me.
All those who have written reviews on here have the same complaint as to their incompetency can someone get an MP to step in and sort out this not fit for purpose organisation,

Been receiving letters threatening to increase my interest rates if I don't update my employment details, go to employment details and I don't have a username/password to log in, go to recover them and the system doesn't recognise my name and DOB. Have to go through a call centre, designed in an incredibly hostile way to prevent people from calling in the first place, during my work in order to find out my login to pay these people money.

Joke.

If you want to know what life is like after Starmageddon, try and contact SLC Absolutely appalling service. How you can have to request a refund via social media is beyond me. And the blame is purely with HMRC. Unionised institutions, nice to have my future back ......

Absolutely abysmal. Rung at 5pm to be on hold for 56 minutes just to be told they had closed and I had to call back. All clearly knocked off to the pub a little bit too early. Not good enough.

Firstly, their interest rate is shocking. For the amount of money I borrowed (£6k), I would have been better off getting a bank loan. It would have been paid off in half the time. As it is, I've spent the past 10 years paying this off and still ended up paying a £750 lump sum to clear it. Work that one out?!
Now it turns out, they didn't send the 'stop note' to my employer for another 3-months, so I'm owed a refund for money I shouldn't have been paying.
They've sent me two letters, which took a month to arrive, telling me to call a number to arrange the refund.
So I called the number, and after 10mins of 'Press 1 for... 2 for...' that goes round in circles, I've now been on hold for just over an hour.
If my previous experience of them is anything to go by, they'll have 1 person manning the refund line, who answers when they can be bothered. Pretty sure that if I chose the option for 'make a payment' someone would have answered straight away.
The other the letter suggested was to ask for a refund on Facebook! Not professional in my opinion.
If you were looking into getting a loan with a bank and you saw this type of behavior, you'd give them a wide berth.
It's a shame students are steered towards this mickey-mouse outfit when they don't know any better.
They're supposedly a 'not for profit' government body.
Q: Why charge so much interest? It cant cost that much to pay that one bloke in the call center to put his feet up all day while the phone rings off the hook.

Has caused me constant stress...

I did an Meng degree, but I could only complete 3 years of the course coming out with a Bachelors degree due to medical health reasons.

Student Finance England agreed to fund my Masters degree at another university for the 1st Semester, but they have now suddenly changed my application saying that I am no longer eligible for funding despite them making me get my previous university to complete a Change of Circumstance Task to prove I have not completed a Masters and upload medical evidence for compelling reasons.

Every time I phone them they need 4-5 days to process the documents. There has been numerous conflicting/ misleading documents stating I was eligible for funding and they sent evidence to the wrong department further delaying my application.

Meanwhile they have been phoning me every day to pay back over £6000 loan while I am trying to study for my degree, which I do not have because I have given the money to the university and now find myself in a impossible situation of somehow having to find the rest of the funds to complete a Masters course.

I reassured the University that student finance would fund me as I was told over the phone that everything would be fine. I have Autism Spectrum Disorder and I have suffered with psychosis caused by stress and they are currently ruining my life. I feel very mislead, we are told all this stuff in education about the importance of Equality and Diversity and yet now here I am in a situation I cannot deal with. They claim that there has been a sudden change to the policy/ legislation caused by the department of education, and there is no one I can speak to. They have not given me any specific information yet on when this change took place.

I am not working at the moment, I will struggle to find employment in future as there will be a large gap in my work history because of an uncompleted masters. I had no prior warning that they would suddenly pull away funding. If I cannot afford to do the degree and I have to drop out they still expect me to pay back over £6000 for a course I could not complete due to ill health and financial difficulty.

I am really at a loss on what to do now. I will seek citizens advice. The error they have made has real life consequences on my life. They should not have funded me in the first place if they were just going to take it away. They have put me in a situation which I am not equipped to deal with as I cannot afford to fund the rest of my Masters and I have a debt of over £6000 that I simply cannot afford to pay back.

Range twice to set up a direct debit as I'm earning enough to do so and owe £800 left. I was employed last year full time and was changing my job at the end of that month on reduced income. They said I had to pay the amount they stated although my income was changing and we're rude. I said I would ring back. I'm now part employed and part self employed. Dealing with really obnoxious people when you ring up that are not coperative at all. I again have not managed to set up a direct debit and just got upset by the appalling staff. I won't be ringing up again. It doesn't pay to try to pay off your student loan early. It's only taken me 25 years and counting.

Just so so so horrific to deal with. Impossible to log in with 30 minute lockouts after 2 password attempts, impossible to call on their stupid phone line, impossible to correspond with by any means other than their idiotic phone line, particularly when you live abroad. Absolutely zero customer service.
Honestly raises my stress level tenfold anytime I have to have anything to do with this company, would rather cut off my own toe than take out any form of loan with these morons in hindsight. I'm pregnant and me trying to correspond with them in regards to my payments and maternity leave right now is going to send me into a mental institution.

i have been informed today by SLC that the overpayment i made of £659 would have to go to a department that will make a decision if i get my money back or not
as apparently standing order is a voluntary payment
unable to speak to any manager today or the department that will decide my fate as i was told not even SLC speak to them
anyone else feel my frustration
how can they keep my money paid out of my retirement money

I wasn’t surprised to see the same reviews the entire way through. You have a change of plans or circumstance, so you let student loans know, they take 3 months to respond. You send them what they want. Then it takes 3 months to reply at which point every letter is passive aggressive demanding you send them more information or you’ll be charged despite paying your student loan this whole time anyway. Dreadful, incompetent service.

They waste your time, and they are never clear about what your need to do next. They take 6 - 8 weeks to say yes or no. Worst company I’ve ever had to deal with.

Withdrawn from uni but to reapply for a different course. Obviously my last loan was classed as an overpayment and I called up to pay it back and set up a payment plan for this. Spoke to Mathew I think the first time and then Gabriella and they made me feel so at ease and I realised I have nothing to stress about. Thanks for the support

Been trying to pay off my loan for weeks now. Was initially told after a 1.5 hour wait on the phone by UMER in the repayment department that I could not repay my loan because the 'files were not updated'. Umer could not update the files himself or transfer me to a department that could. He told me to call back at the end of the week.

Needless to say, I decided to send a direct transfer of the approximate figure so that they couldn't fob me off or charge me interest any longer.

My account is now supposedly in credit. Tried to contact them today to receive my >£300 back. I was cut off after 25 mins on hold. Finally got in touch via the complaints line. I am now told I cannot have a final statement because the account does not read £0.00. This refund can take 28 days.

They have told me, that in the mean time, they may continue to take money from my employer as it can take weeks for HMRC update their records.

Only when my account finally reads £0.00 will they be able to give me a closing statement. Oh and they won't send me that - I have to contact them again to request it...

Utter incompetence. I would be embarassed to work for SLC.

Horrendous wait times on phone. Needs much more staffing. Every interaction with SLC is painful.