student-finance.service.gov.uk 

I submitted the required proof over two months ago. My payments were stopped and no one at SFE actually checked the documents until I had already chased them repeatedly. Even after multiple follow-ups, when I finally got through on the phone after waiting an hour on hold (dreadful hold music by the way) I was told I would have to wait another 20 days for someone to look at it.

I am already back at University. Being left without the essential funding I was relying on has caused real financial hardship. The lack of basic urgency or accountability is unacceptable. Submitting evidence should not mean months of silence followed by yet another long delay once you force them to notice.

The process feels dated and old fashioned designed to wear people down rather than support students.

Communication is poor, responses are slow, and the burden is entirely on the student to keep chasing. This experience has been stressful and unnecessary. SFE needs to fix how it handles evidence and payments urgently!

Awful ..tried to speak to someone..on hold 2 hours ..couldn't even help with a simple query so put me through to another department abd line went dead ..shocking service

Appalling broken service. You ring for help and they cut you off. Web chat is also off and that’s where they direct me. So basically dead end with no complete application for finance because of the terrible broken service.

Awful experience! I have been trying to get in contact with student finance for months. They haven’t replied to any of my emails and have now charged me over £800 for not contacting them! Do better. I want someone to contact me.

I had a really unpleasant experience with an advisor on the phone who did not listen to me, interrupted me, did not resolve my issue, said I could not speak to an advisor or senior manager, said I could request a call back for a call with a senior manager and then when I did, said it wasn't possible. She also gave me the incorrect number for a complaints email. Utterly unprofessional and rude as well as wildly incompetent.

Absolutely useless, overseas call center with rude clearly untrained staff, chat service with 147 minute wait then it kicks you out. Keep receiving a bombardment of e mails and calls asking for money which is not owed..they use Fujitsu software apparently for their calculations so another post office type scandal looms

My student loan has been paid in full, yet they're still getting money from me and it will take at least 2 months to get it paid back (3 months+ end to end). Despite me being made redundant and needing it.

The sooner student loans are treated like financial products and covered by FCA regulations the better it will be for everyone (apart from this company!).

Utterly ridiculous system. Needed to understand what was happening with my application and they make it almost impossible to speak to a real person. The AI chat is useless, when they finally directed me to an agent on the chat he did not respond. Tried calling and they again repeatedly directed me to this useless chat and then hanging up on me. Finally spoke to a person on the phone after an hour of nonsense only for her to speak to me like I was stupid, not listen to me and kept avoiding answering my question. Absolute sham of a company and total piss take.

Just spoke with Liam he was amazing and very fast

I shall continue leaving a 1 star review until this organisation shapes up.
Incompetent, difficult to deal with ,having to provide the exact same documents again ,despite telling me they have it on their system.
Please get your act together you are stressing students out for no reason other then your organisation being not capable providing a smooth and logical service. Disgraceful and inhumane.

Had some excellent customer service from Steve, he helped me sort out my log in so quickly and easily!

Absolutely useless customer service.

I have spent many hours across many days trying to resolve a simple issue, and every single part of the process seems designed to stop people from getting help. I need my secret answer to access my account. When I try to reset it online, the system tells me I already have one and therefore cannot change it! So I do the obvious thing and contact customer support, except actually getting support is nearly impossible.

You have to listen to an automated voice, and waste a ridiculous amount of time just to be told that the issue does not require an adviser and must be dealt with online. The same online system that caused the problem in the first place.

So the website tells me to contact support. Support tells me to use the website. Back and forth, round and round, with absolutely nobody taking responsibility or offering a solution. When I finally got onto a queue to talk to a real person (discovered only through a random reddit comment section) I was placed on a queue for half an hour, and after ten minutes was hung up on!

Meanwhile, Student Finance England continues to send me emails warning that my application is incomplete and that if I do not complete it soon, I may not receive my student funding on time. How am I supposed to complete it when the system is preventing me from accessing my account and your incompetent customer service refuses to help?

There is apparently no mechanism for dealing with problems that fall outside the script. If the website fails, the phone line sends you back to the website. If the website still fails, you are left completely stuck while deadlines approach and funding is put at risk.

For an organisation responsible for the finances of thousands of students, this level of incompetence is frankly embarrassing. The customer service system is not just bad—it is actively obstructive. It wastes people's time, increases stress, and leaves students panicking about whether they will be able to afford university because nobody can provide help with even the most basic account issue.

An utterly frustrating, infuriating experience and one of the worst customer service systems I have ever dealt with.

How is this acceptable??
Most gov.uk websites are quick, plain and easy to use, this one is a disaster, constant looping, information not being saved, unclear instructions and JavaScript that never resolves...

This site is abysmal, utterly not fit for purpose, and a waste of time for the people trying to fill it in.

they’re just so annoying to contact. it’s like they make it difficult on purpose. i remember being on the line for 2 hours and 30 minutes JUST for them to send me a form. There was no need for it to take that long, and their live chat doesn’t even work?!! I absolutely DREAD every-time i need to contact student finance because it’s just stressful and long for no reason

The website is terribly difficult to navigate when things are not so straight forward, pension options to declare are not there, financial reporting of outgoings not there. Difference in income this year not accessible. I will offer to sort out their website for them, it can't get any worse.

Firstly the staff are put into a very difficult situation, they are lovely people however I wouldn't want to do their job as they are let down by the system.

You are looking at at least one hour wait to get through to them. The reason it's that long is because the online portal is shockingly bad, it's not user friendly at all, constantly wanting password changes every time you log in, going round in circles over & over & over & over again, it's not logical at all, I'm technically minded & I find this system totally unusable, it then locks you out for 30 mins.

I have spent 8 hrs today trying to complete my support for my daughter, I really feel for the staff as they are having to deal with a totally broken system & the frustration of people trying to complete something that should be so simple.
**TEST IT TO MAKE IT USER FRIENDLY**

It’s utter hell trying to log in to this website. I go round in circles trying to reset the password. Keep getting told my secret answer is wrong (it can’t be!) and then getting locked out. Have wasted hours hanging on the phone and then nobody can help when I get through. Such a nightmare. This shambolic website needs a massive overhaul.

Unfortunately had the pleasure of dealing with these people. My Wife is a student and I had to be linked to her student finance.
They have asked for my evidence of income and I've sent it over several times only to be told it's not acceptable. But the numpties don't know why?
These guys are useless, incompetent and ridiculously had to get hold of because they don't respond to emails and take an hour to answer the phone.

I would think long and hard before agreeing to deal with these idiots.

Waited 45 minutes to get on a call with a real person at SFE and after 1 minute on the call the agent said they couldn't hear me speaking and so ended the call.

I am writing this to highlight a major gap in staff training regarding immigration and refugee status. I spent two months calling repeatedly because I did not have physical ID, but the frontline staff I spoke with had no understanding of what "Refugee Status" meant or how to handle identity checks for someone in my position.

This process was incredibly draining and stressful. It was only after two months of explaining my situation that I finally reached a staff member who referred me to a specialist team. While my issue is now sorted, Student Finance England needs to ensure frontline staff are trained to:
Understand basic immigration terms like Refugee Status.
Identify when a case is beyond their training and refer it to a specialist team immediately, rather than letting it drag on for months.
No student should have to go through this level of unnecessary stress just to prove their identity.