Thursday, September 5, 2013

Why I hate Student Finance England & what I would do to them if I had the chance...

So I am an art student, entering into my second year at University.
Or, at least, I hope I will be.
Because, although I have achieved very respectable grades, I might not be let back in.
Why, you might ask?
Well lets turn to Student Finance England for that one.
It turns out these assholes haven't processed my application yet. Not any one of the three applications that I have sent them, over the course of several months. And I need to sort my tuition fee payments before I can re-enrol.

So as I was having a delightful discussion with one of their employees on the phone today (by 'delightful', I mean not at all useful and almost impossible to understand due to his thick Irish accent), you can imagine my delight at being told vague answers to quite straight forward applications.
Me: 'When will I know about the status of my application?'
SFE: 'Every application is different. It could be fourty milliseconds, it could be three lightyears from now'
Me: 'Have you even received my application? I sent the last one more than three weeks ago by recorded delivery'
SFE :'Everything we receive by post takes up to 10 days to be scanned into the system. I have no record of it being in the system'
Me: 'But I sent it more than twenty one days ago'
SFE: 'Oh look, a butterfly'
*Student Finance England then hangs up on me*
Absolutely. Freaking. Delightful.

What I don't understand is how clearly understaffed they are.
What, they can't hire a few more people to scan in postal orders, or look through forms to see that everything is in check?
Yes, I know that students are a large demographic, but seriously? It's not like you can pretend to be surprised by these numbers
You do the same thing year in year out.
Hasn't one person in the company got the common sense to think hmmm, it's only Frank and Bob down there, scanning in the entire student populations' application forms, maybe we should hire a couple more people to help.
10 days to literally just scan a few pages?! Is that a joke?

Take a minute to think about it... have you ever actually known anyone, anyone at all, that has had a good experience with this company?
.....
well?
I bet the answer is no.
Student Finance England: Forever screwing people over from possibly the most financially vulnerable demographic there is.

And another thing that makes this whole situation even more unbearable?
When I go on to their website, they proudly announce the launch of their new student finance magazine!
So instead of actually getting work done, you've been pissing around releasing a magazine that no-one will ever read unless they are stuck on a desert island, and it's the only piece of literature available. And maybe not even then.
Cheers for that, SFE.

So here is a list of what I would do to the Student Finance England company, had I the chance:
  1. I would lock them in a room with Keith Lemon and Janet Street-Porter.
  2. I would spend my entire maintenance loan- if it ever arrives- on cooking oil. I would boil said oil, and then dip each member of staff in. (I realise this one is a bit dark, but then again, I'm pretty angry and upset right now)
  3. I would superglue headphones to their ears and put 'Friday' on repeat.
  4. I would enter them into the Hunger Games
  5. I would visit their offices, and glue everything to the ceiling- chairs, desks, papers and all (Just like the monkeys did in Roald Dahl's The Twits)
  6. I would leave them on the edge of outer space.
  7. I would make them sit through Gordon Brown reading the whole of the Old Testament, and every time they fell asleep, they'd lose a finger. 
  8. I would drop them in North Korea with an important-looking briefcase containing documents written in code.
  9. I would attach them to Jedward, one on each hip.
  10. I would make them go back to University, and apply for a loan through their own system.
Okay, rant over.
And I've got to say, I feel a little better already.
Next time, I promise I'll be more upbeat!
I just seriously needed to get that off my chest
See you next time,
Sammie
xoxo
P.S. If you hate them as much as I do, take a look at the Board members page on their website. I think this is good for a couple of reasons...
1. It helps direct your anger.
2. I found slight relief in laughing at their awful photographs, mainly because two thirds of them look like the socially-awkward guests at a barbeque. The ones where the other guests spend well over an hour debating if they'll ever get laid, and if there's any truth in the claim they have an Oedipus complex.

4 comments:

  1. '10.I would make them go BACK to University, and apply for a loan through their own system' Taking into account the level of intelligence SFE's staff have, I don't think they were or ever will be capable of obtaining a place at uni. I think the cast of the only way is Essex have a higher combined number of GCSEs than the staff at SFE.

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  2. This is epic, thank you ,you have glued my heart back together. This assholes refuse now to take into account original evidence my application been sent in since January, yet they are still stalling and keep asking for the same evidence over and over and over that I already sent them. Thank you, they have been racist to me and complete bastards, I spent 300£ in tracked letters to them, yet they have the cheek to lie to my face they have not received evidence x or evidence y.Where is SFE accountable and what can we do about maltreatment against us?

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  3. Enormous blog you individuals have made there, I entirely appreciate the work.https://fr.doylesalewski.ca

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  4. It wasn't that long ago higher education was free

    ReplyDelete