Living for Disco

Pink hair photos are in the pipeline, but in the meantime, here’s a pleasant little rant about the Student Loans company for your reading pleasure.

Said Student Loans company have been sending letters to my mother’s house, asking me for money.  This would be fine, and perfectly reasonable but for two things:

 1.I am not living with my mother, I am living 7679 miles away, in Africa.

 2.I spent a fair amount of time and effort last year arranging for my best mate to have power of attorney over my loan deferment, and making sure that the student loans people knew to contact her at this point. 

I email the customer service department to remind them of this fact, and to ask why they saw fit to ignore it when the time came for action. 

I get a very snitty answer (customer service my arse) informing me that they had received no such information, and my account is in arrears to the amount of 284 quid and counting.  They repeated their request for me to call them, at my own expense – which would be considerable, if the amount of time I have spent on hold to them in the past is anything to go by.

So I respond, telling them that to my certain knowledge they had received the information, giving them the name of the person I sent it to, and telling them that I was not prepared to be out of pocket because of their incompetence.  I also gave them my phone number, and asked them to call me instead. I earn less than 300 quid a month, after all, which is why I’m deferring my loan in the first place. 

I received an email straight back containing the following:

“Unfortunately, you are not in a position to advise what information we have and have not received… The address that you have provided where you returned your letter to provide a third party authority to discuss your account is correct. Unfortunately, as previously advised, this letter has never arrived nor has the address on the account been amended as a result of this. I would advise that Honours Student Loans cannot be held responsible for items which have failed to arrive via the postal system and I suggest that you speak to the Royal Mail regarding this.”

This, of course, makes my brains leak out of my nose in fury.  How fucking rude!  So I send them this:

“I did, however, check before my departure that everything was in order, and that [my friend] would be able to act as my attorney, and was assured that everything was in place.  This would suggest to me that paperwork was received, and has since been misplaced.”

An hour later I this plopped into my inbox:

“I have found that a letter was noted as received on your account on 15/09/05 that provided authority to [my friend] and gave her address. I have spoken to our administration department who usually keep a copy of such letters of authority. Unfortunately, a record is only kept for a period of 12 months and the account is noted accordingly that authority has been given.”

No apology, no grovelling, no admission of uselessness or ineptitude.  And apparently the fact that it has been noted is still not enough – I have to fax them the letter AGAIN, because they are so vastly incompetent that they hadn’t made a note of any of the pertinent details.   

Naturally I let them know how relieved I am that I don’t have to spend more precious time and money berating the Royal Mail, as they so charmingly suggested.

I know, I know, to err is human, etc.  Everyone makes mistakes, but when someone tells you they want you to fork out the equivalent of your monthly salary and very likely more, despite you having followed instructions to the letter to avoid this, is upsetting and stressful.  I now have a headache, which, for your information, has absolutely nothing to do with the wine and the vodka I drank last night, with the laura ashley ladies on the High Commissioner’s lawn.

So, a seasonal Halloween message to the Honours Student Loan Company – next time you want to send sarcastic emails to your customers, I suggest you check your records before hitting the ’send’ button, and perhaps you could make sure your ‘customer service’ staff aren’t sitting at their desks all day with their heads buried in steaming piles of elephant dung, even though this is what they all richly deserve.

That is all.