Honours Student Loans Company
You must excuse the number of times I will force you to read the words Honours Student Loans Company in this post – I am ignorant of how search engines work, but I would truly appreciate it if this post came up first on any search made for this bunch of incompetent, waste-of-space, goldfish-memory shysters who are wasting my time with their idiocy, and giving me an ulcer.
So, I don’t know how many of you remember this post, about the rudeness and ineptitude of the customer service department of The Honours Student Loans Company. This is a continuation of that saga of pig-thickery.
Fortunately, I thought that after a series of approximately 25 emails exchanged with the Honours Student Loans Company last month, which wasted a vast amount of time I could have better spent picking my nose, or cleaning the dirt from beneath my fingernails, I had the whole thing sorted out. They led me to believe this by sending me this email (which, conspicuously, did not have the words ’sorry’, ‘apology’, or ‘fantastic incompetence’ in it at all):
“A deferment form was requested for you yesterday and I can confirm that a hold has been placed on your account until it has been deferred. Once the deferment is accepted we can backdate the deferment start date by a period of 3 months but on this occasion I will note the account that we will extend this period due to the fact mail was not sent to the address that you had specified.”
Lovely.
So, this morning, I receive an email from my friend, with this attached. It is from the Honours Student Loans Company:
I don’t know if you can read it, but the Honours Student Loans Company are telling me that my account is now 340 pounds overdue, and that if they have to send me any more letters, they will be charging me for them. And, mind-bogglingly, they have clocked that I am overseas, because this letter comes from the overseas collection department.
They obviously have not taken in the information that I earn approximately 210 shiny British pounds every month, and that I occasionally have sleepless nights because when I get back home, this experience will have plunged me even deeper into debt than I was before.
I have written to them, with the message that I expect an apology very shortly. I absolutely cannot wait to receive their first email this morning. I am hoping beyond hope that they get on their knees and offer to clean the ground beneath my feet with their tongues for the foreseeable future. I doubt it though, and right now, I’m in the mood for a fight. I have all my words lined up, ready to march into battle.
They are fuckers (the Honours Student Loans Company, that is, in case you hadn’t picked up on that).
December 12th, 2006 at 7:54 pm
Oh God Rach. They are absolute and utter gits. I hate them, i hate them, i hate them, i hate them too.
I reckon we need to start a website along the lines of http://www.thestudentloanscompanyaregits.com
Grrrr
December 12th, 2006 at 8:00 pm
Didn’t know why you had the word “honours” in their name too so I did a search. Perhaps this page will explain why this is all such a mess:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honours_Student_Loans_Company
I don’t even know if my loans have been sold off or not.
December 12th, 2006 at 11:31 pm
Hello, have been lurking for a while and enjoying what you say. I felt the need to leave my cosy lurking-hole to offer my solidarity on this though.
I got a nasty angry feeling in my stomach.
Something very similar happened to my boyfriend. After working for several years (paying off the loan) he started a masters and then went on to do a PhD. The above-named gits failed to grasp this, and stated threatening to prosecute him. They eventually got that he wasn’t earning, but every subsequent year until he started paid work he had to go through the same thing, with the bills they were sending him getting larger and larger. This wasn’t just a case of him saying ‘look, you’ve got this wrong’ and them saying ‘oh yes, sorry’ – it went on for weeks each year. When he did start work, poor and indebted due to years of study, they made him pay the bills that he’d accrued while studying (which had been generated due to their incompetence) over about 3 months, again threatening prosecution! It was a hard 3 months….
Hope this doesn’t happen to you…
December 13th, 2006 at 7:59 am
Fearghal – yes, we should indeed – I reckon we could get quite a few stories from people about how bloody useless they are. A project perhaps.
Dozey, hello! I’m glad you delurked. I like it when people delurk. That’s a nightmare though – I can’t believe they did that! I’ve told them I’m keeping all the correspondence from this year, so when it inevitably happens again next year, I can just send it to them and tell them to get stuffed.
December 13th, 2006 at 9:53 am
These people are assholeheads who operate as if from a third world country.
December 14th, 2006 at 3:58 pm
If it’s any consolation, this blog and “apropos of nothing” lie 6th and 7th on my google.com (worldwide) search for “incompetent “student loans”". Congratulations! And commiserations.
January 10th, 2007 at 5:29 pm
Your saga is a sad and sorry mirror to my own frustrations with these insanely incompetent people. I wrote to them in December of 2005 and told them my new address and so on, which they confirmed, then they ignored it and forgot to send me a deferral notice, emptied my account of the first payment, got pissed when I cancelled the direct debit with my bank and sent them a 12 page email, fax and letter telling them that they were wrong as I had communication from them to that effect.
Then the saga got complex when they told me the foreign country I moved to was not overseas, that my account was on hold and all mistakes were theirs and the form was being resent, that my mum needed a power of atorney (it’s called a MANDATE people!!!) which means she can talk about my account, when infact a Power of Atorney gives her full and complete control of my life and decisions over and above me or my husband (you can imagine neither he nor I were pleased), then they wrote and said I was deferred and then lied and said no such letter existed and I was making it up so I emailed and faxed and copied it back to them and then they called me and apologized again and said it was all their fault and that they would roll back the whole fees thing to zero (this was in October) once they get the new (what is this, 6th attempt at sending) deferral letter which I got and had my mum fill in and sign and send with a mandate and that was fine then they write to me and tell me my account is in arrears by over 500 bucks (they add money for fun, I’m sure of it considering the account was on hold twice between June and October and then October and December) and after we contact them AGAIN which they have no record of, they send the request for all my money that I don’t have to a collections agency after we sent SEVERAL copies of the deferral notice and mandate and the collections agency say pay them (the collections agency) and if I don’t they will instruct the loans company to completely cancel our agreement so I will owe them everything right now and will have to pay the loan off completely and asap.
So when I called the loans company and updated my details with them (i was testing them to see what info they had) the only update they had on their system was from October when we contacted them to get yet another (still not sent) deferral letter sent out which they eventually sent, but that was all they had. No fees, no black mark against my name, no collections agency on my tail… at least not on that system anyway.
Makes you wonder if their own departments actually talk to each other…
So anyway, that’s my story and believe me when I say you have my sympathy.
February 17th, 2007 at 11:53 pm
Commiserations – I’m going through hell with this company! After leaving Hons course early, ded died may exams, mum died sept resits! By the way this goes back to 1993/4! Yes despite not earning, being ‘disabled for life’, sending them doctors letters etc., every year they ask for ‘proof’ – you can only send so much!
Last year I asked Michaelmeacher MP to help – hum! SLC wrote to me, sarcastic letter saying, ‘they would defer loan for 36 months from evidence suppl;ied in June” I breathed sigh of relief and thought that’s it, this hell is over, but no! Nov my account was put in hands of Westcott Credit you owe £400 arrears – pardon? If I have deferment evewry year how can I have arrears??? I have deferment – no you don’t – yes I do! I supplied letters, they sent file back to SLC and wrote me off their computer – I breathed again! Jan/Feb STC put it in hands of Smith Lawson – as you may know – part of STC Ltd., you have 7days to pay! They won’t cancel it, then letter came you have deferment to April 07 – what! That is not the 36 months promised – ah, they realised I will be 60 in Sep. and they have to cancel it then. ANYONE KNOW WHAT I CAN DO TO STOP THIS HARRASSMENT BY THEM? …PLEASE?
March 5th, 2007 at 8:15 pm
Get back in touch with your MP and log EVERYTHING, including CCing him/her into every communication with these people. The Bs told me I was deferred and then turned round and said the letter they sent saying i was deferred was a made up lie by me, so I copied it and sent it back to them and the lost it (the letter) and after puting my account on hold till the deferral reached them, cos they lost all of them, they somehow didn’t put it on hold and then got a collections company on my case.
So now it is in the hands of people other than me cos I am done with them.
March 17th, 2007 at 9:23 pm
‘Honours’ Student Loans are incompetent, unethical scum who deserve to have their arses sued off them for harrassment and persistent, blatant lies.
September 6th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
I have had several previous unacceptable dealings with HSL – at times I have queried them on the phone whilst having letters in front of me from them demanding money – and them providing a totally different set of figures over the phone, from what was written in front of me – them denying the letters, and 3 days later phoning me again with a third set of figures (amounts had increased each time).
I am now in a situation whereby I am paying a monthly standing order for the monthly repayment amount requested (on the 16th of each month), as agreed with them over the phone. I have monthly bank statements to prove I am paying this.
Despite this, from around the 6th of the month onwards – to around the 20th, I get 4 times daily calls from them telling me I am in arreas, and at least 2 letters per month telling me the same thing (for which they are probably charging me). They deny all knowledge of previous phone conversations where they have acknowledged their mistake, and deny they have received letters I have sent (by recorded delivery). I am paying them. I owe them nothing in arreas. They (in my opinion, deliberately dishonestly) keep harrassing me on a daily basis. I refuse to pay any charges levied due to their incompetence. They can take me to court if they want – I’d like nothing more – the opportunity to expose them as the dishonest cynical cheats they really are – in the public domain.
May 26th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
I think you will find that your payments go to a certain ‘Club Limited’ and not directly to Honours Student Loans, the club in question is the exact same organisation that sold privelidge cards to students which provided the exact same priviledges as if you had walked into a Club without their card. This is a very dodgy organisation (nearly as bad as certain banks) – thankfully not much of my Student loan was sold to them and I have nearly paid them off.
Don’t forget they as a Financial Firm have to abide by the FSA and so you could take them to the Ombudsman if they break the Financial Guidelines as you would any other organisation.
June 2nd, 2009 at 6:00 am
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June 8th, 2009 at 9:47 pm
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August 9th, 2009 at 11:03 am
I have scraped together enough to pay back my loan in one go after 15 years of accumulating arrears from these scum. It’s well worth it to know that I won’t have to deal with their horrific incompetance anymore.
One piece of advice that I would offer though, to anyone being illegally debited by these fuckers, change back account or remove the direct debit agreement from your account. This, while being in breach of your loan agreement, puts you back in charge of your money and makes the battleground a little more even. They are so bad at updating their information that they probably won’t even notice for months, giving you the upper hand.
Good luck peeps, and don’t chuck the towel in.