I wanted to pay off the last of my student loan yesterday, so phoned the SLC to get a final balance.

The balance they gave me was £428 less than my statement said. Awesome.

However, to clear the account I would have to pay the balance plus £428, as that money was against deductions made by my employer in 2003-04, but never received my SLC. So, I have to find either my pay slips or P60 relating to that period, so I can prove that my employer deducted money from my salary.

I've just spoken to my old boss and he's phoenixed the company about three times since then so denies having any paperwork. I doubt he even paid the contributions in the first place. However, there must be some paperwork somewhere... I just need to find it.

It's frustrating knowing that a piece of paper that I may, or may not have somewhere is worth £400.

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SLC have to be the biggest ball ache firm on the planet. Managed to convert mine to Direct Debit as it's nearly payed off, which will (hopefully) stop them taking it PAYE and stop them overcharging me (which has happened to pretty much everyone I know who continued with PAYE).

Unfortunately without paperwork, this could be a chronic PITA for you. Firm I used to work got taken over and changed tax codes, which HR then f*cked up; had to send photocopies of all my payslips and statements in order for them to rectify my balance. Best of luck...

They are terrible. My wife had loans and when they cancelled her DD without informing her they then waited about 9 months and sent her a threatening letter.

I called them and explained it was their mistake and they said they would divide the £900ish she owed in back payments ove the next 10 months but would need one payment up front.

I paid by card over the phone by switch and they took the whole £900.

Good luck.

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What would Daddy Pig do?

I went through this 4-5 years ago. They could only tell me what I owed the previous may in July, by which time it was wrong. After 2 years of trying I owed them approx £80, but they couldn't tell me exactly. I asked of it affected my credit rating, they said no, I told them where to go.

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Cheers

Rich

Good luck, I've heard many a horror story similar to the ones above.

I must have been one of the fortunate ones to just have a DD from the start, and no involvement with any employers. Remarkably the final payment went at exactly the time my spreadsheet predicted, and for the correct amount to completely clear the last instalment, which was a smaller amount than the previous ones.

So this proves that they can do it right, so there's no excuse for them fucking up so royally on so many other occasions

Cheers, Rich

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I'm still a kid in the body of a sexy young man.

I'm planning on waiting till I'm like 60 so I don't have to pay it back.

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Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune.

I got fucked by them in many ways - I finished paying my loan via salary deductions about 8 years ago and then got a letter saying i owed them more dosh but not how much..... called them and they told me 1 pence!!! I offered to pay over the phone but "we only take card payments over £5 sir", "so refund me £4.99 then", "Oh no, we only refund over £5"

At which point i told them to give me a postal address and i'd post them a penny - "no sir we can't accept cash"

Eventually the lady agreed to clear the "debt", I asked in very clear and specific language if i owed any further money on any other loans and gave them full details of time i was at uni, courses studied etc etc and was told " no there are no outstanding loans to be repayed"

Left it at that, or so i though......

Coupla years ago i opened my wave slip to find it £154 lighter as they'd started deducting again...... immediately phoned them and asked about it hoping it was all a mistake due to the above converstaion i'd had 5 years previous.

"Oh that was right sir but this loan is one of the mortgage style ones and was on a different system to your income repayment one and they had no access to that system......"

Then they moaned they couldn't contact me to seek repayment of the loan they had failed to tell me about, when i complained about this, i told the lady that as i'd been told there were no outstanding loans to be repaid they had no right to know my location and that is why i didn't inform them every time i moved house.

WTF

Ended up paying for a further 2 years and then called up in may as figured it would be just about done, was right - lady told me i had an outstanding balance of £140 and as i was paying £154 month they would owe me money......

Had a statement a couple of weeks afterwards and they reckon i owe them £10 something - far as i'm concerned they can go and feck emselves - bstards.

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New exhaust valves and pipework fitted

Rich B said...

I went through this 4-5 years ago. They could only tell me what I owed the previous may in July, by which time it was wrong. After 2 years of trying I owed them approx £80, but they couldn't tell me exactly. I asked of it affected my credit rating, they said no, I told them where to go.

I had this problem years ago, your employer submits it's PAYE and deductions to HMRC and then HMRC don't send the money to SLC until June/July, at which point the update your account.

Luckily all of my SLC contributions are done through self assessment so I just make a single lump sum contribution in January each year.

Anyway, I've just remembered that this isn't the first time this has happened. I had to submit to HMRC my payslips from the last company I worked for as they also hadn't submitted the deductions they made at source. Amazing it can take 8 years for some of this junk to surface though.

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I finally found all of my payslips from my old employer (Jan 2003 - Aug 2004), and have discovered that none of the student loan deductions he made ever reached the student loans company.

The SLC had received payments for the 04-05 tax year because I changed jobs and the new employers passed contributions on. But the old employer hadn't, so there's another few hundred quid of deductions he made which should come off my balance.

If you've ever worked for a small company, especially a slightly dubious one and have a student loan, you should check your deductions against what the SLC have actually received as they might not match up...

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