student finance FAIL.

I'm so fucking angry I can barely type.

I applied for funding from student finance on April 2nd, so desperate was I to make sure that I wouldn't end up in the situation I'm in now. However, when my mum's boyfriend moved out on May 26th, it drastically changed the situation I was in financially - it meant that I am now Properly Low Income (fer reals). In spite of the crazy crazy turmoil of that whole kettle of shite, I was literally on the phone to student finance by May 27th, sat outside the door of an A-level revision class, in the hallway, knees to my chest, to make sure I wouldn't end up in the situation I'm in now.

They seem to have lost or misplaced or fucking BURNED about half the information I sent them. When I spoke to an advisor on the phone today, she said they haven't yet received any proof that my mother and I are a single-parent family, when she sent it in JUNE. They're still listing her ex-boyfriend as one of my sponsors! Every time, in the past, that I've phoned them up to deal with this, I've been told that it was fine and sorted and really just a glitch, but no, it appears they actually really have lost a whole bunch of my details. Nice.

The important thing to understand is just how hard it is to get hold of student finance. They've inexplicably 'locked' my account, meaning I can't access any of my information online, and have to spend forty-five minutes or so listening to hold music every time I want a little reassurance. Not that you get it. I have been endlessly fobbed off and lied to and passed over, all because the people on the other end of the phone are too overworked or too fucking lazy to really check anything, until I reached the girl I spoke to today.

But then, why should I believe her over everyone else? Maybe everything's actually fine and she's the one who's incompetent - I wouldn't know. They're just voices on the other end of the phone to me.

Earlier this week, I spent about three days trying to get through to them and finally spoke to Lady One on Tuesday. Lady One told me that:
- they'd registered Liverpool as my new uni just fine
- I was showing up as eligible for the full grant
- all my information had been received a-okay
-I would receive a letter in the post over the next few days, confirming this.

Well, I got the letter this morning. It said nothing whatsoever about a maintenance grant, it said I would only be getting loans - a tuition loan and a standard loan - and that I was apparently going to my old university. In despair, I spent another cheerful half hour holding, listening to some fuckwit computer tell me that "it would be easier to go online at www..." which, no, it fucking wouldn't, because you WON'T LET ME LOG IN. Anyway. Eventually, I was told that:
- actually they know nothing about my new uni. Lady One told me it was fine for literally no visible reason and I need to send in a massive form AGAIN
- they know nothing about what the hell kind of grant I'm eligible for
- they're still listing my ex-stepfather - who left, I repeat, in FUCKING MAY - as one of my sponsors
- even though we sent the forms in months ago
- this deserves several bullet points because it is so fucking stupid
- they haven't received half the information I was told had arrived.

At my wits' end, frankly. She took my contact number and has told me somebody from the "processing department" will call me in a couple of days to confirm what is or isn't missing. I'm not holding out much hope that this will really happen.