Processes for Unclaimed/Uncollectible awards

Student Accounts has established the procedure for dealing with unclaimed awards from Student fee accounts and uncollectable charges resulting from award cancellations. Although these cases are very rare, a procedure is necessary in order to handle these issues when they occur.

Unclaimed awards from Student fee accounts
There are instances where awards are paid to a student’s fee account leaving a credit balance where the student never makes a claim for it.  Student awards credit balances on student fee accounts that remain unclaimed will be cancelled and re-credited back to the FOAPAL the award was originally dispersed from.  In the case where the fund may be closed, an alternative fund will need to be determined by the fund holder.  T4A/RL1 amended tax slips will be generated by Student Accounts only for the revoked awards greater than $100.  The T4A/RL1 amended tax slips for the revoked awards less than $100 will be issued to a student only upon the student’s request.

Uncollectable charges resulting from Award cancellations
When a paid award is revoked/cancelled, the University charges the amount back to the student fee account and attempts collection through the normal monthly billing process. This process typically works very well, and most students understand the need to reimburse the funds to the University.  However, on rare occasions the debt is deemed uncollectable despite Student Accounts best efforts and that of an external collection agency.  Regretfully, the uncollectable award value must be charged back to the original FOAPAL from which the award payment was made and the fund holder will be notified.  In the event the funding source has since been terminated, the fund holder will be asked to provide an alternative fund to process the charge against. A financial hold with the description “Award/Fellowship/Fees Owed” will be placed on the student’s account, preventing the student with a bad debt from obtaining official academic transcripts and from accessing Minerva for any registration functions.

Communications with Students
It is important for all Award Processors to communicate award cancellations to their students.  Students Accounts - student [dot] accounts [at] mcgill [dot] ca- is requesting that they be copied on the cancellation email notification being sent to the students who are no longer registered as these students may pose a collection problem.  Subsequently, the students must be made aware that the award payments that have been revoked will be charged on their Student Fee account and they will receive an e-bill from the University.  The bill can be paid via internet banking through their own personal banking institutions.

Any questions regarding this new process may be directed to student [dot] accounts [at] mcgill [dot] ca.