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not so much overpayment, as total lack of payment 10 April 2008 by 'K' This story has a happy ending - well, sort of. My boyfriend is disabled, but when he feels able to work, he prefers to. He can’t work full time and can’t afford to only work part time, but that is what tax credits are for, right? To help people into work, to help people to support themselves when there are genuine limits to their earning power. Right? He returned to work through the Shaw Trust, a newly set up back to work initiative company - and they wanted to put him on their website as a success story. What he didn’t know was that the tax credits they had promised him would not be set up until he rang the number, ordered the form, waited two weeks, filled it in, and sent it back. Four weeks seemed like a long time then - ah, so young and innocent! The form did not come. He ordered another. By my calculations, if they were telling the truth they sent five out, and even if they were fobbing us off, they must have sent at least three. Eventually, a form arrived. Just the one. He begged them on the phone to tell him a place he could go to drop it off. But there is no such place. Is there? Nothing came back to us. We made allowances for the bank holiday weekend, and then he rang again. They said they would put a trace on it, and (this is important), they ask if there were any other addresses it might have been sent to by mistake. There was, his last address, where he had been living while receiving child tax credits for his daughter. He asked to be sent another form while they did the trace. No they would not. A little over a week later, he rang again. And failed the security check. He had his address wrong, they said, so they couldn’t talk to him. Someone had changed it to the older address. They suggested he go to the local tax office. He did. They said they could not help him. He rang again, he went back, he cried and eventually they gave him an appointment to come in again with ID and bills, and sort his address out. He did so. They said to ring the helpline from the office and it should be sorted out. He rang. He failed the security check. Wrong address ..... By the time he was crying, on his knees, practically chewing the carpet - the woman asked him if it had been like this for nearly three months. It had. She looked at him, took hold of his hand and said "special circumstances", went into the back, and fetched one of those forms you can only get by ordering them over the phone. She said to fill it in and send it in again. He refused. She looked at him. "Special circumstances". She made an appointment for him to come in the next morning and she would process it. The next morning, she put the information into the computer, and told him to give it 48 hours then ring the helpline to ask how and when the money would be paid in. The moral of this story is - they can help you at the tax office. When you go in, don’t be angry, don’t be aggressive (I had been half expecting a call from the police). Just weep, fall to your knees, convulse on the carpet before them, and if you are lucky enough to find yourself before a person with a scrap of humanity - they are able to help you. |
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decisions made by HMRC, The Parliamentary Ombudsman, The Adjudicator, or any
other organisation, regarding claimants cases. We offer free advice on how to
dispute unfair overpayments based on our own experiences, the experiences of
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