Tax credits horrible evil nasty people

[MidsummersNight]

Posting for traffic

For 3 consecutive years I've received overpayment letter after overpayment letter after overpayment letter. I always keep or records up to date, I overestimate on everything and work childcare costs out accurately.
Yet, I am owe them over £2000 for reasons nobody has managed to tell me yet. I'm paying it back £50 a month and I've just received ANOTHER overpayment letter. It's always random stupid amounts and I'm fucking sick of it.

Appeal letters are always met with rejection letters back from them, what is the next step? Who do I go to? Can I write to an MP or something because it's getting beyond a joke. I don't know anyone else who gets this much grief from them and it's making me ill.

[IzzyIsBusy]

I think MP would be tbe next step.

Sorry you having to deal with the crapness.

[ConvincingLiar]

Try your mp or cab. You can't appeal tax credit overpayments but you can appeal the entitlement decision that led to them, but you can't do this until you've had a "mandatory reconsideration" and there are strict time limits for this.

[timeforabrewnow]

The system is a f* joke. We are paying back £25 a month for about the next 3 years after having ignored all the letters and not had any tax credits money from them for the previous 4 years.

We kept getting repeated requests for what they had overpaid us, despite repeated phone calls and letters from us to them trying to sort it out.

I then just ignored the letters, as it didn't make sense and no one could tell us how much we really owed - then 4 years on, after nothing for all that time, a bill from the debt collection agency that could not be ignored!!

My sympathies are totally with you, but I have nothing useful to offer, other than commiserations.

[NellWilsonsWhiteHair]

I had to involve my MP with some persistent Housing Benefit problems. He (or at least, his office) was fantastic - really prompt response which had the desired effect.

I really sympathise OP - the principles of a benefits system are great and I'm extremely grateful to have access to them, but the administration of them can be horribly stressful. I realised recently that I spend approx 2/3 of the year living in uncertain limbo while my HB is recalculated. I have to 'appeal' it literally every single time my circumstances change because they always get it wrong first time. Hard to tell whether this is sheer incompetence or a stealth attempt to reduce expenditure on HB.

[MidsummersNight]

I just don't understand why we are constantly getting overpayment letters when I am always so concise with informing them of situation changes and overestimating figures.
It's sucked all the life blood right out of me.

[Oblomov16]

I got another letter the other day. Still paying off the last one!

[MidsummersNight]

It seems never ending.
I want to phone up and scream at them but that won't do much. I'll write to my MP and beg them to help me!!

[QueenOfFuckAll]

We are paying back £6000 at £60 per month, yet they are still paying us £63 per month. They drive me insane. The overpayment is from 8 years ago.

I am surprised there are not more suicides linked to Tax Credits.

[steff13]

I work with public assistance here in the US; I hear appeals when people have issues with their assistance.

Here, the Agency is required to submit documentation of how an overpayment was calculated. Is that not the case there? There has to be some level of transparency, doesn't there?

[Str4ngedaysindeed]

This is an ongoing nightmare for us. We last qualified for TC in 2012. During this year I was out of work for six months so the amount we received went up. Very very very long story short, they decided we owed £5k, we tried to appeal, were told it was too late, went to an appeal to be able to appeal (!) were granted the right to appeal and now have to go to an appeal for a new sum of £3k next month. No explanation of why the sum is lower, tax credits office don't understand it either, tribunal service being completey uncooperative and it is all a bloody ridiculous mistake. No way can we owe them any where near that. The appeal to appeal was September 2015 - it has taken them them this long to get to the appeal. Tempted notnto go but we have to. It is hideous 😕😕

[Domino20]

Of course go to your MP, email him/her and copy in the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and also the Shadow Secretary. For good measure I would also copy to someone in HMRC, they are aware that this service is failing and have cancelled their contract. Make enough fuss and HMRC might/should agree to assess your entitlement directly. In fact you should probably directly ask for this.

[OvariesBeforeBrovaries]

We're having issues with TC at the moment. I kicked off on the online chat the other day, said how ridiculous it was, they're incompetent and can't get anything right (I did apologise to the poor woman doing the online chat at the end ) but she confirmed, there's very little communication between the departments, which is how mistakes get made. At the moment they're doing everything they can to avoid backpaying us money we're owed due to their mistake.

[SpookyPotato]

It's so silly! I have always given them the correct numbers and now I owe £2000.. I am paying back £25 a month I think. When I get any future awards I will always doubt them now..

[Pickled0nions]

This is why I stopped claiming tax credits, they are beyond useless idiots.

[chickenowner]

Do you think they do it on purpose to discourage people from claiming?

I've never claimed any benefits so it's all a mystery to me anyway.

[Janey50]

My DD and son-in-law have had numerous problems with these people. They have received an over-payment letter from them nearly every year that they have been claiming tax credits. The latest one says they were overpaid by nearly £2000 and demanded it back all in one hit! When my DD phoned them and protested about this,saying they did not have this sort of money to hand,she was told that they would not accept payback of less than £300 per month! So my DD and son-in-law are struggling at the moment. Makes me so mad. The money was paid out over the course of a year,so why were were they expected to pay it back all at once? As it is,they are still having to pay it back over 7 months. The people who deal with these claims are a bloody joke.

[Toffeelatteplease]

I tried the MPS route many years ago. The bastards reassessed it up. I still don't understand how that one occurred.

I had another couple that I apparently occurred changing circumstances even though they assured me at the time there wasn't.

Best way i found to deal with it is call up and offer ten pound a month, set up a direct debit and let it run. They will happily accept it (if they dont insist you cant afford more) saves a lot of hassle all round. I always wondered if I offered £5 they would have accepted that to.

receiving payments weekly not monthly helps avoid over payments becoming too large.

[IzzyIsBusy]

WTF user1234GOADYFUCKER

[Toffeelatteplease]

Oh do fuck off user! not everyone is fortunate enough to have a choice

[luckylucky24]

We are the same. Have been nothing but honest but somehow have been overpaed by 4k. How is that our fault???

[TaliZorahVasNormandy]

I've just worked out my earnings for the year and I'm fucked. £500 it looks like I'm gonna be overpaid. Grrrr, never doing over time again.

[M0nstersinthecl0set]

They are quite incompetent at the calculation, well worth challenging and asking for a breakdown of the figures.
A lot of overpayments happen when forms they do need are "not received" (often because someone on the phone didn't record x, y, z) do everything in writing as they hold you accountable for their mistakes and expect you to know they've made a mistake

[littledrummergirl]

We had a problem years ago. I asked for the calculator and did the sums. I realised they were overpaying us and put the money by as they were adamant the computer was right.
At the end of the year they said they had overplayed us by £1300-no problem, I paid it back to them from what I had put by.

The next month they put it back in my account saying I had been underpaid.

Long and short I ended up paying it back I th reduced payments over the next 2 years.

It's a ridiculous system.

[Bearfrills]

Please remember though, when you contact them, that the person answering the phone/online chat is not directly responsible. Their hands are tied by what the computer system calculates and what the higher up management state are the criteria for entitlement/overpayment/appeal, etc. My DH is one of the "useless idiots" answering the phone there and the amount of crap directed his way is unreal. Some members of the public need to remember that they're speaking to someone who is just doing their job and who has no influence over policy decisions, he's been told things like "I hope your children die" and "I hope you get cancer". It's sickening and then people wonder why the HMRC staff sound so ground down when they ring up to speak to them.

Take your complaint as high as you can, MP for certain, because the call centre staff can't undo an overpayment if the computer system is saying that the overpayment is correct.