to think people at childtax credit office are all idiots??????????

[3andnomore]

Well....we just got a letter saying that we were overpaid in the year 05-06....now, we had problems with them before and they had actually stopped our payments in that year...
well, than we got a lumpsum payment once that was resolved....

I mean, the only thing I an see that they messed up with is....that apparently we have no qualifying children/young people....so, somehow they made our 3 children (now 12y old and under) disappear....

are they really just stupid there...we have had nothing but trouble and have decided to not fill out any new forms and to just not have any taxcredits anyway....it just isn't worth the hassle...sigh...

"ARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHH"

[MrsFluffleHasAWuffle]

YANBU - bunch of tossers who don't know their own system yet expect us to

[3andnomore]

indeed...

[KatyMac]

Well to be fair when I worked for them (about 8 yrs ago) they changed the rules on the staff about twice a day.......so just when you had finished reading memo 1 saying X=Y, memo 2 arrived saying well actually X only = Y on the second tuesday of each month if the claimant had a 'w' in their middle name

[SammyK]

Tax credits system is crap, have to say though if none of them know what they are doing chances are it's due to poor management and training rather than them all being idiots!

[3andnomore]

lol Katy...

Sammy...my thoughts were..because it is such a crappy system...it mihgt help to be an idiot to survive it

Dh just called them...and apparently the systems are down....how very convinient...sigh!

[crocoonimper]

Yes all idiots. First year they overpaid us by £7000 and only let us give it back when we told them we were emigrating.Second year they say we didnt send a form back(although we did) and so tried to take all our money back - still contesting that one - since 2005.... 2 years ago we left country for four months therefore invalidating our right to tax credits in that year, wrote to tell them, to date they have taken no action... Wrote 18 months ago as advised to have awards stopped as sick of whole system - still the payments come.Even asked bank if they could refuse payments, no go.. Last I heard(in Sep 2007) was that they were appointing us a new caseworker who would contact us "soon" mmmm hmmmm. In course of all this they sent some bloke round out of the blue when my youngest was 3 weeks old to "demand" we repay money (after 10 months of trying to sort out the same) - he got sent away super quick by my sleep deprived OH, they sent us a letter saying our appeals had been unsuccessful because we "no longer lived in the same residence" - news to us!, The list goes on and on and not to mention the exemplary call centre drones I have tried to reason with AAARRGH

[Cappuccino]

I do think Katy is probably right

the system is wrong not the people

I must admit I save mine - I mean we are v skint, but I daren't spend it. I'm putting it into the mortgage so I can borrow it back if needs be. Because this year they are giving us what seems to me quite a large amount, and I can't work out why, and they can't tell me

because if I spent it, and they asked for it back, I'd find it hard to be able to repay it

[sweetkitty]

yes they are idiots, we have been overpayed too so nothing this year

A friends annual award is 10K this year she has 2 DC and her husband and she both work!

[3andnomore]

just thought...but Katy...the system was probably quite new still when you worked for them...surely by now it should be sorted out....

sweetkitty....10K...that can't be right....shudder at the thought of having to repay all of that...gulp!

Thing is...like I said, appanrelty for that year we had no children....wtf...do they think we put them into storage for a year or what....argh....

the most we had to pay back was £700...paid it back over 12 month...wasn't to bad....
but I also have the niggling thought that they are asking us to repay for teh same year...hm....must check if I still got the info...

[dilemma456]

Message withdrawn

[jimjamshaslefttheyurt]

They overpaid me by 14K last year (yes really). Despite me repeatedly telling them they were paying the wrong amount. I tried ringing repeatedly, I tried registered letters and still the money kept on coming. They are letting us pay it back by stopping our miniscule award so we will be paying them back for about 25 years

I suspect that this is because it was their mistake (they missed a zero off dh's salary) so theoretically we should get to keep it all or something. I'm only going to point that out if they ask for it all back at once.

[steviesgirl]

YANBU. Like most government offices, they couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery, let alone get payments for millions of families right!

You get all the hype adverts on the telly, "claim it cos it's money with your name on it", that's all very well, but then you take their advice and claim, and then they want the money back because you've been overpaid! The tax credit system is handy and helps a lot, but the way it's run sucks. Especially when you have to pay them back.

[daisy5678]

Well, they're better than the DWP who sort out Disability Living Allownace...but that's not saying much!

[dilemma456]

Message withdrawn

[daisy5678]

Dilemma - that's awful . I'm annoyed with them arsing about, but that is beyond annoyance level; that's just .

Just when I thought that my opinion of them couldn't sink any lower...

[yogabird]

it may well be just me but... the income tax people know how much dh & I earn, many, many different govt departments have been given the information about our home/children/jobs etc.. Is it really beyond the wit of man to expect that when we can split atoms, put people into space and so on that perhaps one government department can talk to another. We could then save the endless form filling which is then confirmed and reconfirmed in duplicate (no matter how many times you explain that dh & I live together amicably and share things and bloody talk to each other and so there;s really no need to write twice to us, identical letters posted on the same day) THe complicated pages and pages of forms could be abandoned so then the people who have been unable to understand/plough through/given up in sheer frustration could automatically simply be paid what they are entitled to with no need to waste their time or the 'helpline's time with the many many questions... better stop now, getting a little heated!

[3andnomore]

dilemma that is ...

yogabird...indeed...the duplicate letters...yeah...isn't that just stupid...considering that we live at the same addi (dh and I, lol)...surely it is only common sense to just send 1 letter maybe with both our names on it....sigh...
but just like the NHS they seem to be happy to send out lots of letters and waste paper...wonder how many trees they add to the pile...!
And why they can't actually sort it out between themselfs is a riddle...surely taxoffice would be able to give correct incomeinformation on everyone...and child benefit seems to be able to get the amount of Kids right....