Praise where it's due - HMRC

[Miggymoggymugwumps]

I know they usually get a bad press & I've ended up getting extremely frustrated with then in the past, but today they were brilliant.
I rang about 8 30am with a query & there was no long drawn out recorded message to endure and a member of staff picked up promptly. The woman I dealt with was cheerful, helpful and extremely knowledgeable and sorted out my issue which she acknowledged was their error, and rectified things for the future.
I was expecting the usual torturous wait etc but I received such great service despite everything that's going on and thought I'd acknowledge it!

That makes a change! Good to hear and share!

Lvely to read about.

I've heard a few people praising them lately.

I rang Tuesday, 35 minutes on hold but then great. Very knowledgeable, polite and resolved issue quickly, couldn't do enough.

I've only ever called them for fairly basic personal tax things but I've always been so impressed by the actual humans - their systems are generally awful but the people are always great.

I couldn't get through on the phone, 4 minute message and then just hung up on me! Instant chat; he couldn't have been more helpful! Sorted very quickly.

I rang earlier this week. 40 min on hold but the person I got through to solved my problem in about 5 minutes.

Really helpful.

The short repeat of the hold music was doing my head in though by the end.

I’m a manager In HMRC and my team have been moved onto helpline work with very little training so this is nice to hear

Yeah, I have been impressed with most of the furlough stuff, the agents on the phone have been helpful and although not all queries have been resolved yet most have been sorted pretty quickly. In all honesty I have never had an issue when actually speaking to the HMRC staff, they are always really helpful, unfortunately some of their online systems not so good!

I have one client however who due to an HMRC error cannot get onto the furlough portal, we have had several phonecalls about it but it still hasn't been sorted, he 100% meets the criteria but he can't claim any furlough money for Mar or April and has no income at all coming in as is an electrician so can't work. Just one of those things but just frustrating as there is no way to sort till a tier 3 person contacts us.

I haven't called them since Covid, but I've called them a few times before then and they have always been super helpful and friendly so this doesn't surprise me! The processes might be a hot mess sometimes but the actual staff are great, IME.

My accountant was praising them yesterday which is almost unheard of

Last time I called them I was one of 1m people whose voices they illegally recorded without doing a private impact assessment and without an opt out. The Information Commissioner hauled them over the coals for this and forced them to destroy 1m voice records.

They were great with me when I realised I had been in the wrong tax code.They refunded me £216 they owed me within 3 days.

@LittleG69

What's happening there, Little. Are they taking on their new recruits or just using up existing staff for now?

I think like any job you get good ones and bad. I called back in October and the guy was.amazing. Was told to wait until January and call back once I had received a specific letter. I did this and quite honestly wanted to cry, I was interrogated at length and felt like a criminal. Both conversations totally different.

Another HMRC’er with colleagues deployed to covid response so this is really lovely to hear!!

@LittleG69 Someone on another thread was saying that her partner was fiddling his money and that she had written to HMRC to tell them, giving details, but nothing had happened. She had done that twice. Can you explain how that can happen?

They are using existing staff for now but a lot of people transferred aren’t used to doing customer contact personal tax work so there has been some rapid and intense training

I've had to speak to HMRC in the past and they were absolutely fantastic.

Never had any problems with the staff on the phone, but I always end up overpaying tax because of the way my job works and they've started waiting months to give it me back (used to be able to ask for a calculation in May and request a refund, now it's nearer September which is a piss take)

Greetings @ f83mx it’s been intense hasn’t it?!

Hi @HollowTalk. HMRC get thousands and thousands of that kind of stuff every year and it isn’t possible to follow up every report I’m afraid

Hi @Lazingonasunnyafternoon20 my team are used to doing completely different work so they had 5 days online training and were thrown in at the deep end. It’s been a steep learning curve!

This is good to hear. I need to let them know that my company car benefit isn’t reflecting the capital contribution I made, so I will have overpaid tax. Been putting off sorting it.

The Bereavement Team are very helpful. I had to do 2 for my late dh after he died. The first one i had to pay but the second year they owed me so paid me money and the guy who told me i could tell was really pleased to tell me i was owed money. I'd already worked out i was owed but i still thought it was really kind to genuinely care about it.

You are lucky to get through so easily. I used to work for them & they have reduced staff to about a quarter of what there used to be. There are more staff working on fraud & compliance than there are for people who actually pay tax.