Received letter saying that I owe Universal Credit £19,000 - have never claimed

[Twitterwhooooo]

Posting here for traffic.

I received a letter on Friday saying that I owed UC £19,000 in overpayments and if I don't pay they'll contact my employer/send bailiffs round.

I've never claimed UC. During the period they state (May 2020 and May 2021) was I self-employed, so claimed the SEIS grants as my income dropped. These were declared on my self-assessment form, of course.

Called number today and explained. The letter/info held on me is my correct name, address, NI number, DOB, phone etc. The woman I spoke to say that 'she'd make a note' and it took some pressing to get her to escalate it to Fraud but she doesn't know what their time frames are etc. She sounded very unconcerned.

Called UC who gave me another number to call, which I'll do tomorrow, as I couldn't keep taking phone calls at work.

It's either identity theft or a massive mistake. What do I do to escalate this? Do I call the police?

TIA

I don't know how much UC is, but £19,000 in a year seems very high.

The dwp are a mess atm

I have been trying to sort an error out with them since October and I have written and phoned . And they still have not sorted it . I told them my mum was end of life and they still failed . Now she has passed and I have to start all over again.

I'm sorry Unsure33. That sounds horrendous for you.

19 k is more than 1 years worth on UC even with housing and kids though so sounds suspicious

@Twitterwhooooo- I'd write rather than phone. Send it to the DWP Debt Management address rather than the generic DWP address. Send it registered or signed for.

My son was also sent letters claiming overpayment. Phone calls and letters were ignored until he did that. Still not resolved, but at least they are claiming that they are 'looking into it'.

Be prepared to dig in for the long haul because they are useless.

Can you log into your government gateway account? It shows all your tax, vat, national insurance contributions,and am sure benefits too. It will give you some idea as to what might have happened? Good luck

We had similar. Got new letters each day with new amounts. It took a few calls but was all sorted easily enough in the end. We had never claimed so it made no sense!

I was thinking the same!
I feel like I was being mugged off working full time and not earning much more than this when I first qualified as a nurse!

Just because DWP have all your details, that doesnt mean the correct details were used to make the claim. All that's needed for that is your name and date of birth - this is what the DWP told me themselves. DWP will have got your contact details from your NI record - I had moved house in the intervening period (between the UC claim being made and them pursuing me for repayments) and the letters from them came to my new address.

Honestly hmrc say we owe thousands. We don't. They have even passed it know debt people. It's unreal these government organisations.

Log onto your Government Gateway (HMRC account) where you can see your NI contributions and tax payments etc.

That's how I found out a frauduent claim had been made for a form of benefits (I think it was a tax credit actually) which I would never have been eligible for.

I sent an email in pointing out the claim was fraudulent and could never have been paid into my bank account as they'd be able to check against my HMRC records and with my bank. I received a letter a few weeks later confirming they were investigating and it was removed from my records. No idea what happened with it - as per above once they looked at it and decided it wasn't my claim, I wasn't entitled to know any more which just seems bonkers but is right!

I had been living in a flat where the post went into the communal hallway and I'd had various post go missing over a period of about a year - I'm assuming they took enough of my mail to be able to cobble together some dodgy claim and a couple of credit accounts which I had also discovered a few years before and had removed from my credit report.

This was people scamming the DWP during the pandemic when UC stopped asking for verification of ID. Using other peoples details to make a claim. I recommend help from a law centre, welfare rights or CAB. The people you are calling now work in a call centre and won’t be helpful in the long run.

good luck

£19k is only just over £1500 a month. I don't think it's an exorbitant amount if you consider lha rates can be well over £2k a month in London. Add children, disability, childcare etc. and you could tot up a heck of a lot more than £19k.

Whether it's right or not is another matter.

It very possible 19K is the yearly UC amount.

For example:
Standard Element £525.72
Housing element £600
First Child £290
Second Child £244.58

That is without any other elements such as disability, LCWRA, carer.

There have been some problems with people making UC claims in other people's names when UC first started. One woman, who was prosecuted, had opened 6 claims and been paid via all of them for a few months.

I think that's all been sorted now, but an overpayment of that size could well be a claim that's been running quite a while. It should be fairly straightforward to sort this out, OP.

They should be triple checking their facts before they send out letters like that. Some poor innocent person who was in receipt of this could get a letter saying they owe €19000 back and imagine the stress that would involve.

you are ok, you haven’t received anything and can disregard it, as it is definitely an error. Pain in the hole but definitely a mistake.

Hope you manage to get it sorted quickly, all the best.

what about going into job centre plus? showing willing to rectify it then they'll make a record of doing this. although it does sound like a scam

But if it was a scammer, they'd need to provide a tenancy with OPs name on to get the housing element and also upload proof of a child etc

Would you say you have a fairly common name? Could it be that there is someone else who has the same name and date of birth as you?

Years ago we had no end of hassle applying for a mortgage as we were originally turned down, but when they looked into things, it transpired that exDH had the same full name and date of birth as an undischarged bankrupt who lived elsewhere in the country. Fortunately we got it sorted out fairly quickly.

This happened to me with tax credits, which I’d never claimed! It took months to sort out and it only got sorted out then because I went to my MP after getting nowhere myself. I was told that someone had entered something wrong on the system and they hadn’t checked that details matched, so somehow my details got mixed up with the person who actually owed the money. It was an incredibly stressful few months.

The number for universal credit is 0800 328 5644. An automated voice will want details of your claim but if you say you don’t have them (pressing a button 1 or 2) you will eventually get to a person agree to note name of agent date ancient time. Follow in writing recorded delivery.

im a random person the internet yiu should verify the number gov.uk or citizens advice.

just in case this is not DWP issue but fraud instead check for things like credit in your name

A scammer isn't going to find it hard to mock up a tenancy agreement - especially if checks weren't done properly by DWP. It's surprisingly easy to make things like this up.

DWP have their own fraud department. They also just place a stop on your wages.

There was a scam going around in lockdown where people took out universal credit claims in peoples names as you didn't need to really prove much. I know someone who was doing it and got caught. Thousands of people have been done contact the police and action fraud and it should be wrote off.