Has anyone else had DLA lose their child's forms? I am so frustrated. I called DLA chasing my daughter's renewal as it ends 20th April and I only sent it in mid March. I sent it tracked and signed for. I know it can take a few weeks, and I knew and accepted that I may have to miss a couple of payments due to the fact I sent them within the last few weeks of our claim. But I'm on week 3 and the renewal letter said to call if I hear nothing after 2 weeks of sending the claim. So I called to check what date letters they're scanning at the moment and get a rough idea of timings.
I called, the person I spoke to was really unhelpful. He told me that our forms haven't been scanned, and that going by my postage date and the dates their scanning it should have been scanned around 1- 2 weeks ago and that the forms are likely lost in the post. He wouldn't listen when I said it's tracked, said he couldn't help further, wouldn't put me through to anyone else, told me he'll send me a new form and that I can only accept I've lost the forms and wait it out and complain on gov.uk if I'm not happy with the service of DLA.
I got frustrated and told him that they're not lost in the post. It was sent tracked and signed for and I have a receipt with all the details, including a signature, confirmation it arrived at the correct Wolverhampton office and a picture on the royal mail tracking page of our envelope on the post pile in the mail room. I said that if steps aren't taken to resolve this, I will not only be complaining on gov.uk, I will be seeking advice from the ICO and seeking legal advice because I'm concerned about the blasé attitude to the fact my daughter's personal and medical information has gone missing, and as arrival of the forms at the DWP office has been confirmed, this is their responsibility. Funnily enough he put me through to someone else pretty quickly after that.
I got through to a more helpful woman. She said that according to the system they're currently scanning claims from the 2nd of April, so ours should have been scanned two or three weeks ago but hasn't been for some reason. She's emailed the mail office/department with my tracking number and with all the details from the receipt, and has asked them to investigate as it should be somewhere on their system and our claim could have just ended up in the wrong pile.
Apparently she's going to call me tomorrow with an update.
She said she's quite confident it will get resolved and the forms will be found. However she's apparently sent a new form out just in case, as they take 10 working days to arrive, which also makes me a bit worried she's just faking confidence and the forms are indeed lost.
Apparently the situation has been explained in my case notes as well, but it depends on the case manager as to whether they'll treat it as a new claim or a renewal because some will disregard the notes and treat it as a new claim purely because it's late. Despite the fact a replacement form will only be late because they lost the forms! Apparently they also "can't" extend the claim to allow us to still get DLA if we need to wait for this to be sorted because that's not something they do, even if delays are due to errors on their part.
I'm really cross with the entire situation. It's completely unfair that there's no guarantee that they'll find the forms. And it's even more unfair that there's a chance our renewal will be treated as a new claim with a 23 week wait if I have to fill out replacement forms. I've done everything within the timeframes on my part so we shouldn't be penalised because of a mess up at their end.
It's also absolutely unfair that if we have to fill out new forms and they're treated as a new claim, then we will be denied our full back payment because of someone else's error. It also seems ridiculous that they don't extend claims when the reason for the delay is because they've lost the forms.
Has anyone else been through this? Did it get resolved? Is there anything else I can do? I'm just glad I'm impatient and chased after three weeks!