to swear at the Tax Credits advisor?

[MountEtna]

Feel a bit bad now - god knows why!

H and I split in July. We had a joint claim as he does not earn much and I am self employed. I was told I had to make a new single claim and they would immediately stop the joint one (fair enough) but it would take 2 weeks for me to get a claim form (can't do it on the phone) and then it would take a further 3 weeks to process. So OK I will be left for 5 weeks with no income as I cannot work if I can't pay the childcare for 3 DCs . H's maintenance is paying the essential bills like food and that's all really.

Rang today as I am 4 weeks down the line, to be told that the advisor is referring my claim to a specialist team as she needs more information. 'What information?' says I. 'I don't know' says she. 'So if you don't know what further information you need, why are you referring it to a specialist team?'. 'Can't answer that' says she. She also says it will take a further 4 weeks from today as it is going to this team.

By this time I have steam coming out of my ears so ask to speak to a manager as she is talking in riddles. After another 10 minute wait in addition to the 20 mins I waited to get through. The manager informs me that the cannot match my children up . The same children that were on my joint claim and have been claiming for years for. I say to him can you not just look at my joint claim and you will see that they were all on there. 'Hmm' says he 'it's not that easy'.

He appreciates my situation he says. Lone parent, no income, no money 8 weeks for childcare so cannot work to get some. I say 'you appreciate my situation, you don't give a flying FUCK' and slam the phone down.

What a bloody great system. Getting the money to those who need it!

AIBU to feel a bit stressed and a bit bad for being rude?

What do you suggest front-line staff do, then, mignonette? Disregard employment legislation completely and go lone wolf, hotwire the system to our own standard?

Tax credit advisors are part of the solution for a huge number of families (often including their own) who would be stuck without the assistance of this benefit - problems stem mostly from expectations of instantaneous service when there are all number of legalities to be observed.

If you work in NHS psychiatry, I would expect a little more empathy on the basis of working against the machine for the individual - as an uneducated consumer I could produce any number of gripes against the NHS system, but am balanced enough to realise that the people involved are probably doing the best they can under tricky circumstances.

I think one of the things that makes people see red mist, is people not doing their jobs properly. Being incompetent. The Manager today, for Op, was both of these things.
He is a Manager. He is paid to Manage. He is paid the extra amount, ontop of the basic rate that the first advisor you speak to is paid. His job is to sort out problems.
He was very blase. He can't match the children? Right. o.k. so what happens next? It's just left at that? No. They have proceedures.

We have all had problems . I have had problems with BT and Sky. In the end, I was so angry, but i contained myself, and i very calmly demanded, resolution. I persisted. I asked what/when/how, made them committ to a timetable etc.
If the Manager today, had WANTED to, could be BOTHERED to, He could have sorted Op's claim. Or atleast advised her, step-by-step, what was going to happen.
She can't be the only person, to have children, un-matched, when switching from joint, to single, claims. I suspect it happens ALOT.

The Manager was truely incompetent. No one's condoning swearing, but if you have been in Op's situation ( I have had 15 phone calls with TC people over the last 2 monhs and was advised to make an offical complaint) , then you have to have a bit of sympathy.

In defence of the manager, there really is little that can be done to hasten child ID matching. Unfortunately, even if you've claimed before, we're not allowed to dip into that previous claim and go 'Hey-ho, all was well there, let's push on', the new claim has to be verified seperately - tax credits also can't just take your word for it that the kid on the claim form actually exists. Has to be checked somehow, sometimes that takes time.

I do not talk to people in the manner that I was spoken to today.

I blew the whistle on senior nursing staff who were behaving in an abusive manner. I paid a price (as already stated). So you are wrong, Snigger. There are plenty of staff who do not do the 'best that they can'. It's naive to think that tax advisors are all 'victims of the machine' and deserve utmost empathy when quite a few of them are bloody incompetent and clearly don't give a flying fuck about that either. Just like the nursing ex-colleagues I mention.

So I am not asking for the unrealistic. Just do your job in a competent manner. And when an error is made and pointed out to you. Own it! I was polite when I asked why our application had been ignored. There was no need for the rudeness I got. None at all.

There is a difference, though, between blowing the whistle on bad practice and actually expecting low level staff to be able to fundamentally change established regimes - could you, whistleblower or not, have an impact on how people are booked in, or when and how often their evaluations are done?

No-one would expect that. Yes, incompetence should be addressed, but neither should another's incompetence be visited upon an innocent employee with no control over the system.

The complaints were greatly to do with how patients were spoken to and treated. That is actionable at the lowest level.

Anyway. Thank you for the debate. I do believe that manners can be maintained and an apology for an error contains and defuses situations. Rudeness is not the default result of a poor system.

Then I would absolutely support your right to complain about individual treatment - that's something that any advisor would happily refer on - obviously it can take time to round up a manager, but individual rudeness is a matter that can only be dealt with at an individual level. Personally, I try to treat people who call as I would like to be treated - it takes a fair amount of abuse before I feel the emotional disconnect and do the minimum required rather than going the extra mile, sounds like you're the same mignon. Agree to disagree ?

HI MIGONETTE I WORK IN NHS PSYCHIATRY TO HAVE DONE FOR TWENTY YEARS SO AM USED TO BEING SWORN AT THREATENED /EXPERIENCING VIOLENCE DIFFERENCE IS OUR CLIENTS/PATIENTS ALLEGEDLY ARE NOT CPABLE OF THERE ACTIONS TAX ADVISORS CLIENTS ARE!

I don't understand your point Snigger. Manager said it had taken 4 weeks to process,and it was being refered to the specialist team. Not that it HAS, already. That it will. And then that will take another 4 weeks. Really
I find that totally unacceptable. Why does it take 4 weeks then? for the specialist team? And errr, how do you explain, that it hasn't YET even BEEN refered.

But the point is, the Manager, never expalined this properly to the OP, did he?

By the way, I LOVE LOVE LOVE doing this. This should be my job. I love questioning people. Finding out what their excuse is, as to why something hasn't already been done.

I did it recently with the DVLA. Man they are a LAW unto themselves. Their medical dept. They allow 3 days for a fax from my Consultant to be registed. Thats before it is even processed. But I rang, I rang every 3rd day, to check, it had been scanned onto the system. Then I asked how long before ... then i rang again, on the 3rd or the 5th day, whichever I was advised. And my solicitor was working on it aswell. In the end it took nearly 3 months, to prove that an 'administrative error' had occured.

From an advisors point of view, tax credits is all about timescales (these feed into the beloved statistics). Timescales are set and are completely outwith the control or influence of an advisor.

For a new claim, such as OP, initial timescale is two weeks for receipt of claim form issued centrally at request of advisor who took the original call.

The next timescale is three weeks from date of form being sent by applicant to appearance on system (there are other timescales attached to this if things go wrong, whole other story)

So three weeks from the date of posting, claim should be on the system in some form or another.

Now it depends how well the claimant filled in the form. If they have dodgy handwriting or an indifferent approach to form-filling, the claim may have a 'partially-captured' status. This means it's on the system, we have it, but we haven't got near enough information to start processing. If the form is completed correctly but for some other reason (you've been fraudulent/suspected of being fraudulent in the past, you have details on the form that don't correspond with the details held on other central systems (this can be down to something as simple as spelling on the form, but if we get this wrong we could affect someone completely unrelated to the claim so it needs checking), someone else is claiming for the children on the claim, you have immigration issues) there are unverifiable details, the claim goes on a worklist. The worklist is worked in order, the speed of which which depends upon staffing and prioritising of other tasks (again outwith the control of the frontline advisor.

As cases climb the worklist, those working them may contact the claimant direct to clarify the issues holding up the claim, or the claimant may call the helpline, causing an advisor to refer their details to the relevant team so that unnecessary work is avoided.

The problem stems from the fact that contact centre staff, advisors and managers alike, can only give advice based on the information available. We don't have a magical phone number for the overworked back office staff for chasing-up purposes.

x2boys AKA Miss Shouty....I think you may have anger management issues. Perhaps some of your own 'medicine', me thinks?

Do Tax clients have immunity from mental health issues then?

Oh and BTW...I have often asked front line staff to put me in contact either by address or via re-connection with the people/department actually responsible for the fuck up (yes you, the SLC) so they can bear the brunt of the responsibility for their own messes....

TC call centres don't have contact details for the back-office other than an address. Believe what you will but they really don't have any means of pushing things through the system that have verification failures or other flags on them and they can't redirect calls. As snigger pointed out, it's all timescale driven and unless the system actually states a timescale in black and white 'this will take xx weeks' you can't give one, if you do give a timescale you're pulled for it. If timescales are king, call times and stats are queen. Call lengths are monitored and queried, they have service level agreements set by parliament that x-amount of calls will be answered and resolved within x-amount of minutes. I think people would actually be shocked at the reality of what a TC call centre (or any government call centre) is actually like.

Totally agree Cbear6.

It's exactly all the points on this thread that means I have just resigned from another govt department (at financial loss to my own family). That is everything from the customers who shout and swear, to the sheer frustration of not actually being able to do anything to help said customers only to be able to pass on what is on the screen, whilst making sure that procedures, call times and quality are all maintained.

There is so mug rubbish on this thread. The fact is, it is not acceptable to swear at people. Ever.
No matter how shit they are or the system is.
Would you do it to a persons face?

wheres the OP gone?

I think this has advertised to normal people the sort of shit people the unfortunate guys anybody in a government department have to deal with. And they even boast on websites. Disgusting.

CBear6 has it, the "Tax Credit Helpline" seems to have the loosest possible connection with the Tax Credit Office. I had a dispute that went on for years when they overpaid me £7000 even after I told them of the error. I have the call recordings of me begging them to stop overpaying me, but the CC staff could do nothing about it.

Phoning the "help"line did nothing whatsover to help, my MP was the only person who could actually get through to the TCO and get the problem sorted.

Swearing at people is wrong, but I do understand you're frustration. Meeting with a blank wall and not getting a comprehendable response is deeply frustrating. I've just had a run in with the TV licence people on behalf of my mum. She has dementia, I have Power Of Attorney - could I get them to change her details to mine so I could get the paperwork, not a hope. "She needs to write to us" was all I got, and I explained until I was blue in the face that she doesn't have the capacity which is why I have POA. It was hopeless, but I didn't swear at him, and asked him to make a note on her details that she is mentally incapable and to contact me with queries.

I don't know how you get round your problem, but perhaps try ringing again and ask them to take you through it slowly and clearly, and to write in confirmation of what you have been told. I hope it gets sorted soon.

YANBU for being angry and frustrated with how rubbish tax credits are. they really are VERY rubbish, I wish I earnt enough so we didn't have to claim.

but YABU for swearing although i probably would have done the same in your situation

actually migonette am not a great typer and was half way through my comment before i realsied caps lock was on and couldnt be bothered changing it my point was we work in mental health so we should expect abuse on a regular basis currently work in dementia so its an everyday occurance [ have worked in acutes picu etc] but tax advisors should nt get abuse for just doing there job i do agree ax credit system is rubbish however and i dont even get them!

Nobody should be sworn at for doing their job. I quite agree. But if they do not do their job, then the bets are off.

It sounds like the tax credits department (like many other organisations) have "back office" staff that actually DO stuff, and know whats going on, and then "frontline" call centre staff that just have access to limited stuff to read off a screen.

Sounds v similar to when I worked in a call centre (in banking) there was a back office department whose fuckups caused us in the call centre to get daily abuse. They were far too important and busy fucking things up to actually SPEAK to customers.

Sometimes I would accidently on purpose transfer customers to them even though it was strictly forbidden to do so.

I would hate to work at tax credits. poor bastards.

We once had a meeting with staff from TCO (the backoffice). The first thing we did was show them around the call centre and then sat them down to listen in on some typical calls. They'd never even spoken to the public, ever, in the duration of their time as backoffice staff and were genuinely shocked at what the day-to-day was like, especially how limited the phone staff were in what actions they could/couldn't take on claims.

Says it all really.