to think that HMRC could use some joined up thinking?

[Bogeyface]

Long story short...

Redundancy, 6 months out of work then got 0 hours contract job. Stopped getting hours after Xmas so had to sign on again. Update CTC at every turn.

10 days ago we got a lump sum of several hundred pounds into the account the day before the bills were due, we had had to borrow some money of my parents to cover them due to no wages and JSA not coming through in time. Gave my parents the money straight back and used the CTC payment, after calling CTC to check this was the correct amount.

Then we get the award notice.

When H was earning we were paying back an over payment at £2 a week. After the recalculation we are paying back £50 a week out of a much lower award. I asked why the lump sum couldnt have been offset against the over payment and was told it couldnt be because it wasnt our regular payment and the money had to be taken out of our regular payments.

Am I missing something? OK so we would have had to borrow of mum and dad but we would have been paying back a lot less than £50 a week! Surely if we have an overpayment, we shouldnt be paid any lump sums until that has been cleared? We have now got to go through the special circumstances appeal palaver to try and get it lowered. We were overpayed, I accept that (although not sure how when I kept them up to date the whole way through) and will have to pay it back. But I cant see the sense in a) taking more from a non working family than when they were working and b) sending out lump sum payments to make up for adjustments when there is an amount outstanding that it would have just about covered!

off not of, dont know where the extra F is going :o

Must be me then.......

CTC never makes sense the entire system seems to have been made to justify employing a few thousand staff in call centres. My ex GF use to work in one, she said it was just a colossal waste of everyone's time, especially those having to call in.

They seem a bit weird, TBH. I rang and updated our income for this year and judging by calculators (which all give different figures) we are due an arrears payment of sorts, plus payments for the rest of this tax year.

We have so far had a payment of £2.36 but no award letter. I'm hoping they are making other payments soon as I'm on the last month of mat leave and things are tight!

I know a few people who've had issues with overpayments due to someone at CTC making errors of judgement / mistakes.

Sounds like exactly what happened to us a couple of years ago. DH was working and we were paying back the overpayment at £5 per week. Then DH was made redundant and went on JSA. They recalculated our claim and we were also paying back at £50 per week.

I rang them and appealed, they said the decision was right. I wrote to them and they still said the decision was right. I went to CAB and a they spoke to them and they still said the decision was right. So then I sat down and did all the calculations (difference in what were paying and earning then, to what we were paying and claiming now). Then I wrote a long long letter, explaining the calculations asking why and that it didn't make sense, and a bit more ranting thrown in. I addressed it to the person who signed off the decision letter so that it wouldn't just go in a generic pile.

2 weeks later I got a new award notice changing the amount we were paying back to £4 per week. (Yay).

I would definitely write to them (and try to address the letter to a person rather than generic HMRC) putting in the differences in your income and payments back to them. It might work?