Tax credits horrible evil nasty people

[MidsummersNight]

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For 3 consecutive years I've received overpayment letter after overpayment letter after overpayment letter. I always keep or records up to date, I overestimate on everything and work childcare costs out accurately.
Yet, I am owe them over £2000 for reasons nobody has managed to tell me yet. I'm paying it back £50 a month and I've just received ANOTHER overpayment letter. It's always random stupid amounts and I'm fucking sick of it.

Appeal letters are always met with rejection letters back from them, what is the next step? Who do I go to? Can I write to an MP or something because it's getting beyond a joke. I don't know anyone else who gets this much grief from them and it's making me ill.

I hate them.

I informed them three times my son had died. I now have an overpayment to pay back and the bastards lost his death certificate.

Agree with pp it's not the staff it's the system. Still annoying though.

I have had the same issue. I have always informed them of any changes in my circumstances. I received another letter from a debt collection agency a couple of weeks ago saying I owed them more money - I haven't received tax credits for 5 years. They are so incompetent. I pay a huge private rent and never have any spare money after the essentials ( rent, bills, food etc) are paid for. I cried when I received the latest letter.

A lot of overpayments happen when forms they do need are "not received" (often because someone on the phone didn't record x, y, z)

The staff in the call centre don't receive the forms, they never even have sight of the forms. The forms go to the processing office and the processing office enter them onto the system. The call centre staff don't speak to the processing office and the processing office don't speak to the call centre staff, it's all done via computer system and if a mistake is made by the processing office it is very difficult for the call centre staff to correct it as often they don't have edit access to the relevant part of the system. Every time the call centres ask for the relevant access they're told no due to budgeting restrictions (extra licenses would be needed) or security concerns or some other reason.

So if something on the system needs to be corrected and it's outside of the functions the advisor has access to they have to send an electronic proforma through to the processing office. Depending on how busy it is down at processing these might be actioned immediately or they might be stockpiled (staffing cuts, don'tcha know).

See why it's so difficult for the call centre staff to actually change anything?

I informed them three times my son had died. I now have an overpayment to pay back and the bastards lost his death certificate.

I am so sorry pugsake, that is completely unacceptable When I worked there I wrote a report on how Tax Credits as a system - both people and electronic - should operate when a bereavement is reported. My main recommendation was that all such calls/letters be referred to a specialist team within the existing staff base so that people suffering a loss had to only tell us once, had a named contact and the relevant changes to the system could be done correctly first time (smaller team = greater accountability, easier to trace any errors, less chance of paperwork getting lost in a vast system).

Obviously the report was taken on board and put into action.

Our income can fluctuate (a lot) OH is on a stupid zero hours contract which has for several months been pretty much zero. My hours can also vary throughout the year was 25 April - Aug Now dropped to about 19 Informing them is pointless as I would be having to call at least every month. I try to keep a running total of our income and hope for the best that it won't go over the previous years estimate

Tony Blair wanted to make benefits claimants of most parents so he expanded this ridiculous system and enabled employers to keep wages very low. The sooner we allow wages to reach a free market level and abolish all tax credits the better. As it stands people are given money with one hand and then taxed with the other. It's a ridiculous system.

Same here, I think it all goes wrong if your circumstances change, they are set up for people in permanent jobs with unchanging circumstances. so not real life!

Job changes, maternity leave, self employment and a series of short term employment contracts mean that as pp have said, despite always informing them of my circumstances I am on my 2nd round of overpayment repayments. No doubt will not have paid them off before my circumstances change again and they decide I am eligible again and whole cycle starts again...

Wish I was wealthy enough to be able to tell them to stick it! They seem to have zero empathy for how it feels to receive a letter saying you owe over £1000, I dread letters from them now! But at least they post at least 3 copies of each letter

They have hugely overpaid me for the past 3 years even though I have given them figures to the penny, correct hours at nursery etc. I have cut all ties with them this year (even though I would be entitled to money) as I am sick to death of receiving debt recovery letters and frequent letters from concentrix accusing me of having a partner/ keeping the childcare money etc. I then have the ballache and embarrassment of having to ask for childcare invoices for the past year or statements. It's not worth the hassle and stress and being pushed into debt every year without fail.

We had a letter asking us I call an external department to "confirm information on the system" (let's face it, it's the nice way of saying "we think you have lied to us")
I called and a cagey bloke had me confirm three times my previous employer. After this he asked if I was mistaken and he tried to insist I had worked for my employer before that. Then he queried the income but he could understand why he was querying it since it seemed correct to him any way

Fast forward six weeks and we got a letter telling us we had under declared outlets income by £10,000 (we hadn't) and when I phoned the woman had no idea where THEY had found the lower figure since she could see on all the paperwork we had declared the correct amount.

Needless to say I have taken names and dates and asked for a letter confirming we have never made any errors on our part.

They have just messed up with my PIP. I had an odd payment from them and when I asked they said it was due to me now getting PIP. I explained i'd had that since 2014 and was told I should have informed them within 30 days (I had). Then, they said they could see I had informed them at the time. So, now they are looking at it to see if they will pay me the money they should have added in 2014.

CandoDad - best of luck on getting THAT letter. That's how I deal with public services - oh best pop that in writing. Send me a letter confirming xyz. They hate it!

We sent the last three letters recorded so each time they said they hadn't received them we could tell them actually they had!

If the letters have gone to a back-office (e.g., processing) and they haven't logged them into the system (e.g., put a note on NTC to say 'xxxx letter received regarding xxxxx' and details of any relevant action) then the call centre staff won't know that the letter has been received. The letters don't go anywhere near the call centre so they're reliant on the back-office to put details on the system.

Thanks Bear. I lost a very early baby I was a bit in shock for a while so I imagine I was quite hard faced. I just thought how awful it would be for another parent to go through.

It's so nice you tried to help.

Human and computer error can happen. I never had a go or was rude to the phone operator it was hardly their fault.

Plus I used to work in government can't give examples as would out them but I'd had phone calls regarding similar records being mucked up. If that makes any sense

I'm sick of tax credits too. Wish we didn't have to claim them. We've had 3 letters all arrive at once, one to me, one to my husband and one addressed to both of us. On all three it says we owe different amounts and nothing adds up. The highest one is around 3k :(

I've always updated them quickly and called to correct mistakes like for some reason after 4 years of going to school they had down that our daughter was going to nursery even though that was removed and not showing on any letters in between!

I don't understand why the system doesn't work. Why can't anyone tell us why we have been overpaid? It's just so stressful. I can hardly get through on the phone and when I can I'm usually in a queue for up to an hour. Then when I do get through no one can help, things don't get recorded properly and I just feel like I've wasted my time as well as the call costing a fortune.

I called them and advised them about changes in income, childcare, jobs, sent proof they asked for and the cunts still can't get it right.
They need performance management as a company at the very least. My friend has really suffered at their hands and has contemplated suicide at one point. Everyone is a liar unless proved otherwise I think (in their eyes).

Yes to get your mp involved. Also follow the complaints procedure. Ask for evidence. If they fail to respond to your complaint- go to the ombudsman

A success story-

I reported a change in DH's job/earnings by telephone. He was to have a probationary rate for 3months then a higher rate. I gave them the higher rate. Then the advisor said our award wouldn't change until the following year. I repeatedly said that that would mean we would be overpaid and we didn't want that. She repeatedly said we'd be "fine". So it stayed the same rate. Didn't need to query the figures on the letter that followed (like they say, the onus is on you to ensure they get it right, even if it's their error ) because the advisor had said it would be fine.

Queue 10 months later and we had an overpayment letter to the tune of 4k. It's long winded but we disputed/appealed, also told it was too late to appeal. I requested the audio tape of the conversation with advisor and wrote a HUGE complaint, very detailed. Got MP involved who was useless. Prepared papers to send to the Adjudication Office. Started paying back at £50 per month on the proviso it would be returned if I was successful.

Finally had a letter FOUR years later to say that, yes, this lovely lovely man had listened to the recording and it was clear I'd been misadvised. They also paid me £40 for distress

This thread has given me flashbacks to my own horrible experience with tax credits 15 years ago! Mine was based on their stating that I hadn't informed them of a change in circumstances which they stated voided the entire years claim. I knew I had so appealed which got me precisely nowhere. To cut a long story short I requested all their papers and recordings of phone calls at which point I could prove I'd made the call. Every time I phoned I had to start again as no one knew what I was talking about. After 2 years and getting my MP involved I got a person I could contact directly each time but everything still took forever. After 3 years- and completely shattered nerves they agreed I didn't owe the money. At this point if a letter came from them I would burst into tears as previously every time I was told it was sorted I'd get s new letter a week later saying I still owed them £2500 and had 5 days to pay.
I was so pleased I'd finally got there but from that point on refused to have anything else to do with tax credits and never claimed again.
A further sting in this tale was that about 5 years ago I was talking to my DH about the whole experience and he confessed that they had got in touch again after I thought I'd won to say we still owed the money. He told me that he couldn't bear to go through it all again and was worried how I would react (it wouldn't have been very well!) so he set up a payment agreement and paid back money we didn't actually owe to get them to leave us alone. Im lucky that I no longer need tax credits because I'd never have them again. The whole system is broken.

I'm currently paying back thousands of ££s of exhusbands overpayments (that I knew about or even seen any of this money btw) because we were married at the time it's my responsibly too
HMRC (in their actual words) don't care who they pursue for the money, as long as it gets paid in full and on time

He's an arsehole about money (don't even get me started about child maintenance!) and doesn't contact them or pay his share, so it's legally my responsibility and there's nothing that can be done about it - so stressful as I'm on a very limited income as it is

arse Did you have a letter saying you didn't owe it?? I can see how lovely your DH was in protecting you etc but I'd have been furious! Mind you I was a one woman crusade those four years. I would have been prepared to go to the parliamentary ombudsman but would have stopped short at court for fear of having to pay costs.

So stressful

I too phoned and phoned. They disputed that I had phoned. So I wrote to their dept asking for a cd of all the calls. Which I never received. Then quelle surprise they finally admitted that actually yes I had called.
I have cried on the phone to them in desperation. It has been truely awful.

I did Shakey so was cross with him when I found out. I also had the recordings of the calls I'd made with that one call missing from CD although the details of it were still on the list of calls I made that they sent me. It's a rotten system.To be fair though I was utterly consumed with the injustice and I think he just thought I'll just deal with it.
Sad to hear others have had similar experiences.

DP had a load of 'overpayment' letters from ages ago.
Followed by another letter saying that they are investigating the 'external agency', and to ignore the letters.
Good news maybe?