How could they do this?

[brizzledrizzle]

You're on the verge of losing everything - but you don’t understand why http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-42789610

This should not be allowed to happen, this is supposed to be a civilised country. How could they do this to somebody

Boxsets and Popcorn

Would they dock the pay for a month, then 3 months , etc as that is what the DWP do to sanctioned people .

3 times the money is stopped for years , apparently.

I think it depends on the advisor as well .
When I was on JSA I had a emergency on the morning I was due to sign. I rung up but got no response and by the time I had rung the DWP to contact the JC my appointment time was over with .

However, they took into consideration, there and then on why I could not go , and I signed the following day .

I have supported vulnerable people like this too and totally agree with pp that the system is organised and run in such a way that it becomes inaccessible to the people it supposed to support. The way Universal Credit has been introduced is a slur on this country's human rights record, we ought to be thoroughly ashamed.

Pickled I completely and utterly disagree. "punish everyone" is simply not an acceptable solution. Totally unjustifiable to implement a system that is so onerous it functions badly and is inhumane. (You deserve better!)

Cross all your fingers smug ones, it's closer than you think.For everyone..

Absolutely. I would never have believed it would be me.

I think if most advisors accepted the reasons why appointments were missed and if you are provide evidence then there should be no argument, however some people play the system and give all the excused under the sun but with nothing to back it up.

Not until I was discharged. I actually had to ring from hospital to explain why I couldn't make the appointment. They wouldn't discharge me until my temperature came down.

Sorry got your username wrong Pickleypickles.

Sorry , by the time the DWP answered , the appointment time was over.

When i recently claimed jsa ut was all done online. You cant even phone your local job centre you get a national call centre and they make you an appoint.
Proof of job searches must all be logged online.

If you have to travel to access a computer with precious little money you are screwed.

The system is appaling. I have had great help from some jc emoloyees but others were a total fuck up.

Guilty until proven innocent just punishes the innocent.
That creates a system where there is no incentive to be innocent.

It's just desperate, isn't it. The government sees these people as less than human - and the people who vote for them truly believe that society is better and more fair if they get to keep an extra ten grand in their pocket at the expense of our most vulnerable citizens even having basic food and shelter. It disgusts me.

i know a welfare rights adviser who will tell you it's the rules and the system that are wrong. She had a client who informed the DWP in advance that she couldnt get to an apponitment due to taking her mother to chem. The DWP officer didnt log it though so she still got sanctioned. DWP officer admitted mistake but just told her to 'claim it back". That still takes 4 to 6 weeks!
There was a woman who took care of her 3 GC when her DD was suffering mental health. you cannot claim UC with 3 children and the job centre had no advice to offer except to tell her to go to the foodbank. Meanwhile her rent arrears are rising.

It’s disgusting.

My area isn’t on UC yet and I was on Jobseeker’s Allowance for 4 months last year. I had letters telling me of job centre appointments arriving after the appointment date. I had letters from housing benefit, sometimes 3 in the same week all dated weeks previously, all telling me I was either entitled to 3 different amounts or that my claim had been suspended again because of a change in circumstances. There was never a change in circumstances! No-one on the phone could give me an answer as to what the supposed changes were or how much I was actually entitled to. I had to traipse down to the housing office with my DC and queue up to be told to come back with copies of all the documentation I had already sent in 6 weeks previously. Why did they not have them scanned and on their system?? It’s the 21st century! So I go back with all the documentation and they photocopy it and tell me I should have a decision in 6 weeks. Ok, so how do I pay my rent in that time? Rewind a few years previously when I was getting income support and they stopped my income support and housing benefit for 14 weeks while they tried to distinguish their arse from their elbow. Apparently another “change in circumstances” They eventually decided I was always entitled to the original amounts for those 14 weeks. When did I get it paid back? 18 months later. I was very fucking “lucky” I had good credit and was able to take out credit card cash advances to cover my rent and living costs or I would have been homeless. I’m still paying off those cards now.

The system is not fit for purpose.

Until you stand in the world of the poor, m/h issues, illiterate then be careful of glib statements.

This, absolutely. People like sound are people who have never had to walk that path, who lack empathy and any understanding of the phrase 'there but for the grace of God go I.' It is so easy from a position of relative privilege to castigate people like this man for not understanding the welfare benefit system. Not all adults are the same, sound. Some adults have faith in the welfare benefits system to be a fair and transparent one, which will look after any of us who should have need of it. It's so very easy to say that it's not hard to claim benefits, when you know how to read and write, what to ask for if you need help accessing the system, the language amd terminology to use with advisers, how to set up an email account, how to use an email account, how the internet works, what the wording of the latest letter you have received means; when you operate within a context of ability not disability, if relative wealth and not a lifetime of poverty; when you have benefitted to the maximum from a state education, because your family background enabled you to do so. If it were as easy as you say, films like I, Daniel Blake would not need to be made and stories like Tony's would not echo around internet fora.

Think - just a little - before you speak so glibly.

But you phone, or get someone else to phone. The problem is people expecting the DWP to be psychic and know why they haven't turned up for their scheduled appointment.

To be fair they seem to expect me to be psychic. I am sitting here while in a queue, as once again a payment which I expected hasn't gone in.

Also with PIP its not necessarily the assessment, its the up to 67 wek wait for a tribunal without that money

I genuinely wonder how many people go through the sheer hell of the system just to get some free money and to cheat the taxpaying public so they can sit on their arse all day smoking rothmans and drinking special brew.
I would imagine very few.

I contacted a charity attached to a hospital who use to help disabled people fill in PIP forms they told me they no longer have funding to do this. PIP forms are done by hand & are pages long & I was told elsewhere that you need to fill in the whole form which for someone without physical disabilities can lead to not receiving PIP (ie mental health LD ASD) I did find another Charity which gave me phone advice later.I did the form as a carer on someone else behalf. PIP assessment was turned down at interview =the person had no expertise in this form of disability but it was reversed because of the PIP form (send copies of everything put down every body you have ever had dealings with etc etc)

The problem is people expecting the DWP to be psychic and know why they haven't turned up for their scheduled appointment.

No. No-one expects the DWP to be psychic. Obviously. People dont just sit at home and think “ahh they’ll know why I haven’t come in, I don’t need to ring”. People are in no doubt that if they don’t go to their appointment they will be sanctioned. They know this, they have lived it, they are under no illusions. People are not blasé about losing the money that feeds them. Wake the fuck up.

I watched a documentary on TV about young street homeless people, many of whom had been sanctioned for not applying for jobs. These young people were dealing with keeping safe and having enough to eat. Sanctioning them seemed a sure fire way to push them into crime.

There's no help here anymore for benefits, the funding has been withdrawn, we have the lowest rates for appeal success in the country as a result and the dwp send reps to the majority of appeals to argue their case.

So it's fine if you live in a place where there is advocacy services or even a CAB who might be able to help with appeals but there are increasingly areas where these things are not available and it's seen as a good thing because it keeps the bill down.

@eightfacesofthemoon

I genuinely wonder how many people go through the sheer hell of the system just to get some free money and to cheat the taxpaying public so they can sit on their arse all day smoking rothmans and drinking special brew.
I would imagine very few.

Don't be a spoilsport. Don't you know there are millions of people claiming benefits unfairly, who all have flatscreen TVs and drive big fancy new cars?

"I claimed PIP last month and was surprised all I needed to do was make a call and fill in the form they sent me. It wasn't that hard and I didn't send much in the way of evidence just some really old doctors' letters that I already had that were about something else but alluded to my disability."

You started a PIP claim, filled and returned the PIP2 form, (had the face-to-face assessment?), and received an award within a month? Literally unbelievable.

If it really did go that quickly for you, and with no assessment, then you either have some objectively disabling condition that was confirmed by the doctor's letters or you got extremely lucky.

It's not easy to ring them here either as its just an office now so you must phone a national centre and go through security questions to leave a message the other end of the country for it to then, possibly, if you're lucky, be passed back. Not everyone has family to phone if they're in hospital and no the hospital staff can't do it for you.

I'd also like to make a point about back pay

Back pay is a con. You can't get things for free for the months you're waiting for back pay assuming you can get it, you need to take out loans or credit cards (if you already have them). No one will give you anything because your benefits are fucked, food bank requires social services or other professionals to refer up to three times per year only. The most you'll get its some sarcastic twat going on about "the lovely back pay" so you'll be fine. In the meantime you find you get eviction notices, services cut off - no benefits anymore so you're no longer a vulnerable customer.

Back pay won't cover interest you've racked up on loans or credit cards either.

The last person who said that to me I snapped how they would live for twelve months (time it takes for appeals here) if their employer decided suddenly not to pay them except in a lump sum, their response was its different. It's not.

My money was stopped when I was sent on a jobcentre course for not signing on at the same time (despite me writing to remind them). It was stopped because I had an interview I'd arranged myself and signed on the day before and hadn't been put on the system. It was stopped the day I had a seizure in the Job centre whilst waiting by those who rang an ambulance for me for not signing on. It was stopped the day I was arrested in an assessment due to mental breakdown.

Those were from awhile ago when on JSA or incapacity benefit. I dread UC.

They just want to save money.

Not everyone has family to phone if they're in hospital and no the hospital staff can't do it for you.

My family wouldn’t even know what, if any, benefits I was in receipt of. They wouldn’t know if I were due to attend an appointment that any calls needed to be made.

And yes, WRT back pay, I think people with no experience of the system think it’s all one big database with all the different offices linked up so if one benefit gets sanctioned someone will send a wee note over to Janet in housing to say that Sarah can’t pay her rent for 6 weeks so can you just inform her landlord not to charge her anything. oh and give ken in ASDA a ring and tell him to send her a free grocery shop for the next six weeks.

When my nephew was unemployed, he had an accident and was hospitalised for a couple of days, the JC were fine about that and didn't sanction him but the consultant said he had to have bed rest at home for two weeks (he had a tear in his brain lining) - his GP would not give him any sort of sick note by phone and he couldn't go in, JC would not accept this information by phone. So, he was sanctioned, for a month. And that was the only money he had coming in.

The accident was not his fault, he had been looking for work until then, he was unable to pay his rent and was lucky not to be evicted. My sister managed to pay his rent. But that's not the point.

It was a very scary time, he has a tendency to depression and was (is) a youngish man who was unemployed, so we were really worried about him - not long after that my sister got an incomprehensible call at 2am one night and she and BIL had to dash to him and they took him to the GP the next day where he was given anti-depressants.

This was a few years ago and he has a good job now but it was a very worrying time made a LOT worse by the stupid sanctions system, it wasn't only him it affected but us, his gf, both extended families worrying about him etc.