UC enhanced review team

[sophlouise1992]

Hello,
This is the Enhanced Review Team contacting you about your claim to Universal Credit. We believe you are not entitled to receive Universal Credit because we have doubts about the legitimacy of your claim. Accordingly, we have suspended payment of your Universal Credit. To resolve this doubt on your claim to Universal Credit please contact 0800 328 5644 and ask to speak to the Enhanced Review Team. If we do not hear from you by 24/11/2023, your claim will be closed.
Thank you

has anyone had this and know how long it takes or what it’s about? Had today and I’m concerned how I’m going to pay rent/feed children

Yes, I've had this. They emailed to say log into my UC account/journal and the message was on there, it was legit.

But the thing was, I got a new job last June and no longer need UC. My work coach was lovely, said congratulations on the job etc., and I assumed everything would be closed down. I haven't received any payments since as I now earn too much, obviously. It's all recorded in the journal. Don't they read it??

I've replied explaining it all and that I thought the account had been shut down.
However, if others are receiving these messages when still claiming it must be very worrying indeed, especially as it looks like they are questioning identity and everything. Not everyone will understand either.....

@Reedy281147 did they tell you your payment stopped? did you get the suspended message? i haven’t

Yes my payment stopped and it's now been reaterted, thankfully we haven't missed any payments.

@Reedy281147 i have a call next week may i ask what they ask about?

Yours sounds like a different one so I'm not sure what you will be asked but just be honest and provide the documents they ask for and you'll be fine.

Keep messaging in your journal and explain how much stress it’s causing that’s what u did

When I spoke to them yesterday, I did just that and also that I had contacted my MP. Suprise suprise, the very next day it was sorted. Only thing now is I will have to tell my MP it's sorted and I've wasted their time.

I’m in my fourth week and still asking for stuff from me and payments still stopped

Ring up, arrange for a call back and explain how stressed it is making you, etc.

Did you call them or just write on your journal about MP ? I`ve seen many posts ppl say they contacted their MP and things sorted really fast . Not sure exactly how to contact MP but I want to do this , my payment is still stopped

I rang UC and after two days, received a call back from the Enhanced Review Team who told me it would still take a long time due to the amount of cases they were working on. Strangely though, when I mentioned that I had contacted my MP, the bloke said his goodbyes and it was sorted the next day. I also mentioned the stress it was putting us under due to both working and having a young family. I kept the call courteous and just made sure I put my points across. https://members.parliament.uk/members/Commons. Click that and enter your postcode. I hope this helps

Thank you , I will contact MP and tell this Review team about MP

No problem. Good luck

Hello, I received the same message as you all did. Had my phone call last Monday, he phoned Thursday again as they needed better evidence. Phoned on Tuesday to say he will send it all off - not a clue why it takes so long to send it as I immediately uploaded everything as soon as he was off the phone last Thursday!! Message on journal today to say all fine and money is now in account, thank goodness! I have been so panicked over the last 10 days, number of messages in my journal to see what was going on but it’s just some random person from another job-centre saying they’ll get the review team to phone me. The person you speak to on the phone sends it to a whole other team who make the decisions so that’s why it takes a long time, if anyone is still waiting just make sure you’re constantly messaging on your journal for them to phone you to keep you updated. Hope everyone else is sorted, can’t believe they’re allowed to just suspend payments (I get paid 11th of the month so it’s been a LONG 12 days trying to keep myself and my son fed and warm)

Just wondering.. do these reviews happen on new claims or have most of your claims been open a while? Is it to do with Covid and the rules being relaxed at that time?

I might be putting in a claim for UC soon, do they need all that evidence straight away? Thanks

Our claim has been active for about a year and we submitted the documents then. This is about doing further checks to stamp out fraud and from what I can gather, it's random who gets chosen for a review.

After almost one month since they stopped our payment , they phoned me and say they couldnt verify my housing and my case will go to a decision maker . I cannot believe this is real , we live at this address for almost 3 years and we sent all our tenancy agreements , landlord has so many houses so its absolutly shocking telling me they cant verify . I hope citizens advice can help us , such a stress I cannot sleep nights , its a nightmare . Not all claims are sorted quick , some wait months , I understand they need to check things but I think this is an abuse stopping payments and say that they cant verify housing ..seems like a joke but ruin peoples lifes and mental health

@Dana81 what exactly couldn’t they verify with your housing? Have you provided them with all tenancy agreements or rent increase letters. Very weird if you have.

I dont know what they couldnt verify , the woman didnt tell me on the phone whatever I was telling her she refused to explain . Its weird because I did provide them with all 3 tenancy agreements , the curent one and the previous . I notified universal credit on the same day when this rent increased and this actually triggered the enhanced verification because they stopped my payment soon after I had this rent increase. Went to the citizens advice and now will have a formal complaint , next step MP

It won’t just be the tenancy agreement they want, it’ll be recent utility bill in your name and the tenancy agreement must match exactly what you declared and show the specific pages they asked for- usually the dates, payment amounts and frequency, full address, the landlords name, address and signature. Did you provide all this?

This is awful. Why haven't they put this same amount of energy into finding the people who fraudulently claimed more than 1 billion in covid business relief?

@Towelcard This thread here

Yes I did provide everything , 3 years of tenancy agreements and 3 years of council tax bills , recent energy and water bills ( one on my husbands name and one on my name ) , all identity documents , pictures with us holding the passports . And yes the name and tenancy match. Still...they couldnt verify , I can see more people on fb are exactly on the same situation

If they can’t verify they will usually give you a reason. Have you read your journal and any links/attachments?

Yes I did read everything , they only say they couldnt verify . I asked if I can ask the landlord to contact them or if I send bank statements with our rent payments ..and I was told I cant do anything just to wait for the decision maker . Citizens advice did appologise for this situation ( is not their fault but they were just nice ) and the office I went to didnt see any other similar cases but like I said there are some on fb groups just like my case .