Tax credits over payment???

[splodge1978]

I'm getting really stressed at the mo as I've had a letter from TC saying i owe them 10k over payment and need to call them to sort it. God knows when from and what for?
I am afraid to as i am assuming they are going to stop my TC current payments and if they do then we wouldnt't be able to cope financially.....
Has this happened to anyone else?

A couple of years back I got a similar letter claiming overpayment of around £5k the week before Christmas!! When I called them it turned out they had been reconciling P60 information from employment records to our declarations without taking into account our allowable pension contributions.
It took a 5 minute call to sort out and they confirmed they were happy in writing.

Dig out your paperwork to support your previous claims and look for things that might have caused inconsistencies (pension contributions, misrecorded changes to family setup, changes to childcare arrangements, lots of job changes, allowable expenses etc) so you have some idea about what might be the issue and then call them.
I would also recommend getting any agreement on the situation in writing either from them or by you writing to them to summarize phone calls. I have found this makes any subsequent follow up much more straightforward as the knowledge of the people on the other end of the telephone does tend to vary a great deal.