Need Tax Credits advice!

[Thaigal]

To cut a long story short, I made a claim as a single parent in January of LAST YEAR...all they had to do was change the joint claim to a single claim...

Over a year later they have STILL not managed to sort it out, I am being sent manual payments every 4 weeks until they get their a*ses into gear.

Anyway, at the start of this single claim I went from January to March with no money from them at all...I was living on £50 a week to feed myself and 2 kids as well as pay bills etc. it wasnt until March that I decided enough was enough and I went into the office in person and asked for an emergency payment. I got one and ended up doing this for about 3 months running until they started the manual payments.

So, I should be owed the money from Jan - March right? they assured me I would get it "one day" and I have just phoned for the 100th time this year and they have suddenly decided that I am not entitled to a back-payment at alll! She said I can dispute it if I want to...my question is, should I bother??? Or should I just right it off and forget about it? It's worth about £400 but I'm assuming I would be fighting a losing battle? what would you do?

Also, how do I go about getting back the cost of the constant phone calls?

Are the citizens advice any use in tax credits situations?

I would persue it if I were you. you only have to write the dispute form out once and you could end up getting the money back. We were told we owed them money last year dispite not receiving tax credits for about 3 years - I was fuming. After completing the dispute form with all the information I had available they decided we were no longer liable (thank goodness!).

It's worth a try - Also, if I were you, I'd be so pissed off by now I'd want to screw them for every penny possible!

I would disput it, IME they say these things when they are bored of it and they want to clear it off their books. If you say you are disputing it, ask for details of all payments made to you etc etc they will realise you are going to fight, I would then follow it up with phone calls every day asking how things are progressing etc etc. It is worht it, I have found that unless you make it clear you are not going away you get treated quite badly by them and the fewer of us that lay down and die the better - they will have to sort out the problems eventually!

This hapopened to me, and I ended up resigning my job and loosing my flat because I couldn't afford my rent and my only option was to move to my parents 300miles away. Fight them - I got a back payment of over £1000. shame it was too late to save me moving but ho-hum.

My sister is having exactly the same problem. She split from her partner and we thought all we had to do was to tell them and the payments would get adjusted - no, not that simple. She has had no payments for about 4 months. My Dad is paying her rent at the moment as she can't put in a claim for housing benefit without the paperwork and they haven't even written to her to tell her how much/when payments will be.
We are trying to sort it out today....came on here for advice and it makes me feel a bit better knowing it's not just my sister in this boat but does make me soooo angry that single people are meant to cope on such small amounts.