Anyone won a tax credits dispute?

[lovemylover]

My son has been notified that he was overpaid over £1000 tax credits
He is on Universal credits, and is having almost £50 a month taken from them,
He only gets £73 a week, and is disputing this, as the year given initially was 7 years ago
He got our MP to try to help and has just received a copy of the letter the MP received back
The dates givenn for the overpayment has changed now to the previous year, also my son is refferd to in this letter as MRS? and also as her, not him,
Do these people really know what they are doing
My son has no choice as to whether to payu or not as it is automatically taken every month
He didnt get any tax credits in the years mentioned,only child tax credits for different years, when his son came to love with him
It is absolutely disgusting that not only can they take this money, especially such a large amount, leaving him in hardship.as he has a flat and has bills to pay, plus a warden fee , he is waiting to see if he can get pip as he has ongoing health problem including strokes
Any advice would be greatly apprciated
He was told that he was sent a letter regarding this in 2013, which he didnt get, but if so why wait another 5 years to do this
He has a case worker who is trying to help,and says she would love to be a whistle blower but dare not risk losing her job

Bump

I disputed when i was overpaid, they stopped my tax credits, all of it to pay back the overpayment, I went to the cab who said they can not leave you destitute and can not take more than you need to live on.

I won my dispute and they wrote off what i owed as agood will gesture due to leaving me with nothing to live on, it was few years ago so things may have changed.

I would definitely speak to the cab to see if they can help him.

MrsDarcy thank you for your reply, it is disgusting that people are put in hardship isnt it?
Did the CAB give you advice what to do? or contact them for you, but if they take no notice of an MP i dont think they care
The thing is it isnt coming from HMRC now it is a ompany working for them,but i will tell my son wha you have said,
I have areadymentionef going to CAB but because he has been in the past about other things and couldnt help he wont go

I'm sorry he's having such a hard time, cab gave me the advice and I then wrote to tax credits myself and they then looked at it again, it was dealt with by them not another company but mine was a few years ago and I know things can change.

The tax credits my son has to p[ay back are through a debt collectors which i dont understand as there is no way he can refuse to pay anyway
I have seen on here mumsnet that other people are having the same problems, usually going back about 7 years,its awful,
My daughter was overpaid and she is paying it back at only £10 a month and she is working
To take these high amounts of people who are on UC and only approx £73 a week with everything to pay out of that is cruel in my opinion