I just need to rant about tax credits!!!!!

[Fran1]

I know noone can help me, but i just need to rant rant rant about child tax credits.

Last April, i informed them of dps v big payrise (i.e drastically reduced what we should have received) over the telephone. For the next two months we received two payments per month - with it being end of year, i assumed these were payments owing to us as when i had spoken to the man on the phone, he assured me we did not owe anything and payments would change accordingly.
Once this continued into third month, i rang and guess what, they had no knowledge of dp's pay increase, so we owed them about £800. So payments would be stopped until April 2005 by which time we will have paid back what we owed and things will continue as norm.
I wrote a letter to complain and explain why i thought the money was ours etc etc.

No response.

Rang a couple of months later, spoke to a woman who was quite obviously fed up with dealing with this, told me not to bother writing cos the letters don't get read, so tough luck, put up with it. She did confirm payments would start again April 2005.

Here we are in April 2005 - no sign of payment, i telephoned to find out what was happening, to be told i was not due anything until April 2006!!!! I said had they received my letter from June 2004, yes that was received in Feb 2005 and was being looked at??????????

And what can i do in the meantime? Wait.

I was so gobsmacked that i didn't really question why it had taken them 8mths to put my letter on file and now i just feel so let down, i can't bear to ring again. I have kept all statements from them, and i still can't make sense of anything, or work out if their figures are correct.

We really could do with the financial help and i am so mad about their incompetencies messing with so many peoples finances!!!!!!!

Sorry that ended up being so long. I feel better now though!

Us too. Except we both get 2 copies each time. I have gradually increased my hours since coming off maternity leave 2 years ago, so we have had at least 6 changes with 24 statements showing up for each one! What a waste of paper. At least they are getting our numbers right.

I want to rant too!!!!!!!!!!

I recently notified them that I have effectively become a single parent and put in a new claim, they have sent me a letter saying I owe them £70! Today I have phoned and have been told that because I received a payment the day before my phone call I need to pay it back - fair enough but what about the new claim as a single mum?!

I know it won't change a great deal until I find a new place to live, but as my pay last year was far lower because of my mat leave surely I should receive something back? Now I don't know whether I should claim again or leave it a while to see if it calculates out . . . . the stupid thing is that when I do the online qualification calculator I am apprarently entitled to approx. £7500 per year as a working single mum

Effing idiots!!

Well apparently we get £500 a year for two kids [1 under a year] annual income is £28,000.

wmf - that definitely needs checking. You should be getting approximately double that amount.

i owe the 1p.

I know you are lockets, the name might be newish but I've been around a long time (used to be Snugs)

I would ring them rather than write.

OK so much for being lucky!!
No sign of our cheque with the money we are owed afetr appeal came through as successful! Instead we had a new update today saying we still owed them £800!!
Rang and spoke to a lady who after 5 minutes said she was ending the call due to my tone!! Rang straight back and spoke to a helpful man who told me to ignore the letter as the computer hadnt been updated and i should recieve a cheque for the money by next week. He also said he is sending me a form and that we should be entitled to some compensation money!!! Still im angry that the ejits cant communicate within tax credits!!!

Hi all

Couldnt help putting my tuppins worth into this thread too. TAX CREDITS IS AN ABSOLUTE JOKE !!!!!!!

I am married with 3 sons 1@3 and twins 15 months, dh worked 38 hours per week, we got £120 pw ctc and 2.34 pw wtc. As finances went we were up s* crrek with no paddle so I had to go to work too

I only worked 16 hours over a sat and sun we lost wtc fair enough and ctc dropped to 60pw. I then went full time as we were beginning to be worse off and what do you know we now owe them hundreds of pounds too. I called the day i went full time to inform of my change of hours they even confirmed it in writing(award notice) but then a few months later "we regret to inform you that due to an overpayment" yeah right!!!!! WE TOLD YOU ABOUT THE CHANGE IN INCOME BAWBAG!!!!!!!

My sister work for taxcredt helpline and tried to help but they have you screwed every way, its ok to say take a note of the name of advisor you spoke to but speaking from experience as i work in a call centre, it does not matter, these places have thousands of staff and a name is JUST a name it means nothing. I thought the government were meant to help working families we would be better off unemployed claiming benefit.

LET THESE PEEPS TRY AND LIE OFF THE S* WAGES WE HAVE AND FLIMSY BIT OF TC BET THERE WOULD SOON BE A CHANGE

What do you think ladies!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry to go off on 1 but it really p*es me off

It infuriates me and sympathies shared with all others in this situation!

What worries me most, is i don't think i had it in writing that my credits would start being paid again in April 05 it was only on the phone they told me this

Oooooh i'm so fuming what can we do?

Appeal, Jambo, especially if you have an award letter. There's an email addy further down, too.

Whenever I get a pay raise, I send them a written letter recorded delivery and keep following it up every fortnight so if they come back and say we owe thousands of pounds b/c they couldn't be arsed to action the written notice of pay increase then we've got proof of notifying them numerous times.

Dh says it used to be the DWP that ran tax credits and they didn't f* people about like this, but since it's gone to the IR well, they want all the money they can get, even if they starve working families back onto the dole.

I suspect lots of Revenue staff are also tax credit claimants.

I suspect as much as well, Tinker. But unfortunately that's not my problem. My problem is that if they yank our credits we'll be looking at homelessness and if they say we owe them money well we're looking at bankrupcy as well.

I think there needs to be more accountability for their not actioning notices people give them about circumstance changes in a timely fashion, and a statute of limitation on how long they can come back and say, 'Oh, btw, you owe us £3000 from 3 years ago' or some other crap like that.

I've tried to keep out of this, but... expat, the DWP ran a completely different system. This is a new system. The biggest problem is the computer system, because the govt will not pay out for one that works. If you notify of a change of circs, income, whatever, and you don't get a ton of paperwork through, then you query it... The govt made the whole thing unnecessarily complicated so that even the staff can't work it out.

(I had to laugh at your post of 21/4 8.52 where you are giving them a time limit to reply. Post is usually d/w in order of receipt, so if there is a mountain of it before yours then the response will take longer.. )

The govt is committed to reducing the Civil Service. When I posted about it on MN everyone said "well we don't care- they cost us money", yet this sort of cock-up is the result. Not enough staff to cope with the work... It can only get worse.

Your best bet is to write to your MP, then perhaps the system will be changed.

I'm glad you had a laugh at my expense, Tallulah, cuz a lot of people on this thread aren't laughing when they inform the IR of changes to their circumstances in a timely fashion which are not actioned in time to avoid their having their credits yanked or being informed they owe thousands of pounds they can ill afford to pay.

I give them a time limit as a 'CYA' - cover your ass - mechanism. I worked in legal for years and still do, on my way to becoming a solicitor, in fact. It strengthens an appeal when you have written proof that you obeyed the rules, especially if you did so many times.

Yes, we all realise the DWP ran a different system, and that this one has computer problems. Duh! That still doesn't make it any easier for people who are forced to go back on the dole b/c the system doesn't pay them the credits they're due in time for them to meet their childcare costs.

Not a laugh at your expense expat, just at your thinking it makes a blind bit of difference to say "reply within..". It can have the opposite effect when you've got more work than you can cope with. (& as I said, no-one had any sympathy at all that a lot of civil servants could end up on the dole- evryone found that quite amusing, but expect sympathy the other way around?)

I'm sure it is very difficult for some people but it really doesn't help taking it out on the staff who have no influence at all in how the system is run, which is what a lot of people have been doing & a lot of posters on this thread have been doing as well. As I said, write to your MP, then something might be done about it.

Did I say I take it out on staff? Um, I don't phone them. Ever. B/c it's pretty hard to prove (from the claimaint's side) what was said on the phone. I do it all by post and have it looked over by a solicitor friend to make sure it has a good tone before sending any correspondence. I actually have gotten good responses in writing w/i a reasonable time frame.

And yes, I know both our MP and MSP by name and they know me. I've worked with them on a number of issues.

But they still don't help me pay our rent. We need the credits to do that.

Tallulah, no one is saying they are taking it out on the staff.

And there are more than just us on mumsnet, i didn't see the thread you are talking about and possible nobody else on here did, so we don't need to get into a debate about how selfish we are all being cos we only care when its our side of the coin, cos thats not the case.

This has so far been a constructive thread of support for those of us that feel like banging our heads against a brick wall trying to deal with the IR. And that is not a personal dig at any particular member of staff just the system in its entirety.

So please leave us to our sharing of information!

well i, for one, have never been anything but polite to the staff even though i could tear my hair out and will soon be living on my credit cards. pity i cant send the bill for interest to IR.