Claiming Child Benefit (slight rant sorry)

[sherby]

So I had a home birth around 5 mths ago with DS and completely forgot about claiming cb, well actually I thought it just happened automatically when you registered their birth but anyway I remembered last week and phoned them up for a claim form.

CB Man: Oh its in your bounty pack
Me: I don't have one I had a home birth
CB: You have to print one off the internet then
Me: Um what if I don't have the internet
CB: Well do you?
Me: Yes, but I don't have a printer and surely claiming cb shouldn't be reliant on having access to the internet
CB: Well if you don't have the proper claim form you have to print one off

So I have had to go to the library, book a pc, pay £1.50 to print the form off (15 PAGES) and send it off to them.

Surely it is not right that they should

a, Presume ownership of a pc
b, Presume that everyone has computer knowledge to be able to access these documents, I know lots of people who can barely turn a pc on

Would it really be so hard to make these forms available from the post office

I refused a bounty pack (hate advertising in all forms, no way am I giving my details to them)- my midwife had the forms (mw at gps), they were in the surgery just on the desks.
I think HVs had them too.
We certainly didn't print our own off (this was 2 yrs ago)

i got mine from the citizens advice you can get them from the social welfare too i think but im in ireland so mabey its different

Sherby- If you want to CAT me i am more than happy to print off and post off these forms for you (no charge)

That goes to anyone else who is struggling to get them btw (and when i say post them i mean to you not for you

I can't remember where I got mine from but DP's brother reminded me to fill it in several weeks after DS was born as he works in the child benefit office in Washington. (slightly naughty to peek at my records but I'll let him off because he's sweet and only did it with us in mind)

When I weas offered the bounty pack, they also wanted to don "first photos" of mum and dc at substantial cost. I told them to beat it but leave the bounty pack.

Sorry about your rant Sherby but I need to give you a big thank you.
This thread has just prompted me to look at my bank statement as I thought hmm, not seen anything for CB for a while.
Have gone back 9 months so far and nothing has gone in so I will chase it up in the morning thanks to you!

I liked the bounty pack - well the Carex anyway! but I binned most of the paperwork once I had a chance to look at it.

I don't remember applying for child benefit (must have done since I get it every week )but I had to take dd's birth cert into my local DSS office to have her added to my IS claim. I got my Dad to take me as I was still very new post-partum .

Well I wasn;t given a Bounty pack for my hospital birth but was given one for my home birth. It was given as a matter of course by the midwife, I suspaect that somewhere along the line one of Sherby's midwives wasn;t doing her job properly the same as they wern't doing their job properly in the hospital I was in. I was a 1st time mum, I had no idea I was supposed to have been given a bounty pack.

And it was very difficult getting the form, in the end my friend who at the time worked for the DSS in the maternity and funerals claims department sent one to me.

Such a basic benefit should be accesiblt to all.

Has pukka got an "issue" about homebirths?= or something?

God you've just reminded me that I still haven't sent it. I need to go out and buy big envelopes now because the stupid form is 15 bloody pages long and I don't have an envelope big enough to send it it.

I was meant to have got my bounty pack from the MW when i had my booking in appointment but she had taken them out of her car the night before and forgot to put them back in so i missed out. Despite numerous reminders, i've never had one. I had a home birth and was told "bounty pack this, bounty pack that" and i repeatedly had to say that i never got one. Three times now my postnatal carer, be it the mw or the HV have said they will bring me one with their next visit and so far, i have received nothing. If it wasn't for the HV telling me that i can download the forms from the net i would still be waiting for a form from somewhere. I also dont have a working printer so it's a complete PITA that i have to find a way to print the bloody thing off!!

Had hospital birth this summer and I never got a bounty pack - the bounty woman came round when the twins were having their hearing tests done and I told her to come back later. She never did and she certainly never mentioned that something as important as Child Benefit claim forms were included - I never chased her up because I left hosp next day and assumed bounty pack was just the usual crap unwanted bumf I got at my booking in appt.

It is utterly crap and I cannot believe that this hasn't been flagged up somewhere with the cb people.

@valiterio95 this thread is 14 years old! Did you search for it just to get wound up about it?