Cannot believe the call handlers at the DWP .. :(

[Ryderr]

So firstly, I'd like to say that: yes, I know, noone is entitled to 'free money'....

Situation :
Daughter meets requirements for DLA.
Received her first 'annual statement' on Tuesday afternoon. Payment made Tuesday morning.
Payment didn't match what was on the letter, so I decided to ring up and ask for clarification of the letters new payment amounts (aware tax years, inflation, bank holidays, and other stuff can, and do, affect this) but wanted to clarify.
(other DWP encounters show sometimes a call is needed to make sure payments are right. Paid me over £900 quid in December when I was only entitled to a mere £4.27. So obviously I wanted to get the money to its rightful owner.)

Spend 4.5 hours on the call. Lovely music. Charged phone aswell! Nice.
Appreciate it was probably a busy day, if everyone had the same idea as me!

Call answered to a lady that sounded so fed up and tired :(
I start off nice, asking how her day had been etc. But that gets shut down.
'ref number and postcode, now' said the voice.
Call proceeded.
Get so far in to the situation and she let's out a big sigh.
Definitely not a good day to have called :(

She calls me stupid, saying how even though the payment increase happened on the Monday, the Tuesday payment was fine, and not wrong.
I then proceed to say sorry for the waste of time, thank her for the information, and wish her a good rest of the day.

I put the phone on the kitchen side , fully expecting the lady on the other end of the phone to end the call.....
NOPE.
she sits there discussing with her colleague saying how I'm 'yet another scrounging caller wanting more free money because I can't be bothered to raise my kids right'.
Meanwhile, i'm stood there, now recording her rant🤷🏻‍♀️

Few minutes pass and you can sort of hear her trailing off and then a 'ohno', and the call is abruptly disconnected.

Its now Friday.
Not sure how I feel about it all still.
No family to discuss this with.
Do I just go nurse my ego with a share bag of minstrels.?

When I called my phone provider to get a copy of the full recording they said they cannot provide this anymore - not sure what rules have changed since 2007 (maybe someone can help with a link, not sure where to go looking?)
What?? Why would your phone provider have a full recording? Why would they be recording in the first place?

Who is your phone service provider?

I've worked for what was BTCellnet (now O2) and more recently Vodaphone in a mix of account management and fraud since 1998 and we've never been able to do this. The most we would do is a list of calls made for the police if they had a warrant.

I’m not sure how true the OP is but I can confirm that customers do this ALL the time. In my role we speak with customers via email and phone call and I can’t tell you how many customers don’t put the phone down. The longest a customer remained on the phone for after we were finished was 40 seconds. 40 seconds until I decided to hang up! Madness

Phone providers don't record calls ffs! Good grief.

The DWP will do though but they wouldn't provide you with an audio file of it.

If this happened then complain to them and they can sort it out.

I have a job that deals with general public via telephony and the complaints process and have noticed that people exaggerate massively what has happened. They do this as, obviously like OP they don’t realise the calls are recorded and so are often mortified when I tell them the accusations they made have no grounds. “You’re calling me a liar” then often gets screamed at. “No I’m not calling you a liar, im just stating that what you suggested happened did not in fact happen- interpret that as you wish”.

however that’s not to say that some advisors are not very rude, lll be very surprised if she did call you stupid as why risk your job like that. However if she did, everyone has told you the calls are recorded pop a complaint in and someone can listen. Maybe they find she didn’t call you stupid but could find her tone was not professional and upskill her.

How weird! Wonder if they’re waiting to hear if you say anything about them! Ha

Not sure about that, but we definitely hear them slagging US off, even if we've been delightful and helpful as can be! 😂

DWP use headsets while sitting in front of a computer. If this actually happened you can request an investigation.

I'm all for daydreaming of wishing something had happened but I'm struggling to believe this. Sorry.

I'm also struggling to believe you can ring your call provider for audio recordings.

why would you call your own provider? Call the DWP and ask them to listen to it and make a complaint. But this isn’t true. I worked for the DWP on their telephony and there’s no way you’d have a 4.5 hour wait nor would she call you stupid whilst dealing with your request

🤣🤣

I spoke to a customer a few days ago, I thought I’d been really helpful and friendly throughout the call and they seemed happy enough with the info I’d given them - as they were putting the phone down I heard them say, ‘well she was fucking useless!’ Haha

I spoke to someone a few weeks ago, and gave him all the info he needed. I was polite, and friendly and chatty, like I always am. It's my job, and I'm good at it. His wife called a couple of days later, and said that her husband had told her the woman he spoke to was really rude and unhelpful. Erm... That was me, and your husband is a big fat liar, I was a fucking delight! 😂😂😂 Happens all the time! People are so weird.

Make a complaint, that is unprofessional and she needs her knuckles rapped. The calls are apparently recorded so they should have their own copy.

Be crafty and let them dig their copy out to listen to, it’d be interesting if they said they couldn’t find it, then you can give them the evidence. An apology is required here!!

This never happened.

I've been in these centres. Nope. No way.

Of course they will be able to find it! Well, they would if it was real. But it isn't!

@ComeOnThenFanny my absolute favourite when working in a call centre was when they said "you're ever so helpful. The last person I spoke to was awful". Nope, that was also me and I was a delight then too.

I had colleagues who definitely would have done this. Not the DWP or anyone vaguely as important but customer service in a corporate environment. They were always bitching about people who called in and 9/10, they were offering no customer service and rude. That's why I left, I just couldn't hack it. Customers were great. Even the arseholes were turned around before the call was over.

In regards to just putting the phone on the side, my mum does this and it really winds me up. I only realised when I had a shitty work car and I couldn't work out how to put the phone down without going through several screens which I felt was unsafe. I thought it would be ok because she would put the phone down. Even after a year, if I didn't say to put the phone down as we said bye, it would go silent and I'd say "put the phone down then" and she'd go "oooh, sorry" in a surprised tone and I'd hear her fumble to pick the phone up and disconnect. Flabbergasted I was, each time.

If this happened, you write a letter of complaint to the DLA requesting as well they listen into the phone all. The DWP will have access to check this.

I had a man who was very rude to me on the phone in their bereavement depth when my mom died. I lodged a complaint, and they listened back to the call, upholding my complaint.

The complaints procedure is in this link below

www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-work-pensions/about/complaints-procedure

😂😂 I just don't understand why people would lie like that for no reason whatsoever! It's so strange.

I'm really surprised what you said about your ex-colleaugues, I mean we all have a teeny whinge about the really awful ones, or the perverts, but only ever on Teams or whatever. We all really like most of our customers, and all of us try really hard to make them happy - it's what we get paid for!

I used to love finding the call recording what proved them wrong and sending it to them, never to be heard from ever again.

Hopefully they're the exception and like I say, it was nothing sensitive but there are definitely bad'uns out there.

And yes, why lie! I think their intention was to make me feel good for helping and compare myself positively against... well, myself 😂😂😂

I've actually just remembered a lovely, lovely colleague at a different place. She had a nasty piece of work on the phone and after my colleague thought the call was over she said something like "so rude". The customer gasped and said "excuse me!" Told her she was going to report her and she hoped she lost her job.

I was part of the team listening to the call to see if there was any merit to the complaint. We were all on the sweet colleagues team but the customer got a voucher and an insincere apology. The gasp had us in stitches.

I digress. OP, complain! Why would you even question it?!

She did not call you stupid.

The bit where I knew this was a fib was the 4.5 hours on hold bit. Not even on their busiest days would you be on hold that long.
& who on earth would have the time to wait anyway!

Haha maybe😂 I’ll hear them breathing down the phone so it’s not like they’ve put their phone back down and forgot to end the call. It really is strange!

That's very odd because if she works for the dwp and holds those beliefs about benefits claimants, then she'd be saying similar after every call. Also why didn't you just hang up?