Article by me on politics.co.uk today:
The dreadful DWP is now in charge of tax credit debt collection. It deducts random amounts for debts from people’s Universal Credit accounts without telling them. People say they don’t even owe these so-called debts
These deductions leave people in even more debt and with nothing to live on.
“Without warning the DWP started taking about £25 a month from Susan’s Universal Credit payments for this ‘debt’. She says the deductions stopped and started through the year.
She is now also repaying a Universal Credit advance loan at £67 a month. She took the loan out, in part, to cover the tax credit debt repayments that the DWP suddenly began deducting from her.”
The whole rotten system is fucked, it’s a bloody shambles from top to bottom. If they ever try charging me for tax credits I’ll know theyre lying ‘cos I’ve never claimed any! A guy I knew got a letter saying they had overpaid him a week’s JSA in 2006 (this was about 4 or 5 yrs ago), but luckily he still had his records on an old computer and it turned out he wasn’t even claiming JSA on the dates the DWP had quoted and was in fact self employed at the time! Why are they dredging thru the past to such extent in the hope of clawing back often erroneous odd-ball amounts? It’s costing more to even pursue such things, surely.
It is amazing. I do not exaggerate when I say I know quite a few people who have been told suddenly that they were overpaid tax credits.
Because they are now incorporates with customers as the only source of their profits! so they rip them with impunity to make a profit.
I know that in 2015 there was a DWP unit operating from Bristol specially tasked with getting back any DWP overpayment. A friend of mine, ex-carer had been made 6 weeks crisis payments , instead of the usual JSA. Not in addition to, but instead of his JSA. (They were changing to a new computerised system at the time, and couldn’t verify his records so there was a delay in payments ). This was from the late 1990’s. In those days they had to provide some money for him to live on. So they made this arrangement.
Come 2015, and the DWP took the lot back from his JSA at £25 per week.
No warning, just a letter from Bristol, and less money each week.
Ever since the days of Duncan-Smith the DWP have been scraping for methods to put extra pressure on claimants. One of the best ways is to reduce their benefit payments even further by ‘deducting’ these so-called overpayments. All pointed at the same result, – get off benefits or face even worse levels of poverty.
Too true ! Its just another way of getting at claimants. Another thing they can do to shove them off benefits.
People on Universal Credit are sitting ducks as far as this goes. Dependant on their monthly payment from the DWP, who now have their food money and rent under their control. Nothing they can do about the deductions, the money just gets taken.
Just like being in prison really.
They can’t take your food away and leave you starving in prison. But the DWP can do it on the streets outside.
And if someone was on Universal Credit and got sacked from their job in a scandal about pornography, they would be sanctioned for 6 months of benefit payments.
The former head of the DWP Damian Green, gets a £17,000 tax-free payment instead. What’s sauce for the goose….
Just anothe example of Universal Credit nastyness. Now claimants are offered around to other government departments to see if there is anything else that can be deducted from their payment. What is next ? Court Orders, HP debts, unpaid Income Tax ?
‘There may be changes we make in future to improve Universal Credit – that doesn’t mean that those who go on to Universal Credit today are hard done by.’ David Gauke
Oh No ?
Here’s the lowdown on what Universal Credit is really all about, and the reasons why it can never be “fixed” :
https://www.redpepper.org.uk/universal-credit-isnt-about-saving-money-its-about-disciplining-unemployed-people/
So true. Has always been the same. UC is about making things so difficult they just give up the claim.
Yes, it’s partly about that (making things so difficult they just give up the claim), but is also about making us part of some social experiment, like a load of lab-rats navigating a maze to find a hidden peanut or something. I think the so-called ‘Centre For Social Justice’ should be classed as a Terrorist Organization. Especially when they make statements like the following; “the trouble with safety nets is that people get tangled up in them”. WTF is wrong with these psychopaths? Iain Duncan Smith (real name George Smith) should be hung from the nearest gallows/tree/lamp-post, like fucking Mussolini.
Once you are on Universal Credit its open season. Like shooting grouse, where the beaters flush out the birds and then they get shot. Only with Universal Credit the claimants get flushed out with extra payments and then they get stuffed.
I wonder what extra nasty suprises we have in store now that McVey is back stirring the cauldron at the DWP.
The Tories want Universal Credit pushed through as fast as possible. Then claimants will be stuck with it, like it or not. There won’t be anything else to claim. No doubt McVey is going to be at the front of all this.
Yep, its Wrecking Ball McVey, back swinging at the unemployed.
Fester McVile rides again. What she lacks in competence she makes up for in malice.
Deliberate insult to the unemployed Trev, having her back. Two fingers to everyone on benefits.
Shows what they really think.
Surely this constitutes an offence, after all it is technically theft, it’s bloody ridiculous, I for one know that if the DWP so much as take a penny of my benefit entitlement without justification I will be seeking legal action, I suggest everyone else do the same, keep an eye on your accounts!
That’s a good point. Can deductions be challenged?
You can appeal an HMRC decision on Tax Credit overpayment. But worth a try, even if only to frustrate the DWP. Get back to the source as it were. Also you can appeal the actual amount of repayment with the HMRC.
So some scope there for argument. Also of course, your MP.
Hi.
22nd Dec 2017. Working tax credit and child tax credit not in bank 😱
After 3/4 of an hr, someone answered the phone, 20 minutes later I was devastated. I was at work at the time.
Working tax credits stopped as my hrs had gone down to 8hrs, back dated apparently from July 2017. Also child tax credits stopped to pay back the over payment…3 days before Xmas… I had £4 to my name, no food! I was told nothing I could do.
I spent the day and night crying.
Someone arranged a food parcel, a few friends rallied round, gave me money for gas and electric and food, I was so very humbled.
After many phonecalls (at least 8) and twice filling in an online hardship form, as of today 9th Jan 2018 my child tax credits reinstated at the full rate.. £116 a week!
Me next and my children’s Xmas was ruined, I also ended up in hospital with aussie flu, made worse because of the stress!
The government need to do something because it nearly finished me! 😢
They rely on people not keeping records, particularly for something that happened years ago. So if they go back 10 years there is not much chance some guy is going to say no thats not right, it was xyz amount instead. And then be able to prove it. Probably the paperwork long ago got thrown away, but the DWP have it on computer.
They rely on people not keeping records, particularly for something that happened years ago. So if they go back 10 years there is not much chance some guy is going to say no thats not right, it was xyz amount instead. And then be able to prove it. Probably the paperwork long ago got thrown away, but the DWP have it on computer.
You’ve to hand it to the Tories, they do have a sense of humour.
Esther McVey back at the DWP. After all the controversy she caused in her role as cheerleader to Iain Duncan Smith.
Another Wednesday, another disastrous Prime Minister’s Question for Jeremy Corbyn. Even on the NHS, with thousands of cancelled operations, he couldn’t really make a single effective point. He drones on in that utterly boring way. Looking round as if expecting people to agree with him.
But no-one else seems to care what he’s saying. Theresa May has got far more spirit, and every time somehow she takes back the advantage, even when all the facts are against her. Hopeless. And this is the only political opposition we have to try and stop the Tories ? Jesus wept, or he would do if he was on the Labour front bench.
He isn’t good. An old pair of underpants would have more impact. Meaning no disrespect etc
Especially if they were Boxers ! We are getting far too much of the Y-fronts with the shirt tucked in at the moment.
JC needs an image change really. Couldn’t he shave off the beard, and perhaps dye his hair black ? And try and act a bit more forceful somehow. As if he really means business. And stop peering over the glasses like a schoolmaster.
Thats another bad habit. And try and argue a bit more with Theresa May. So when she says something he says something back, then her again, then him. Like tennis, one way then another. Really go for it as the new Jeremy, The Corbynator.
He needs to stand with his legs further apart, as any actor will tell you this helps to give a look of authority. Not hunching forward, but shoulders square looking things in the face. Try to project his voice more, so that people can hear what he is saying. Its no good mumbling and talking to his notes. Have they tried a voice coach ? And something about the hair, maybe a touch of gel, and ruffle it up a bit so he looks more modern ?
Nothing lasts for ever. Even Captain Birdseye got retired the other day. There’s a new one now. Still got a beard but looks fresher on the Fish Fingers.
My cousin Shaz runs a hairdressers, and they do an over 60 day on Thursday half price. It really makes a difference when they’ve had a cut and a nice blow-dry. Takes years off.
Does make you wonder if we are going to see a McVey strict regime at the Jobcentres. She is a great enthusiast for sanctions. I wouldn’t like to work for her at the DWP. But then again, after Crabb and Green the staff are probably beyond caring.
Problem is there are loads of working-class Tories who will vote Tory again and again whatever is going on. The NHS, benefits etc, doen’t matter. They read the Sun as gospel and can’t imagine ever voting Labour no matter what happens.
I can never understand the British working-class enthusiasm for the Conservative party. Most of whose policies simply benefit a wealthy minority that does not include the working-class.
Who do they think needs to claim most of the benefits that these right-wing working-class attack ? Not the upper classes, but the working-class themselves. Similarly on the NHS, once this is privatised it won’t be the landowning aristocracy doing without medical care because they can’t afford it.
It will be the ordinary man in the street. Working-class, largely uneducated , in a poorly-paid unskilled job.
Quite right Hugh. Its just like a hostile takeover of a company. More and more of the NHS is being sold to the private sector. Once you have a situation where the majority of the NHS is being run by these private health companies, they will potentially be able to make hundreds of millions of pounds in profit. Is it really likely that these private healthcare companies are going to refuse to start making charges and vast profit ? Just because of the goodness of their hearts, and because they feel that the British people deserve free healthcare forever ?
I was in the Jobcentre yesterday doing jobsearch and a man sat down at the computer next to me. He was checking his Universal Credit account and it said in big letters on the screen how much he was due to receive this month: £144. The guy got a bit upset when he saw this and waived over a security man who then fetched an Adviser to help him. I heard her say to this man (who didn’t speak much English, I think he may have been Polish) that the reason was that they had deducted overpaid Tax Credit, and she gave him a number to ring for the Universal Credit helpline. He was saying to her (in broken English) that £144 is no good, he has to “pay for house every week”. How on earth is he going to get through on the phone when he can’t speak or understand much English? The people on the other end probably won’t understand him and he won’t understand what they’re saying to him. Why couldn’t the JCP Adviser have rung someone on his behalf there and then and got this mess sorted out? Poor guy is left with nothing to live on for a month and not even enough to pay his rent. It’s beyond ridiculous that this is happening to people when all they are doing is trying to claim the Social Security that they need and are entitled to (and desperate for). Universal Credit MUST be scrapped!
Disabled people and their carers have been abandoned by this government and local authorities have jumped on the bandwagon by taking what little benefits disabled people get back in their assessed charge. Ester Mcvey talks about lifestyle, disability is not a lifestyle choice and costs associated with disability is over and above anything any non disabled person has to pay. A lot disabled cannot work, they do not choose not to work and should not be treated like they can.
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