Income Tax refund

dori2o

Have you taken the time to consider that what you are being told by the advisor on the phone is the information the advisor has been given.

Have you considered that unlike any other company in the country HMRC deals with every tax paying person in the country, many are happy to accept the fact that there are delays, that the new computer system will mean that in future there will be no need for the majority of people to make repayment claims in writing or by telephone as the system will do this automatically upon receipt of the P60/P11d details, hence making your life simpler with regards to claiming repayments. Unfortunately there was no way to implement the new system without causing some kind of delay. Every HMRC employee who deals with personaltax HAD to be trained on the system, had to then learn the system, and start to use new processes involved with the system.

The old Computerisation of Paye (COP) system had to be replaced, it was outdated when it was released back in 1988, so 20 years later was damn outdated. It was almost at capacity and would have eventually crashed beyond repair. (losing everybodys records in the process)

As with all things in life change happens, and believe me, having worked with both the new and old system,the chane is for the better, and once everyone becomes familiar with the new PAYE system things will run smoother.

Unfortunately we do have backlogs, some longer than we are being told, but the officer on the phone, and their managers can only advise you according to the advice they are given, doing anything different will mean they are not following proceedure and if this is picked up during their 4 weekly monitoring/coaching sessions then the advisor fails that particular part of the call that has been monitored. Continued failure could mean that advisor is put on review in order to improve their performance.

So, yes we are being told to give you the details of backlogs which the advisors know are untrue, this has been raised with management as a lot of us feel uncomfortable lying to the customers, but management have stated it is mandatory that we give the advice as shown on the system. This applies to managers too.

All I can advise is, please be patient, we will get to your letter/claim/form and it will be dealt with as soon as possible. If you are unhappy by allmeans call us, we are not unpleasant hobbits as has been made out in some of the posts on this thread, we will if possible help you to resolve your matter, IF, and only IF, we have the information to do so. If we don't it is pointless shouting at the advisor as that isn't going to magic the information onto the screen. The job we do is not easy due to management pressures, and shouting at screaming at people only makes it harder. We are not well paid, in fact contact centre staff are one of the lowest paid groups in the civil service with the majority of staff earning less than £16k pa.

Just give a bit of thought before you go spouting off at people who are there to help..

trinidadone

Hello dori2o

I read your post. To be honest I dont really think jo public have any problems with the advisors, I know I dont, the problem is not the advisors, but the poor service of this organisation. Do you know I submitted my claim for repayment of tax on 17th June 2009 and as of the 18th September, I still dont have the cheque from this organisation.

You and others have mentoned the new computer systems, making life easy, blar bar. I hate to come across rude, but waiting for months for money which is rightly owed to me by this organisation is unacceptable. I wonder if the HMR&C payrol department took three months to pay there staff, would that be acceptable. If it was a few weeks delay I could accept that, but a few months is not good enough.

Forgive me for complaining bu my problems continue with this organisation. The holding letter for my complaint advised me I should receive a response to my complaint on or before 16th September. Its now the 18th, and received no communication from this organisation.

I have had to contact them. I asked about the complaint and deadline and was advised the organisation "aims" to respond within there own time frame. If I payed my council tax late, I will not be allowed to pay furture installments. if I payed a penality charge notice after 14 days, I would lose the right to pay the reduced amount, can you understand???

I asked the complaints officer to email the response to me. It seems you can submit complaints and enquires to this organisation, but they have a policy of only sending responses by post. This again adds to a delay. The organisation only posts out by 2nd class, again adding to a delay. There is a postal strike, again adding to the delay.

I asked the complaints officer if she can tell me how much money I will be paid. I experience another block "we cant give this information out on the telephone"

I asked if I could submit any further claims or have I reached the max I can claim. Again, cant provide that information, told to submit all claims

the service is so unhelpful

dori2o

I appreciate the fact that you have been waiting for a while for this repayment, but there is a far larger backlog than the processing offices are reporting to the contact centre advisors.

Unfortunately because of Data Security we are not permitted to provide the details of the value of a repayment until it is issued, and the only reason someone may not be able to provide the details of whether a repayment is due for a particular year or not is if the details on the system are not complete or do not match the information you have provided to the advisor.

Also, E-mail, although is being looked at as a potential method of contact, is still not considered secure enough to be sending personal personal information of this nature. This is a measure in place to ensure the security of your confidential information.

Which year(s) is your claim for?

Is it a simple repayment of tax case i.e. caused by being on the wrong code or not being in work for the full 12 months and not having the benefit of your tax free allowance, or, is it a P87(expenses)/ Pension relief claim etc.

If it is a simple repayment claim have you confirmed your employment details to the advisor to check if the details are on the system, the advisor may be able to send a memo to the service office asking for the repayment to be released if they can confirm one is due?

trinidadone

its a simple repayment regarding my tax. the tax year was for 2k8 - 2k9. I worked a few weeks last financial year, and combined with tax paid on several savings accounts, I gave them all the information on 17th june.

the complaint officer gave me a rough amount on the telephone, but would not give me the exact amount.

tthanks for the information above, no disrepect to you, but based solely on my experience with them, this organisation dont rate high on my list.

I asked the complaint Officer if he could release the paper work I gave them. I am given another headack. He wont send back the information until the cheque is in my hand and cleared.

I feel I need to raise my concerns with the next stage, the adudicator, it just seems to be an organisation which operates in the dark ages, the computer system is a tiny part of what needs to be modernised.

hthanks again for your time.

PS None of the staff at the complaints dept or call centre have been abused or shouted at by myself

trinidadone

I received my cheque yesterday, yEAH!!!

I submitted my original claim on 17th June 2009, and received my cheque rebate of over £700 yesterday (25th September 2009). More than three months wait, excellant service. I telephoned the complaints Dept to ask for my paperwork back. I telephoned them at 12:30pm and asked if they could send the post back right away, but I received the usual answer from this organisation "it will be in Mondays post". I guess putting a few bank statements in a envelope does take alot of time to do!!!! I asked if the documentation can be returned first class, nope, government policy - second class only (although the cheque was sent first class!!)

I asked for a breakdown on the amount I received, Nope again, cant give that information on the phone, have to wait for the response to my complaint arrives, which i am still waiting for.

If I do receive the response, this will have to esculate to the next stage, there is real problems with this organisation, two many rules and regulations which are not in the interest in customers.

trinidadone

I received a response to my complaint today from a "complaint reviewer" in HMRC. Not really worhth waiting for. He offered me over 25 quid for the poor handling of my complaint and over ten quid for the calls I made.

On the negative side, the response is really bad, and written in the benefit of HMR&C. I now intend to take things further.

dori2o

trinidadone wrote: »

I received a response to my complaint today from a "complaint reviewer" in HMRC. Not really worhth waiting for. He offered me over 25 quid for the poor handling of my complaint and over ten quid for the calls I made.

On the negative side, the response is really bad, and written in the benefit of HMR&C. I now intend to take things further.

Why not accept that you have your refund, and compensation which is very rarely offered and go forward with your merry life and stop complaining.

Your actually quite lucky to have a response this early. latest guidance suggests that those waiting for repayments who wrote in before the middle of July should expect to receive a reply before 9th October.

Some people just have nothing better to do than complain, taking up an officers time dealing with petty complaints when their timecould be better spent working somebody's repayment claim.

trinidadone

dori2o wrote: »

Why not accept that you have your refund, and compensation which is very rarely offered and go forward with your merry life and stop complaining.

Your actually quite lucky to have a response this early. latest guidance suggests that those waiting for repayments who wrote in before the middle of July should expect to receive a reply before 9th October.

Some people just have nothing better to do than complain, taking up an officers time dealing with petty complaints when their timecould be better spent working somebody's repayment claim.

Nice sweeping statements there. I hardly call that compensation!!! I have a right to complain when things go wrong, and I am not satisfied with the response.

I am not "lucky" at all. Because people are waiting since middle of july is totally unacceptable, and to learn of this makes me more wanting to progress with my complaint. It it totally unacceptable that customers are waiting for months for payments which is rightly owed to thousands of people in this country.

If the claim was delt with in a quick and effeciant manner, there would be no need to complain, its my money, this organisation allowed me to wait several months, that is unacceptable.

as for taking up "officers" time, these are complaint officers, there job is to address complaints, so I am not taking officers away from there usual duties

trinidadone

I sent my complaint to the adudicator (third level of complaint) on 28th September 2009. The review of my complaint failed to address the amount of telephone calls I made, the months I waited for over £700, the money I spent on the calls and my claim being lost by this organisation.

This is the final stage of complaint before the Ombudsman.

To all those whom have waited for months for there tax refund, dont get angry with the call centre staff, make a formal complaint!!

trinidadone

I am still awaiting a response from the adudicator, they do seem to take a while