Pension Credit advice

I_luv_cats

***Advice please for somebody else***

Telephone claim made Early March 2010, printed statement sent to check, correct and sign shortly afterwards.

This was returned with relevant evidence straight away. A reminder was sent a few days later!!

Pension credit said to wait another couple weeks (ignore the reminder) which they did and now they say another 4 weeks!! They don't know whether they have the paperwork or not??

The person is worried greatly because they are erroding their savings without knowing they will get anything. The Pension Credit calculator says they should get PC.

Is there a time when they can expect it should be processed / can complain / assume the form is lost by??

***Trying to tell them to be patient but they are ready to tell PC where to stick it, so much for GB public services, a month should be reasonable, getting on for 5 weeks?? or at least they should have logged the receipt of the form!!!!**

daimonde

i would advise ringing them to check all is well, our local authority have been told.....i dont know how accurately......that it is taking longer than 5 weeks to process a pens credit claim.

im sure theres someone on here who can give a more factual answer & maybe dispel the rumour we have been given and id rather not give the time we were quoted cos its a bit scary :eek:



try free phone 0800 99 1234 by the way.

anmarj

daimonde wrote: »

.i dont know how accurately......that it is taking longer than 5 weeks to process a pens credit claim.

im sure theres someone on here who can give a more factual answer & maybe dispel the rumour we have been given and id rather not give the time we were quoted cos its a bit scary :eek:
.

:silenced::silenced::silenced::silenced::silenced::silenced::silenced::silenced::silenced::silenced::silenced::silenced::silenced::silenced::silenced::silenced::silenced::silenced::silenced::silenced::silenced::silenced:

my lips are sealed!

I_luv_cats

They are still waiting with conflicting stories!!!

No chance of any promised call-backs as they don't get back to you and they can't even say if they have the paperwork or not!!!!

What are they supposed to do ???

bunny999

I_luv_cats wrote: »

***Advice please for somebody else***

Telephone claim made Early March 2010, printed statement sent to check, correct and sign shortly afterwards.

This was returned with relevant evidence straight away. A reminder was sent a few days later!!

Pension credit said to wait another couple weeks (ignore the reminder) which they did and now they say another 4 weeks!! They don't know whether they have the paperwork or not??

The person is worried greatly because they are erroding their savings without knowing they will get anything. The Pension Credit calculator says they should get PC.

Is there a time when they can expect it should be processed / can complain / assume the form is lost by??

***Trying to tell them to be patient but they are ready to tell PC where to stick it, so much for GB public services, a month should be reasonable, getting on for 5 weeks?? or at least they should have logged the receipt of the form!!!!**

sounds like they don't need the money

bigbill

Put in an escalated complaint ASAP.

It is taking months in Scotland to process Pension Credit claims.

Everyone turning 60+ all claim Pension Credit at the same time now due to the retirement age changes from April and some idiot did not allow enough staff for this number of claims all at once.

placido

I_luv_cats wrote: »

They are still waiting with conflicting stories!!!

No chance of any promised call-backs as they don't get back to you and they can't even say if they have the paperwork or not!!!!

What are they supposed to do ???

There are two issues here; the length of time that the claim is taking and the lack of acknowledgment by the Pension Service that they actually received the printed statement that was returned.

If they acknowledged that they had the paperwork the length of time it is taking would be less of an issue.

The Pension Service do not do "acknowledgements" and this is one of the most stressful aspects of making claims not just for pension credit but also for retirement pensions and deferred pensions.

I think this is an issue that Age Concern should take up with the government. It is not a proper way to deal with pensioners, or any one else for that matter.

I think the advice given to ring up and push them to acknowledge that they have the paperwork is the best way forward, at least for the first step. Then it would not be a bad idea for Age Concern to let the new Departmental Minister know what is going on.

bigbill

The clock does not start ticking on the target time it takes them to process a claim until it has been put in the computer, hence the delay in inputting it and the reason no one can say if it has been recieved or not.

I_luv_cats

When you phone 'Pension Credit' they say they can't do anything other than emailing an enquiry form for somebody to telephone back within 5-10 working days BUT they never phone back!

Clearance times and other hiccup scenarios to processing claims seem to be pulled out of the air!!

If they could say if they had the form that would be a start and some idea of clearance times. Why can't they just say they don't know instead of lies, people are proud and don't want all this worry!

gorgeousgeorge

took over 10 weeks for us, but all monies were backdated

Whiteknight

bigbill wrote: »

The clock does not start ticking on the target time it takes them to process a claim until it has been put in the computer, hence the delay in inputting it and the reason no one can say if it has been recieved or not.

The claim would have been put on the computer at the time the telephone application had been made (early March).

At that time a letter would have been sent out for additional information, the OP has stated that this was received and returned (these letters are sent out 2nd class) with any of the information that had been requested. Once that post gets opened any original documents would be copied and returned, the copies then passed to the work flow section of the pension centre.

The work flow section should note on the computer system that documents have been received and they will then be passed to the relevant section.

I_luv_cats wrote:

When you phone 'Pension Credit' they say they can't do anything other than emailing an enquiry form for somebody to telephone back within 5-10 working days BUT they never phone back!

Clearance times and other hiccup scenarios to processing claims seem to be pulled out of the air!!

If they could say if they had the form that would be a start and some idea of clearance times. Why can't they just say they don't know instead of lies, people are proud and don't want all this worry!

So when calls are answered it is highly unlikely that the person you speak to is going to have the bit of post that you are looking for, they can check the system to see if any documents have been received. If they have they can send a message to the processing section asking them to look at the post. If nothing is showing on the system as being received it would be better to resend the information.

The problem is the Pension Service has targets to answer the telephones and that seems to take priority over everything else.