Aaaaaaaaahhhhh!!!!!!!!!

cattie1

I SAID YESTERDAY AFTER SAVING £40 A MONTH TAX CREDITS PUT OUR PAYMENTS DOWN £40 A WEEK AND TODAY WE RECIEVED A LETTER FROM THE COUNCIL STATING THAT THEY CALCULATED OUR BENEFITS WRONG (FROM 2 MONTHS AGO-WE DON'T GET BENEFITS ANYMORE!) AND WE OWE THEM £700.:mad: I AM ABSOLUTELY SICK,PIG SICK OF STUPID LIFE.
THE COUNCIL ROUND HERE ARE SO USELESS HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO PAY BACK £700 WHEN I'M STRUGGLING ALREADY PAYINF FULL RENT?!
THEY ARE SUCH A BUNCH OF IDIOTS-THEY REFFERED ME TO BAILLIFFS BEFORE BECAUSE OF THERE MISTAKE WHEN I WAS ACTUALLY £297 IN CREDIT AND PAID UNTIL MARCH 2007!:mad: :wall:
SORRY BUT I NEEDED A RANT!

lynzpower

oh cattie what a nightmare

Isnt there some clause that if it causes financial hardship you dont need to pay it back? MAybe Mcbirnie will know? ?

Hugs
Youll get there hun
Lynz
x

cattie1

i dunno-it would be great if there was but the council will do anything they can to get money they are owed-but it all changes if its the other way round!
e.g the £297 i am in credit with c/tax can not be refunded but i have to use it to pay council tax till next year!

ZTD

Ask them for their complaints procedure, but make it clear that unless they bend over backwards for you, you will be taking them to the Local Government Ombudsman for mal-administration.

msmicawber

My heart goes out to you as I've just been through this myself. Make sure that your dealings with them are in writing, and ask for a full explanation to make sure they haven't cocked it up again.

If they really put pressure on you for unreasonable payments, then contact your MP, as the MP will have access to higher up officials than the drones that you get to deal with and has some clout to get quicker answers. My overpayment wasn't my fault and wasn't noticed by the Council, but according to them should have been noticed by me! so my MP told them to write it off .. and they did. Good luck.

cattie1

i already used my local mp about c/tax/baillifs and she sorted that-i think she might be a bit sick of me now! i was constantly harrassing her and council until it was sorted but i did buy her a big bunch of flowers when it got sorted!!!

Snaggles

I really feel for you, the tax credit system is a nightmare! We've been overpaid too apparently but it's so confusing I can't work out if they're right or not (and I'm really not all that thick!!). I've recently renewed my claim, and got 6 envelopes full of stuff from them - each of which says to check the information is correct - but each of which seem to contradict each other. They only ever paid us about £1500 but at one point told us we'd been overpaid by £1100, which would be deducted from subsequent years claims. This means I wont get any more until at least the end of 2007. Quite honestly, it was so much effort I don't think I'll every claim them again. Hope you manage to get it sorted with them xx

cattie1

it's the council that say they have overpayed me-but no doubt the next thing will be tax credits-it's since i sent my annual review pack back that they put them down £40 a week-what i cant understand is they got exactly the same info on the review pack as i'd given them before so y have my payments gone down?
the council say they paid me too much in benefits-they have not had any new info so y have the all of a sudden decided this?! aaaahhhh!!!

Snaggles

Oh yes, sorry, I've re-read your original post now - got confused sorry! Oh well, at least I got my little rant off my chest hahahaha!

msmicawber

Hi Cattie,

In my case it was that they'd never included the child benefit (that I had always declared) in their income calculations. Apparently, it was the computer software that made this mistake (which, as we know, is not designed by humans!). Apparently, this is a widespread problem nationally. Have a look at the figures they've used for your income now, and on your earlier statements from them to see what they've included and omitted. It's best not to assume that because you declared it, they included it (she says, from hindsight!)

You are entitled to a full explanation of how they calculate your benefit, so please insist on having it and, if you can, appeal.

SAP_Saver

idiots... I don't understand why the gov keep getting this wrong.
surely it is a matter of a simple computer programme!
I work on much more complicated systems all of the time and we do not mess up this much. I feel so sorry for these people who are asked to may things back when it is the gov who are the ones messing up...! bad bad people!