job seekers

jojododd

Im wondering if somebody can help. My friend has 2 accounts with the rbs. She has her jobseekers allowence paid into 1. She opened a savings account aswell which she was paid back dated benefits into. On the advice of the bank she paid for some sort of insurance. Im sorry Im abit vague. She has ended up in the red with the savings account and because of this she has had her jobseekers account frozen. I went with her to the bank yesterday and explained the situation ie. she has been very ill had major operations and spent some time in intensive care. In total she was in hospital for about a month. She then took a further 6 months to recover. She genuinly does want to go to work. She also has a 16 yr old (dont know whether this is relevant).

Anyway the outcome of the meeting was that they would let her have a one off payment out of the account tomorow. I was just wondering if the fact the they froze her jobseekers money was legal? I asked and the person I spoke to said yes because she owed money elsewhere. I attempted to explain that she was looking for work and needed to have access to the money to look for work. The fact that she was left with no electric and gas and had to scrounge food was not the main issue it was the unhelpful attitude of the staff that was the problem. We attempted to sort it out by phone and were passed to numerous departments and felt as if we had reached the end of our tether.

Im sorry for the vague details and would be greatful if anyone could advise me on this.

Thanks jojo

Fang_3

As far as I know she would have had to write to the bank beforehand to stop them from taking any benefit money to pay the debt. But I'm a bit perplexed as to why she was claiming JSA when she was ill?

jojododd

Thanx for the reply sorry I havnt explained it properly She was claiming incapacity whilst she was ill She has only recently been swapped over to jsa. I went into the bank and they said they would allow her a one off payment. She will have to open another account with a different bank.

Thanx again fang

Jojo x