help.....pension credit problem!!!

rabialiones

applied for pension credit, and was told to stop income support for it to commence.
stopped income support and now 3 weeks later have been told that pension credit claim has been disallowed.
so have not received any paym ent for last 3 weeks.
have been phoning pcredits inbetween and kept being told that it takes time to process and would be backdated to when income support stopped.

now facing a dilemma as i expect that i will now receive demands for council tax etc.
person i was speaking to could not/would not help me further as it was time for him to go home.
was told to phone again in morning and put fresh claim in.
i thought that to claim after 1st april you had to be 65, but he said that this was not the case and a claim could be made at 60


please help!!

alwaysonthego_2

Do you know why it was disallowed?

rabialiones

they did not tell me the reason.
each time i have phoned them over past few weeks , they have just been telling me , that they are waiting for income support to stop before the pension credit starts.
when i s stopped i informed them and asked when they would start payments, was told that it takes 7-10 days for it to be processed and changed over.

today is the first time that they have told me that the claim has been disallowed.
if i had been told of this before , i would not have stopped the i.s.

i am in a dilemma, and it is having an effect on my health.
i feel very angry and let down.

anmarj

unfortuently new claims don't always work out if the customer is entitled before processing claim before taking the application. I should know I use to have to call customers to tell them not to sign off! marjority of the people that work in the centres are on fixed hours and are not allowed to go over their allocated hours. the rules regarding claiming pc are that if you are born on or after 6 April 1950 then claiming is done at the woman's state pension age which is rising. how old are you? male or female? this might give me a better indication although I can't answer tonight as I am out, but hopefully should be on later.

rabialiones

male
reached 60 before 5th april

recievied letter advising to apply for pension credit

was told to stop income support as the claim had gone thru.

rabialiones

have been on phone again this am.

spoke to yet another person, who gave conflicting info from last nights.
just said that she would send an email to rel. dept and i would hear from them within 7-10 days, and advised me to get crisis loan if i needed some cash.
very unhelpful indeed.
asked to speak to a manager , initially she refused saying i would just be given the same info.
i refused to put phone down and finally was put thru to a manager who seemed a bit more helpful , saying he would look into matter, put a complaint in and contact me , however again he said it would be within 5 days. even he could/would not give me any further info, saying that his dept. did not have access to it.
and he could not put me thru to the right dept. saying i would just have to wait for them to contact me.
very frustated and stressful.
only applied because they wrote and advised us to.

Whiteknight

rabialiones wrote: »

they did not tell me the reason.
each time i have phoned them over past few weeks , they have just been telling me , that they are waiting for income support to stop before the pension credit starts.
when i s stopped i informed them and asked when they would start payments, was told that it takes 7-10 days for it to be processed and changed over.

today is the first time that they have told me that the claim has been disallowed.
if i had been told of this before , i would not have stopped the i.s.

i am in a dilemma, and it is having an effect on my health.
i feel very angry and let down.

If you were claiming Income Support it would have come to an end when you got to 60 anyway - you have no choice in the matter.

However if you have a partner and your partner was getting Income Support and is under 60 then you could have stayed on Income Support. If this is the case then Pension Credit would have been unable to pay you until the Income Support was closed (it can then take 5-7 days)

Whiteknight

anmarj wrote: »

unfortuently new claims don't always work out if the customer is entitled before processing claim before taking the application. I should know I use to have to call customers to tell them not to sign off! marjority of the people that work in the centres are on fixed hours and are not allowed to go over their allocated hours. the rules regarding claiming pc are that if you are born on or after 6 April 1950 then claiming is done at the woman's state pension age which is rising. how old are you? male or female? this might give me a better indication although I can't answer tonight as I am out, but hopefully should be on later.

I've not heard of people working in the Pension centres being on fixed hours - they can work late if they want and build up flexi.

I would guess that the OP called late in the evening when they were about to close the original post was just after 8.20pm, so maybe the advisor had to leave the building.

anmarj

Whiteknight wrote: »

I've not heard of people working in the Pension centres being on fixed hours - they can work late if they want and build up flexi..

a lot of the new starts are being put on fixed hours, basicly trying to get rid of flexi, I am on a flexi contract but have been told not to build up flexi, a lot of the new promoted EO's got put on fixed as well. If I left now, and then came back, i would be on a fixed contract and not a contract that contains flexi.