Thought i was getting somwhere until.....

beckett110

Ive had problems with tax credits in the past, if I was you I'd tell them that you can't afford to pay back how much they want and they can take it out of next years award. That was what they did with us, they paid us working tax when my income was above the threshold. I rung them to query it and they said that it was all correct, then I had to ring again and then they realised that it wasnt being calculated on my wage and said they would send out a new statement. They tried to take the repayments over a month which meant that my wife would not get anything for a whole month but when I rang them they were quite helpful but I dont trust anything that they say until I have it in writing.

It might be different for you but they can only say no.

lynzpower

i would seriously appeal.

its all well you said you want to/ intend to pay them back, but you can say because you are on a low income any way blah blah,you dont have it.

They are a law unto themselves and without a clear breakdown of the hows and the whys of it all, then they have to prove you owe it to them. You wouldnt accept it if mastercard phoned you and simply asked for it - youd want proof. And CC your MP into all correspondence on it.

good luck & dont give in witohut a fight.

beanielou

Go into your local CAB & ask them to help on grounds of hardship.CAB can help you.
Dont leave it
Good luck

piratess

when i rang them they did a means form over the phone and because we had some money left at the end of each month she wouldnt reduce the payments" but like i told her i dont have a clue where this so called spare money is because we dont see it! .. but she wouldnt budge!

Thankyou for your help i think a trip to the CAB is a great idea maybe ill go see them on wednesday and see what they think..

I have always double checked everything with the Tax people because i know how rubbish they are! ive always rang when recieved a claim to check the amounts etc ... which is why i cant see why they didnt say my call was logged ? !! it just doesnt add up to ,me

inkie

We had a significant overpayment, and they never mentionied anything about us repaying them - they just stopped all payments until they had been paid back.

Mics_chick

I agree with everyone who has said you should appeal this decision - if you can say to them that you have got a good track record of keeping them up-to-date then they can't come down on you so hard when they say they haven't got a record of just 1 phone call. I'm sure I saw a case on Trevor Macdonald's program about a woman whose overpayment was wiped because she could prove she had replied promptly to all correspondence. So it was unfair of them to expect her to repay any amount that was due to their mistake in the first place and was made worse because they took so long to sort it out.

When they did this means test over the phone what info did you give them about your debt. Did you just mention the minimum payment or what you actually are paying off? If others have put them off then so can you. Even if you have to repay it eventually it will likely be without interest whereas you will still be paying interest on your credit card(s) if you pay them off first.