what the fudge?!

champers57

hi, me and my partner have been signing on for job seekers since may 2010, since then, we have had a lot of problems with the jobcentre as they have refused to pay us numerous times.

the latest problem is that my partner's father recently passed away and we have relocated from Leeds to west bromwich to help out and look after his mother. we went to the jobcentre on the 16th June 2011 and filled in a JS3 which is a live transfer form, we were told that because we did our live transfer the day we were supposed to sign on in Leeds, we would have to wait a week for our payment, which we understood and accepted. because of the strikes, we didn't go in to sign on on the 30th June 2011. we called the benefit delivery centre on the 1st July 2011 as we had still not received our first payment and we wanted to know why not. we were told that there was a problem on the system which meant that our signing location had been moved to west bromwich with no problem but our payment centre was still Leeds and as they had put a "did not attend" notice on our file, we wouldn't be receiving our money. they had been told that we had moved, we had called them and told them that we would not be attending that job centre anymore but they did not put it on the system properly. we called the job centre and the benefit delivery service yesterday (4th July 2011) and were told that we had a child and my partner is a house-husband and that i claim for him. all completely untrue.
we dropped into the jobcentre yesterday afternoon to find out what was going wrong and we were told all they could do was send an email to the benefit delivery centre to get it sorted out, which they haven't yet. we had a call this morning (5th July 2011) and were told that the form we filled in has been lost in the post and it was never received, making everything they told us previously, a lie.
we were told that we would have to fill in a duplicate which we would need to make an appointment for tomorrow (6th July 2011) but there is no guarantees that we will be paid because it might get lost again. they seem to think that this is our fault!


having then spoken to someone else this afternoon, I was told that the only option we had was to fill in another form or lose our entitlement. This in itself is not a problem but when I was told that I needed an appointment just so I can sit down and fill in some paperwork I asked what the point of an appointment was which I was quickly told to stop arguing. Next I asked about when our payment would come through, I was told that when they had the form it could be processed from there, only when Leeds have taken my partner off our claim just to put him back on. The risk this carries is that it's possible we could lose his half of our entitlement. at various points in all this we were asked if my mom could help, as we live with her at the moment this wasn't a strange question. However when you take into account she has applied for help with my partners dad's funeral costs and is constantly getting fobbed off about it by being told her paperwork isn't in order and that odds are she'll have to pay even though she's on benefits and not working and unable due to stress and grief to work at the moment it then becomes a different ball game.

we wrote a letter to our MP when we lived in leeds, who asked the jobcentre to sort out claim out. he was told by them "you're the MP, thats your job"
the way we are treated is unbelievable. if we did have a child and we were put in this situation, its so dangerous. we can barely afford to feed ourselves, let alone a dependant!
i know they joke about once you sign on you sign your life away but i really wasnt expecting to be treated so badly, we feel we have no human rights as we get pushed from pillar to post with no answers or even an apology. i suffer from depression anyway and all the stress that they are putting me under is really not good for me.
:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

tsimehC

I suggest you write a formal complaint using those "tell us what you think" forms if you haven't already and make sure to follow it up. All I can say is it's a waiting game to get it all sorted, you did the right thing in contacting your local MP. Hopefully you can get sorted it asap, there really isn't any sort of useful reply I can give to a case like this as it's all down to the BDC and JCP to sort out (not the best partnership in the world), good luck anyway and sorry to hear of your loss.

patman99

That's the trouble with the disjointed front-end delivery mechanism used to deal with claimants.
Myself and my fellow English Democrats want to see a return to the old system where, having lost your job, you could turn up at your local Jobcentre and sign-on there and then.
No having to do a 1 hour phone interview with some faceless callcentre employee who then ooks you an appointment at your local JC+ were they take yet more details before passing it all on to a BDC.

There are people out there (the OP included) who, just by simply moving into a new area, get totally lost in the system and end-up through no fault of their own loosing vital benefits payments because their forms 'got lost in the post'.

Having been the victim of these bumbling idiots myself, I now send all forms via recorded delivery. That way they can't say they haven't received it.