DWP - telephone call to review

shellsy

Hi - I hope I am posting in the right place ??? My mother received a telephone call this morning from DWP, the very nice lady said nothing to worry about, they are doing a review. My mum explained she couldn't do it over the phone and they lady said she would post out a form ? Anybody else receiving such calls, I wasn;t sure if it was a bogus call and have always told my mum to never give details to anybody over phone :-)

kingfisherblue

I had a call last week from somebody that said they were from 'Revenue and Customs' - not HMRC or Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, just the shortened term above. They said that they had something they needed to talk to me about and asked me to confirm my full name, address and date of birth. I said that I would ring them back at a more convenient time (this was just before 8am and I was getting my disabled son ready for the school bus). I said that I would get the number from the internet, but she said she would tell me the number to ring. I refused, saying that anybody could give me a number and pretend that they were from a government department, and that I would get the number from the internet. She said she would send a letter and rang off. I haven't received anything yet.

The only thing I can think of regarding HMRC, is Direct Payments. I employ somebody and as it is their second job, they pay tax at 20%. I did wonder if it was a query to do with that, but last month, I went to a managed account (so a third party deals with all the paperwork). This was approved by the council. Nevertheless, I rang the DP department of the council and spoke to my adviser. She said that HMRC would never ring (especially so early!) and would always send a letter. In her opinion, it was a scam.

I am still waiting for the letter.....

shellsy

it is quite a shame that we are in society where we have to question absolutley everything. My mum was quite convinced that the nice lady was from the department of works and pensions and it may well be the case; do they telephone regarding pensions or benefits to complete a review ??? Do they have a review campaign going at the moment ? I would be grateful if anyone else who has one of these calls could let me know - many thanks :-)

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Well, I received an A2 review form a couple of months ago. Filled it in and everything continued as normal. The woman I spoke to at the benefits integrity centre said they were just reviewing everyone at the moment, quite relaxed and chatty about it. But I would have never, NEVER done anything over the phone.

anmarj

The Pension Service are doing outstanding reivews over the phone, but letters would of been sent out with the date and a two hour slot in which the call would be made. Do you know if she received that letter? Not sure about Income support but would assume if they are doing it, it would be the same format.

should say that the letter would come on an off white paper (doing their bit for recycling!)

shellsy

thank you for the advice - she has not received any letter regarding a scheduled telephone call, they did ask to go through security questions, i.e name, dob, national insurance number at which point my mum asked that the form be posted.

NAR

Your mum did the right thing, better safe than sorry. If it was legitimate a form will be in the post, but unfortunately scammers are getting very professional at getting personal info from people.

bobajob_1966

Offer to call them back on a number that you can verify - they are doing telephone reviews, and will have a procedure in place for those that wish to verify their identity.

anmarj

shellsy wrote: »

thank you for the advice - she has not received any letter regarding a scheduled telephone call, they did ask to go through security questions, i.e name, dob, national insurance number at which point my mum asked that the form be posted.

The DWP would ask secuirty but would of mention about the letter being posted out and would of asked her if she had received it before, would of asked if she was happy to do the review over the phone, then done the security. One way of checking would be for your mum to call the DWP and ask if they did call her as it would be noted.

bored_at_home

when i asked for a updated consideration on dla i recieved a phonecall from the decision maker to ask some questions about my walking , he could see id got worse from the reports id sent with the new form but id only asked that care entitlement got reconsidered, and after confirming a couple of things told me he was upgrading both care and mobility.
so i think its something they can do when they feel it would be helpful to make their decision.

Richie-from-the-Boro

The starting point of anyone ringing or emailing you is to ask you to confirm your - full name / address / date of birth / NI number etc.

Never do this even if its your bank / the queen of England / MP / or anyone else, the way you should handle it is to .. .. .. ask them to confirm your - full name / address / date of birth / NI number etc.

- they rang you its their job to prove who they are .. .. and who you are !
- never confirm or agree the detail of anything they say
- never answer any security question, like what was you mothers name etc
- ask them for a ' traceable ' land-line & you will ring them back
- then decide what you are going to do