Customer Compliance Officer Visit.

civvygit

You're a scary person.

We have a camper van together, he's posted to, and lives in, a barracks in London. There's no disputing this, he pays his mess bill there and all his paperwork is there to prove it.

He stays at my home on a very rare occasion, as I said with an Autistic child it's difficult to introduce change, we decided a long time ago not to until we knew we could be together and that my son wouldn't be affected badly, we're looking to move to a bigger home as a family then he'll join us for weekends and so on, we're both divorced and in our late 40's, so not kids.

This seems to be since I applied for DLA for my son, I've just received a second letter in the afternoon post to say I'm being called for another interview about changing from IS! It doesn't rain but it pours!

I began claiming IS about 5 years ago after the school began calling me out of work about twice a week to help resettle my son when things changed around him, things like a student teacher coming into the class to help out, it got to the stage I was doing little to no work and the rest of the office was having to carry me.

epitome

When is your childs 7th birthday? That is what the second letter is about.

harry7075

You've failed to declare a potential income of up to £7800 a year, the £100-£150 a week from "family". Your partner has a camper van registered at your address and your claim is for a single parent. Are you in receipt of Child Tax Credits? As I expect you'll receive notification from them soon. Don't mess about with CAB get legal representation.

vax2002

Nothing to be scary about ?
If they find no evidence in your home of co-habitation you will be OK.
A bit of thanks for tipping you what they will be doing would not go a miss as well.

Soapn

on income support, with an extra £100-£150 a WEEK being given to you? good lord! Could the person/people giving you the money not just pay directly to the place your child goes to for help?

Elvisia

OK first off don't panic. I had one of these letters and I did a lot of research before I went. It turned out I was flagged up on the system because I had an ISA, and they wanted to know how much money I had in that. I said was it because I had been signing on for a year and they said no, but I recently got a letter saying I had been flagged up because I was signing on for a year, so make of that what you will.

They send these letters out for various reasons:
1) Someone has reported you
2) There has been a change in circumstances that you have told them about and they want to check that
3) Something has flagged up on the system which may or may not be serious
4) You were randomly chosen.

Make sure you are prepared with all your bank statements and what you need. When the person comes listen to them, but only answer their questions in simple terms. I say this because it's so easy to waffle on and end up getting in a mess. If you are not happy with anything you can ask them to leave at any time. If you are not happy answering a question or you're unsure then say you will get back to them. This isn't the fraud department, you're not under caution.

I would also recommend getting anything in writing, I did some things over the phone and I wrote down exactly what was said to me, when I spoke to the boss of my compliance officer she read off what was written on my file and it was completely different to what I had written. So either I'm an idiot (hmmmm) or they were covering their backs by putting something else on there.

Don't panic, really, you need to find out what it's about before you worry. Just answer their questions, don't say, "is it about this" and find you've gone and put yourself into hot water. They may be 'robust and challenging' in their approach, I have the notes somewhere for these meetings and it recommends you are robust and challenging and don't accept the first answer you get. If you feel there is a problem after they've left then contact the CAB and see what they say, they won't be able to help much at the moment until they know what the issue is.

Lots of luck xx

Elvisia

Oh and another point - the left hand and the right hand do not know what they are doing, I got two identical sets of letters after the meeting, from two different departments both requesting the same information. When I complained after they then managed to lose the info I sent them I spoke to the head of the compliance place, and she said there was a breakdown in communication in between departments. You don't say.

civvygit

Soapn wrote: »

on income support, with an extra £100-£150 a WEEK being given to you? good lord! Could the person/people giving you the money not just pay directly to the place your child goes to for help?

There are three different therapists, plus the travel to and from them paid from the money, some are weekly, others monthly, then there's assessments.

When we asked our school to investigate at first, they simply said he was a naughty child, I then had to get private assessments done to prove there was an issue before they would send him for testing.

vax2002 wrote: »

Nothing to be scary about ?
If they find no evidence in your home of co-habitation you will be OK.
A bit of thanks for tipping you what they will be doing would not go a miss as well.

I know I sound like an ungrateful cow, but this has really frightened me!

Thank you.

civvygit

Elvisia wrote: »

OK first off don't panic. I had one of these letters and I did a lot of research before I went. It turned out I was flagged up on the system because I had an ISA, and they wanted to know how much money I had in that. I said was it because I had been signing on for a year and they said no, but I recently got a letter saying I had been flagged up because I was signing on for a year, so make of that what you will.

They send these letters out for various reasons:
1) Someone has reported you
2) There has been a change in circumstances that you have told them about and they want to check that
3) Something has flagged up on the system which may or may not be serious
4) You were randomly chosen.

Make sure you are prepared with all your bank statements and what you need. When the person comes listen to them, but only answer their questions in simple terms. I say this because it's so easy to waffle on and end up getting in a mess. If you are not happy with anything you can ask them to leave at any time. If you are not happy answering a question or you're unsure then say you will get back to them. This isn't the fraud department, you're not under caution.

I would also recommend getting anything in writing, I did some things over the phone and I wrote down exactly what was said to me, when I spoke to the boss of my compliance officer she read off what was written on my file and it was completely different to what I had written. So either I'm an idiot (hmmmm) or they were covering their backs by putting something else on there.

Don't panic, really, you need to find out what it's about before you worry. Just answer their questions, don't say, "is it about this" and find you've gone and put yourself into hot water. They may be 'robust and challenging' in their approach, I have the notes somewhere for these meetings and it recommends you are robust and challenging and don't accept the first answer you get. If you feel there is a problem after they've left then contact the CAB and see what they say, they won't be able to help much at the moment until they know what the issue is.

Lots of luck xx

Thanks, I was, and am, really worried, my tummy's flipping and I'm not thinking straight, of course I've done nothing wrong intentionally, but it's still stressful.

Elvisia

I know how you feel because my stomach just dropped when I got the letter, I was seriously stressed and became angry at every little thing. I spent flipping days preparing for it, and I was so relieved when she said the reason I was called in was because I had an ISA. If I could advise myself now about the meeting I would say get prepared, have dates for everything (I was asked off the top of my head when I opened up bank accounts, dates I transferred money etc - who would be able to do that without going back through years of statements?) and find out what they want. Then you can fight whatever it is.
I didn't get a great outcome to my meeting (I had been overpaid benefit, it was in fact the JC's fault but there's nothing I can do about it) but the worse thing about the whole experience is how stressed I got, I wished I had managed to take it all in my stride.
Do remember they see loads of people, and they're really not turning up trying to catch you out. You might get a very nice person, it does happen!