JSA nightmare, advice needed pls

mrs-d_3

Hi everyone,
my husband and I are having a nightmare experience with JSA and were hoping someone on here could point us in the right direction.
My husband lost his job earlier this year and mid March we applied for JSA. Whole thing took over a month to process. When we finally got first payment they made a mistake and paid single person allowance. That took nearly a week to sort out. All of that caused our Housing Benefit to take a while to process and receive which meant we had no money for 2 months to pay rent and we had to borrow from friends and family.
Just as we though it's all sorted we got a letter today saying that my husband "failed to take advantage of a placement on an employment programme". For that reason they will not pay us allowance from 14th May till 10th June! The thing is my husband was never told about this programme or invited to attend anything. He never received anything in the post. When he went to sign on 4 weeks ago the person that spoke to him said he didn't come to this programme and asked him why. He was surprised and said he didn't know anything about it. She said the letter was sent out but when he asked to see the copy of it , after looking in her computer for a few minutes she couldn't find a copy of it! He went to sign on again 2 weeks ago (13th of May) but wasn't told that he wont be entitled to anything till 10th of June. The guy only said as it's bank hol this week he doesn't need to come until 2 weeks later which happens to be 10th of June.
This is not the first time we haven't received correspondence from them. One time my husband turned up for an interview that was booked in advance for him. He waited for over an hour no one came up to him. When he got up to speak to someone he was told that the interview was cancelled.
This whole experience is very stressful and causing us extra worry. We are both desperately looking for work (also have 2 kids under 7) but at the moment are finding hard to have enough for food let alone anything else.
Rent is due in 2 weeks and I don't know how we are going to pay for it. DH phoned JC today but that just said we have to put it all in writing and it could take up to 50 days!!
Does anyone have any advice re this and bad experience with JC? Apart from complaining to them direct is there anyone else we should get in touch with? We are worried if this happens again, if he "misses" another appointment.
Please help if you can. Thank you.

mrs-d_3

Anyone?......

HB58

You can appeal this decision - that's the good news. The bad news is that this can take some time to be decided. Do you have any food banks locally that could help out? I'm sorry, I don't know what else to suggest.

Jay_DX

Hi there .. We to have had a nightmare week with the JSA and similar to yours

I was signing on for 4 weeks found a job but sadly it fell apart after only a month.
I did a rapid reclaim online and got a poorly spelled text on a Sunday to appear at a job center on the otherside of town on the Tues as Monday was a bank holiday
On the Tues I phoned the job center in the morning explaining that my two year old son had a bad cold and could we have the interview transfered to my local job center for both reasons as it was a joint claim both to attend I was signing on at my local.
On the Thursday we did the interview no problems,1 weeks money went in.
Last Friday a letter sent from JSA saying we had missed our interview and was not allowed to claim until 16th June(4 weeks)
I went down and explained that I had phoned the first job center and it had been agreed to transfer office.
At first they said that we had missed the appointment on the 7th at the 2nd job center . I explained it all to them and they just said there was no notes from the 1st job center to prove this.
Housing have admitted that they never have opened my case file.. That's had to go to higher level to be sorted out.. No monies for 3 months
Now I have to appeal .wait.then indepentant and if no joy Mp
The only proof I have is that someone called me on the 8th from another job center saying they had received an email from the 1st job center but I was not inthere area and to contact my previous job center before I signed off
All this and with a 2 year old and no help
I don't see how this system is helping me
Good luck