Jobcentre monitoring of Amazon Accounts

SquiddlyDiddly

Has anyone else experienced this, and is it legal? I receive JSA and am on the infamous 'Post-Work Programme Support'.

I was hauled in by the Jobcentre and asked to explain two payments on my bank statement that turned out to be Housing Benefit.

I was then asked to provide evidence of the purchases I made on Amazon for little things like a paperback and a 99p sim card.

When I questioned the legality of this enterprise the advisor lost his temper and demanded to see all my receipts for the last three months.

AP007

SquiddlyDiddly wrote: »

Has anyone else experienced this, and is it legal? I receive JSA and am on the infamous 'Post-Work Programme Support'.

I was hauled in by the Jobcentre and asked to explain two payments on my bank statement that turned out to be Housing Benefit.

I was then asked to provide evidence of the purchases I made on Amazon for little things like a paperback and a 99p sim card.

When I questioned the legality of this enterprise the advisor lost his temper and demanded to see all my receipts for the last three months.

!!!!!!?

Why are you showing them a bank statement?

How do they know you have spent any £ on Amazon?

They said what when you asked why they wanted to see receipts?

daniellaoxox

They're technically monitoring your bank account, not your Amazon account as amazon purchases show up as being amazon purchases on bank statements, still out of order though.

gay_guy

what has it got to do with Jobcentre what you spend your JSA on?

AP007

Why do they want to monitor the OPs bank account?

marleyboy

I would have point blankly refused on the grounds of relevance, no matter how much he lost his temper over it.

monty-doggy

:eek:

I'd tell them to !!!!!! off!

AP007

citricsquid wrote: »

Are you kidding? They seriously monitor your bank account? What? I can understand working with HMRC to understand if someone is involved with benefit fraud, but having access to itemised bank statements and looking at individual purchases is crazy. There's no need for that... I have to agree with monty-doggy, although when you're in the position where you have a dependence on JSA to pay the bills you don't have the luxury of being able to refuse violations of your privacy like that.

We sure are heading to the point where they just don't want anyone to get the help they deserve... why bother paying NI if it's just being used as an excuse to treat people like they're some sort of criminal.

The OP hasn't told us why they want to see receipts yet?

I never knew showing a penny by penny account of what you are buying was one of the mandatory things you had to do to get JSA.

I bet they don't have it in writing

AP007

citricsquid wrote: »

I decided to investigate further and found something potentially interesting.

The "Post-Work Programme Support" that the OP is on is quite absurd, it has very stringent requirements (including frequent requirements for job seekers to attend 3 times per week!) and they do indeed request that anyone on this program provides 6 months of bank statements.

However this is the good news, people have no obligation to provide this information and they cannot be sanctioned if they do not. Here is a letter sent to someone that asked about this under a Freedom of Information request:

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/165970/response/403624/attach/html/3/Response%202830.pdf.html



So it would look like the OP has provided bank statements but there is no obligation to do so. That's still pretty awful but on the up side there's no big privacy violation.

It has very stringent requirements ? No it doesn't

I finished the WP back in July and now only go to the Job Centre and none of that above has applied to me.

No such thing as 3 times a week. Apart from signing I have only been there 3 times since July.

Not been asked for any bank statements either.

[Deleted User]

AP007 wrote: »

It has very stringent requirements ? No it doesn't

I finished the WP back in July and now only go to the Job Centre and none of that above has applied to me.

No such thing as 3 times a week. Apart from signing I have only been there 3 times since July.

Not been asked for any bank statements either.

Ah, you're right, I just went back and read everything again and surprise, it turns out I was reading a blog focused on negative stories about the job centre, not a blog about the job centre. My bad, let's scratch my comments from the record

marybelle01

SquiddlyDiddly wrote: »

I've had a G4S van behaving oddly outside my flat and I've been trying to think of what I might have done wrong.

The only think I can think of is that I am sometimes away at weekends and I do high profile voluntary work for the Church of England. But this has been cleared with the DWP.

You do seem to have a lot of people spying on you....