Wrong date of birth in long-term claims - worried

floating

Hi everyone.

My mum has always believed her year of birth to be 1950, as she's illiterate she's never sought to verify this. I've always taken her word for it too as have my siblings. She's been in receipt of
income support and carers allowance for a long time using her date of birth as 1950 and was moved over to pension credit 4 years ago.

I've recently had cause to look at her passport and citizenship documents and have discovered her actual year of birth is 1951 (the day and month is ok). Now I'm quite worried what the consequences of this will be. I will have to inform the DWP
which is going to be an ordeal in itself - illiteracy has a lot of stigma attached to it so I'm dreading having to mention that.

What is likely to happen - will she be taken to court or need to pay back all of the money she's received?

Any input appreciated - please don't be harsh, I feel terrible right now.

rogerblack

She would not need to pay back anything up at least till the 64th birthday.
Is PC worth more or less than she was getting for IS/CA?
If it's more - she may need to pay back the difference.

anmarj

Please try not to worry, getting the date of birth wrong is more common than you think and Illiteracy is not the main cause.

Studebacher_Hoch

I highly doubt you'll get in trouble unless you don't inform them. If you're aware that their entitlement to benefit may be affected then you have to report it or it could be seen as fraud.

If you've only just discovered this then when you write in and explain they'll probably just generate an overpayment. You can try and make a case that this should be disregarded if it will cause hardship, though the chances of them accepting that aren't necessarily that great.

Because your mum was already claiming IS and CA I think they should use the amount she would have got from them to offset the PC overpayment. I imagine there'll be an overpayment of about £35-40 a week for a year. She'll probably have her weekly PC reduced by a small amount to pay it off.

You might want to check through it with the CAB or someone though to go through the exact details of the case thoroughly.

pmlindyloo

According to this

https://www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk/en/articles/pension-credit

your mum should have had her ID checked when applying for Pension Credit - passport/driving licence/birth certificate.

Is the correct date on these documents?

If they are then you might have a good reason to claim that this was an official mistake particularly since the qualifying age for PC is not something I would have thought was easy to work out for the average person.

Ditto, for Income Support if they suggested she applied for PC. She should have produced ID for the original claim.

anmarj

pmlindyloo wrote: »

According to this

https://www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk/en/articles/pension-credit

your mum should have had her ID checked when applying for Pension Credit - passport/driving licence/birth certificate.

Is the correct date on these documents?

If they are then you might have a good reason to claim that this was an official mistake particularly since the qualifying age for PC is not something I would have thought was easy to work out for the average person.

Ditto, for Income Support if they suggested she applied for PC. She should have produced ID for the original claim.

Customers are only asked on the phone for pension credit to confirm their birth date and only if there is a discrepancy would they be asked to send in details.

There is also the possibility at some point she had to ask for her Ni number and because the checks not done properly could of been given the wrong national insurance number but not queried because the information she may of given matched what was held.

pmlindyloo

anmarj wrote: »

Customers are only asked on the phone for pension credit to confirm their birth date and only if there is a discrepancy would they be asked to send in details.

There is also the possibility at some point she had to ask for her Ni number and because the checks not done properly could of been given the wrong national insurance number but not queried because the information she may of given matched what was held.

A bit sloppy IMHO. Anyone could be claiming PC! Surely some kind of cross referencing has to be done to see if they are eligible age wise?

anmarj

pmlindyloo wrote: »

A bit sloppy IMHO. Anyone could be claiming PC! Surely some kind of cross referencing has to be done to see if they are eligible age wise?

They probably have some sort of calculator that they need to check or the system that they use works it out. I have not done a claim on the computer system, I am of the paper application generation! (Christ I am too young to be saying that!!!;))

Morglin

When my brother in law claimed Pension Credit, he had to send in a copy of his birth cert - usually for any age related benefits, you would have to do this, unless your DOB has been verified, via another benefit, in earlier years.

Lin