DWP demanding repayment of £3000 from 1983 Scam, Hoax or Real?

absolutereturn

Mersey wrote: »

Yes, they can ask for payment; but, they cannot enforce the same in the County Court as it's more than 6 years ago.

Mersey wrote: »

They are unable to recoup it via your tax code. What you're probably thinking of - they can seek an attachment of earnings but again that's for debts of less than 6 years.

You can't enforce something you can't obtain a Judgment for.

Plus obviously if you're no longer on benefits or you're self-employed, there's little they can do re aged debt.

Not quite. They can't recover via the County Court so no CCJ or charging orders but they can do a DEA (Direct Earnings Attachment) which is one of CaMoron's numerous little gems, introduced shortly after he took charge: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/453704/dea-guide-for-employers.pdf

Darksparkle

Mersey wrote: »

Ha if only.


DWP aren't that clever yet. Hence £1bn in overpayments.


They are unable to recoup it via your tax code. What you're probably thinking of - they can seek an attachment of earnings but again that's for debts of less than 6 years.


You can't enforce something you can't obtain a Judgment for.


Plus obviously if you're no longer on benefits or you're self-employed, there's little they can do re aged debt.


But they are trying to recover historic debt, hence the flurry of letters that have gone out.


What has changed is that in the recent Welfare Reform Act, even if a recent overpayment is due to DWP error, it will be deemed recoverable rather than automatically written off.


But it's hoped (used to be envisaged) that with greater data sharing and Universal Credit from 2018, as well as quarterly reporting for the self-employed, HMRC will then finally be able to reduce overpayments of WTC etc. It's promised every year to the Public Accounts Committee.

Change in tax code can be done for tax credit debts, that's maybe what nannytone was thinking of.

absolutereturn

This shouldn't be left unchallenged. 1983 was over 30 years ago, if they didn't spot the alleged overpayment in all those years, how come they found it now? Back then they didn't have a computerised system so it's unlikely they will have the records to back up their allegations, and if they can't produce a statement of what was paid when and how it came to be overpaid, they can't just say it's owed.

The OP's friend should ask for a breakdown and it they get no joy, send a SAR (Subject Access Request) to the DWP.

DavidF

Well my family member was overpaid by £17k.
He is a pensioner and the over-payment happened over a period of 7 years.
Along with the bill there was a form attached for mandatory right to appeal.
I took family member to the local welfare rights officer (CAB can help too if no welfare rights officer at your council/social services) - WRO just used the attached appeals form and wrote on it 2 sentences.
1. We do not agree with your decision
2. We do not agree with the amount
He then proceeded to inform us that DWP record keeping is "terrible" and that there would be no way that they would have his original claim form nor even a record of payments going back 7 years.
So the form was sent off.
Fast forward about 7-8 months and the DWP as predicted wrote to family member stating that they could not find the records relating to the case - so they wrote it off.

Before the tax payers alliance start trying to track him down - this over-payment would in fact have been "nulled" out if he had been claiming the correct benefit anyway. It was a tick box error that the DWP created - at the time they said "You can claim back your under payment maximum 6 months" "Im afraid we can claim back our over-payment with no time limits. So I think "justice" was served either way lol.

But if the DWP had not caved we would have went all the way with the appeal which would have been similar to say appealing an ESA decision - so it would have went to tribunal and then 2nd tier tribunal ect ect.
So my advice to OP is if you have welfare rights officer see them for assistance with appealing. If no WRO then go to CAB and ask them for assistance with same.

missapril75

absolutereturn wrote: »

...if they didn't spot the alleged overpayment in all those years, how come they found it now? Back then they didn't have a computerised system so it's unlikely they will have the records to back up their allegations...

If anything the records would be more likely to exist. Just difficult to find.

Pre-computer days records were destroyed something like 18 months after claim inactivity but anything with a debt was identified and excluded from normal destruction.

Once upon a time offices kept their own records and had control of their own filing system. There would be occasional short delays in finding a file that may have been out of the filing system awaiting some action in any of a number of different places around the office.

Now records are kept in remote storage operated by private sector with no interest in maintaining an efficient system, just taking public money.

Overpayments are spotted but given decades of insufficient staffing levels, were routinely put to one side for action later.

Of course, it's entirely possible that the odd mistake has been made but the OP refers to a series of loans and overpayments.

Is each one a mistake or is it an example of someone making contact with DSS/DWP when it suits them and ignoring anything that doesn't?

ab1982

The fact that they have to get their mate to ask on a forum if they owe money probably indicates that they owe it.

I can categorically state that any letter through my door informing me that I owe money from an old hardship loan is incorrect and I don't need MSE forum to tell me it.

If they borrowed money and didnt pay it back then its genuine.

If they didnt its not.

absolutereturn

ab1982 wrote: »

The fact that they have to get their mate to ask on a forum if they owe money probably indicates that they owe it.

Really? First of all, the question is not whether they owe the money or not as this isn't the psychic network and we can't tell them the answer to that one. The question was how to approach the subject with the DWP, not whether they owe or not.

ab1982 wrote: »

I can categorically state that any letter through my door informing me that I owe money from an old hardship loan is incorrect and I don't need MSE forum to tell me it.

If they borrowed money and didnt pay it back then its genuine.

If they didnt its not.

Not everyone remembers every detail and we're going back to the 80s here. As a general rule, anyone who claims that money is owed to them should be able to provide evidence of the fact. There is a reason for the Limitation Act, basically if someone owes you money you have six years to attempt to recover it, that should be long enough. Sadly the lovely CaMoron introduced the DEAs in 2012, one more of his little gems. :mad:

Before anyone starts shouting: "It's taxpayer's money and should be recovered by any means...", if the debts really exist and weren't paid, why has it taken the DWP between 7 and 32 years to realise this fact? :eek: Six years are good enough for everyone else so why not for them? It's hardly fair for people to have money taken out of their wages without being presented with evidence of the existence of the debt.

ab1982

:rotfl:

absolutereturn wrote: »

Really? (

Yes really, I’d say it’s almost impossible to borrow some money (even in the 80’s) not pay it back and subsequently forget the whole thing ever happened to the extent that you have to ask an internet forum. Unless it’s something you do on a regular basis.

elsien

Whilst agreeing the DWP should prove it, as a skint benefits claimant in the 80's I'm fairly sure I'd remember having borrowed 3K. It's really not the sort of thing that's going to slip your memory.

absolutereturn

elsien wrote: »

Whilst agreeing the DWP should prove it, as a skint benefits claimant in the 80's I'm fairly sure I'd remember having borrowed 3K. It's really not the sort of thing that's going to slip your memory.

If you had borrowed £3k in one go you'd probably remember it, however, if you look at the opening post, you'll see it refers to a period spanning 25 years (starting in 83 but going all the way to 2008) and refers to VARIOUS items including both loans and alleged overpayments adding up to £3k.

Canny_Scot wrote: »

The letter states that from their records they allege the person owes £3009.65 to DWP dating from 1983 up to 2008 for various welfare/harship loans and overpayments? First question is this legitimate or a scam and Second Question can they do this?

1. If the DWP are able to come up with such an accurate figure (it's not £3,000 but £3,009.65), they should have no problem supplying them with a statement and a breakdown of how they arrived to that figure, you don't pluck something like that out of thin air.
2. It still begs the question: IF the debt exists, why did they leave it that long? Even the most recent loans or overpayments are now over six years old and the oldest one over 30 years old. If the money was owed to me, if I didn't try to recover it all those years ago, it wouldn't occur to me that I could do it now.

While everyone is always keen to say public funds should be repaid no matter what (or when), it could also be argued that the DWP has been consistently misusing our tax money by being careless and not trying to recover the money they lent or, in some cases, overpaid out of their own failure to make proper calculations.

Another thing to be taken into account is that, legislation cannot be retroactive. That means if a new law is passed in 2012, it would only have effect on anything from that point onwards. If you owed money from the 80s and 90s it would have been subject to limitation and could only be recovered by deductions from benefits if you claimed any, that's what the law said up until 2012. Therefore DEAs should only apply to amounts borrowed or overpaid after the legislation allowing them was passed.