DWP is it just the real world that shakes our head at Public Sector.

thorsoak

missbiggles1 wrote: »

You may have just been unlucky.

When my husband died last year the DWP were brilliant, sorted everything with just one phone call, didn't even need me to send in a death certificate. Any letters were written very sympathetically and people on the phone were very pleasant.

My own SRP certainly didn't stop (I can't imagine why yours did, that must have been awful!) and the extra amount payable from my husband's pension was received within 4 to 6 weeks. I was really impressed with how efficient and helpful they were.

I'm so pleased to read this - I certainly hoped that no-one else would have to go through what I went through - it's bad enough not knowing what your income would be without being told "other cases are very important".

missbiggles1

thorsoak wrote: »

I'm so pleased to read this - I certainly hoped that no-one else would have to go through what I went through - it's bad enough not knowing what your income would be without being told "other cases are very important".

Terrible, I agree.

In my case it was the teacher's pensions that were the problem - really awkward and left me not knowing how much widow's pension I would be getting for about 5 months!:)

TELLIT01

superbigal36 wrote: »

Oh lovely so why did collections tell me "not the same department" "can't do that"

Overpayments and arrears can be offset against each other, but generally only if both payments are in the same department. Although both payments in this case are pension related I don't know if they are actually managed by the same department.
Being able to offset any overpayment against any arrears would be great but it's often legislation which prevents this being done, rather than staff being awkward.