ESA/PIP stolen documents worry

Fenrir

Hi there.

I'll get straight to the point, I had my bank card and some personal documents stolen from me last week. These documents were from the ESA, and have my national insurance number on them. My driving license was also with the stolen items, so it has my address and date of birth on them.

I've cancelled my cards, and informed the DVLA of my license.

My question is, could somebody contact the benefits office via telephone and change the account my ESA is paid into? And if so, how can I find out/change it back?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you. :j

pmlindyloo

Have you contacted the police?

I would telephone

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/hm-revenue-customs/contact/national-insurance-numbers

and ask them what you should be doing.

Depending on what they say I would then telephone (follow up in writing) the DWP and any other departments and let them know what has happened. This must have happened before so they should have some procedure in place to deal with it.

Fenrir

Thank you. I already contacted the police, and got a crime number.

But can someone just ring dwp, pretend to be me and change the bank details? Or would I have to sign a confirmation that comes through the post?

Thank you

nannytone_2

if you explain, they will choose their security questions from information they hold that wasn't stolen.
for example your phone number/mother maiden name ...
they wont just let someone change anything without being sure who it is.
if they don't have any additional information, they can write to you and this will them be proof of who you are

sportsarb

If the DWP staff follow protocol no one should be able to change your accounts etc. based on the information they get from those documents.........unless they correctly guess some security questions.

Fenrir

Sorry for the late reply guys, but thank you so much for your responses.

Very much appreciated, have a great christmas all of you