ESA - Wrong Overpayment Details

dippy3103

Make sure you do complain even if things are resolved- otherwise how will they know what a mess it is?

SueDerbyshire

Hi Alice, thank you for your help.

Is it worth waiting for the personnel information to come through after sending off the request, before I put my complaint in? I see it can take upto 40 days so I'm thinking I could send off my complaint to get the ball rolling and then add to it if I need to.

Sue

SueDerbyshire

This makes sense to me, thank you.

Sue

SueDerbyshire

Yes, I am not disputing my error. I read "change of circumstances" to mean change of address, change of health problems, marital status and never once did it occur to me that I should inform them of my pension increase, obviously it makes sense now but I wasn't trying to get out of further reductions due to my small pension increase each year. I admitted it straight away and agreed to pay the money back. I just wish it was as simple as just paying the right amount back,little did I know that over 2 years later I would still be trying to find out what exactly I owe.

Thank you for your input.

Sue

SueDerbyshire

Hi, my pension issue was resolved after the second visit to the investigator, a wrong reference number had been placed on a document or something and therefore nothing to do with me but shows how they can get that wrong too. I didn't really go into this much to be honest, just heard its been resolved and not to worry about it, so I didn't. I'm sending off a request for my information today so will see what is on my records concerning it.

Sue

SueDerbyshire

epitome wrote: »

You were told that you have to when you made the claim, and everytime you changed an address or a bank account they would have reminded you.
"should have" is a bit vague, yes the computer system is designed to send out letters each year, sometimes more often, and this is at the most a courtesy reminder to you, and to the DWP processing staff. But the lack of any reminders being sent does not absolve you of your duty to inform of any changes.

Yes, you are right, it was my mistake and happy to pay back what I owed.

Good.

Good. Would have been better..if she had asked the Decision Maker to call you, but whatever.

The person was wrong...it is not 3 hours anymore it is 24 hours for a call back now

Best not to get angry.
I made sure I remained polite at all times, its not the staff fault that answer the phone but at the same time I was assertive, making sure I got across how upsetting and frustrating this all is.

ok

You could have insisted on a 1 hour phone back. I didn't know this, thank you.

That's because the agent and the team leader both did not follow correct process, they should have sent a handover requesting a call back, and given the circumstances they could have said "I will get you a call back within 1 hour" but if they did not offer, you could have insisted that it was a call back within 1 hour that you wanted.
Again I wasn't aware I could but know now.

Because the law allows them to put deductions on your claim, and when they do a letter is sent, there is no minimum notice period. The first letter I received about the over payment asked me how I would like to pay the amount, which is what I would have expected this time before stopping my money to be honest.

Here is what to do in the short term.

Phone ESA tomorrow and ask for a 1 hour escalation call back from the ESA office. If they make any sounds of not wanting to do that for you, just say (calmly and politely),,,"I insist that you send a handover for a 1 hour escalation call back about my pension overpayment amount.....will you do that for me now?" If they say anything other than "yes" take their name and their office location, and ask to speak to their manager. Then do the same with the manager.......and ask for the call back to be from "ESA Maintenance - other" I wouldn't accept "third party deductions department" as I would say that department will not be able to help, they would pass the handover on to maintenace though.

Something you need to remember...although you spoke to someone last Wednesday and they agreed with you and said it will be sorted out... The cogs take a long time to turn, it depends if the ESA decision has been changed yet to £200, If it hasn't been changed then first a Decision Maker must change the decision. If it has already been changed then they will have to email Debt Management and ask them to stop making deductions from your ESA and to refund you the money, or put it towards the £200 that you do owe.
This is exactly what I have now been told, I have got to wait for someone to get the decision maker to agree with the new amount owed and then they can stop taking the money off me, in the meantime I will still be stopped the amount, even though they now know I do't owe that much and they probably owe me money now.

And although you are getting a call back within 1 hour...give them at least 2 hours before chasing them up again and don't phone them from the number you are expecting a call on.

So...when you get your call back you ask...
Q. Has the Decision Maker changed the Decision from £2,500 to £200? Not yet
Q. Has Debt Management been informed to stop the deductions? When were they requested to do this? Not until the DM informs them of any money owing still.

If the Decision Maker has not changed the Decision yet...ask to speak to the Decision Maker within 1 hour.

Once you have had confirmation that Debt Management has been informed of the change to the amount being recovered....you can *then * and *only then* phone debt management to ask them how long it will take them to stop deducting from your ESA.
DWP Debt Management contact centre
Telephone: 0345 850 0293
Textphone: 0345 604 6697
Calling from abroad: +44 (0)161 904 1233
Monday to Friday, 8am to 7:30pm
Saturday, 9am to 4pm


In the long term....you could make a written complaint, things that you might want to ask on your next call... to put in your complaint...are (think what date was it you saw the 2nd investigator)...

• What notes has the 2nd investigator left on your record (obviously on or around the date of your 2nd contact with him/her) in "L.M.S." " J.S.A.P.S". or on "C.A.M".(unlikely) and what does the note say? (I had previously asked for these so have them already.
• What subsequent notes have been made on the subject since then? Requesting information today

In my complaint, I would make reference that there is a lack of communication between the 2nd investigator and the ESA decision Makers department or between the DM and the Maintenance team. I would make reference to the call you made last Wednesday, when the team leader said they would ring the department. It may sound as though they were helping you but that team leader should have sent an escalation handover and told you they had done so, and then called the ESA office like they said they would,,,, to do one without the other is not acceptable. I only have what you have typed...so I don't know if actually she did send a handover aswell as phoned them.

Obviously this wasn't done and again only half a job had been completed. I'm awaiting another call and now armed with all theses questions,
so thank you.

Thank you so much for your help.

Sue

SueDerbyshire

Just a brief update, I have sent the complaint off asking for an investigation into the problems I encountered, an apology and the whole problem resolved forthwith.

I received a call yesterday from my contact to say she has had trouble compiling all my payments etc because a lot of my information had been deleted of my records and she has had to request the paper copies, once she has them she will re-calculate what I owe and ring me in a couple of days to inform me of the outcome. In the meantime she has again requested that all stoppages are frozen until this is rectified but I am not holding my breath.

epitome

oops,

If your payments are constantly the same amount every fortnight, and then only changed when the deductions went on and have since then stayed the same every fortnight....it should make it easier for them to calculate (even without the paper work).

i.e.

£270
£270
£270
£270
£270
£130
£130
£130

If you see what I mean that would be easier than this mess

£278
£258
£265
£271
£240
£125
£130
£125
£124


The first lot of continuous amounts is easier to recalculate because if they know why you got one payment, they then know why you got all the payments and can recalculate all of them

The second lot of payments is much more difficult for them as they have to work out why you got each and every payment before recalculating them.

If they get the paper work it will be easier for them.

SueDerbyshire

Another update.

You would have thought that someone who deals with calculating these benefits for their living should be good at what they do and yet I am baffled as to why my case has progressed the way it has.

So, that contact rang me back a week later, it took a while for her to get the paper copies she required and to go through everything. She re-calculated it all and said that I owe nothing at al!!!! I wasn't too sure this was right because like I said at the start I hadn't been sending them my updated pension increase for the period requested and therefore assumed I owed something, although I knew it wouldn't be too much as my pension increase had been small and the adjustment would just be a small percentage of the increase, if that makes sense. This was the problem because the new calculations had included my full pension amount and not just my small increase but trying to get anyone to understand that was not easy.

My contact told me I would receive a new calculation through the post and that she had again contacted the decision maker and debt department and requested my stoppages be halted because they now owe me money.

Obviously I still had the overpayment taken out of my money, which was now for 6 weeks but I was feeling hopeful that I was at the end of this awful draw out process, so I waited for the confirmation before I got too excited but had a little cry of relief when I got off the phone.

But you guessed it, it wasn't over, instead I received another letter a week later from someone different, a decision maker, whom said I now owe more than the original balance. I was stunned, upset, angry etc etc. I phoned them up again, to be told someone would ring me back in 3 hours. After 5 hours I finally got a call from the decision maker who wrote to me, he said he had calculated the wrong dates and that after speaking to my contact realised his error. I have no idea how he can have calculated the wrong dates, there was only one set of them, so I have no idea what was going on. Anyway, after agreeing with my contact he said that I owed £65 only which wasn't recoverable anyway because it only amounted to £10 roughly a year and that small amount would have normally been written off anyway. I asked for everything in writing and made it clear how unhappy I was.

2 days ago I received the new calculation, well a letter stating that I owe nothing and that they are sorry it has taken so long to come to that conclusion, nearly 2 and a half years! They are going to pay me back all the money I had paid back. They also explained they had received my letter of complaint and will be investigating it in due course, I won't hold my breath.

I'm still not feeling great about all this and will wait for my money to be returned and an explanation on how it went so wrong for such a long time. I will update this as and when I hear anymore, in the meantime, thank you again for all your help.

Sue