DWP claiming we have hidden ISA accounts

Afraid_of_Kittens

You will hear alot about the success of Data Matching to detect fraud and error and the hundreds of £millions that have been saved from being stolen from the public purse.

You will find it very difficult to find any official statistics on the errors made by Data matching when the wrong details have been corrupted between different computer systems or entered incorrectly.

The vast majority of matches have innocent explanations and do not result in any fraud or error. Somebody somewhere is wading through a reams of computer printouts - some of which will be mistakes but will result in an investigation to get them resolved.

RowPer

My wife asked again today, for the account number and sort code and they gave us more of the account number, but she was told that there was no sort code. I'm begining to wonder whether it's even an ISA account
the "account number" they gave us looks like this


1234-5678-9101


Do ISA accounts numbers even look like that? It looks like they've given us one section short of a credit/regular card number. I'm going to call back and ask why they can't give us the account number, I wish I was around when she called them.

A_Nice_Englishman

RowPer wrote: »

My wife asked again today, for the account number and sort code and they gave us more of the account number, but she was told that there was no sort code. I'm begining to wonder whether it's even an ISA account
the "account number" they gave us looks like this


1234-5678-9101


Do ISA accounts numbers even look like that? It looks like they've given us one section short of a credit/regular card number. I'm going to call back and ask why they can't give us the account number, I wish I was around when she called them.

Providers can use any format they like I should think.

When you call back, ask them if there are National insurance numbers in the information they have. You have to give your NI number when you open an ISA.

RowPer

Well, the matter is now closed.


We visited Barclays again, today. This time armed with those numbers. They looked up the account and told us it had nothing to do with us; going as far as to tell us the first name on the account (which they really weren't supposed to do) but it settled our minds that the accounts had nothing to do with us. They wouldn't let us have any of that in writing as they weren't supposed to give out information about other peoples accounts.


So Called the DWP to let them know and they said that we had done a good job going down all the avenues to prove the accounts weren't ours and that they were happy to just close the case.

Soooo, accounts were not ours, case closed.



I feel like this system is far from perfect!



....................

A_Nice_Englishman

RowPer wrote: »

Well, the matter is now closed.


We visited Barclays again, today. This time armed with those numbers. They looked up the account and told us it had nothing to do with us; going as far as to tell us the first name on the account (which they really weren't supposed to do) but it settled our minds that the accounts had nothing to do with us. They wouldn't let us have any of that in writing as they weren't supposed to give out information about other peoples accounts.


So Called the DWP to let them know and they said that we had done a good job going down all the avenues to prove the accounts weren't ours and that they were happy to just close the case.

Soooo, accounts were not ours, case closed.



I feel like this system is far from perfect!



....................

y

I'm glad to hear the matter is closed, but the burden of proof should fall on the DWP to prove the accounts were yours.