Universal Credit-bank statements

Cazzo1980

Hi,

When claiming first time for Universal Credit, I am aware you have to take bank statements for all your bank accounts? How many months should I take with me? Or do they access your incomings online and if so how far back do they go?

So many mixed reviews on UC....not sure whether to stick to old style system of being paid via HMRC.

Cheers for your help.

TELLIT01

You should be told what period bank statements are required for. If you don't get that information take the last 6 months worth of statements for all bank and savings accounts. UC cannot access you bank details on-line under normal circumstances.

Cazzo1980

Ok cheers. Is six months usual? Reading so many horror stories about UC!

LocoLoco

There are lots of horror stories but our claim went through without any problems and so have many others - you do only tend to hear about the bad ones because people only tend to post about it when they need help Personally I check and double check everything with staff, either by email or phone and if it's phone I get the person's name and write everything down so that if there's a problem there's someone to go back to. I'd ask them how far back they want to go if they haven't said already and with our bank statements, I tend to go through and circle anything that might cause confusion (my son's disabled and I manage his money for him so there's an account in my name but it's his money in it, although sometimes money goes from his account in to mine to cover something that I paid for on my card - it gets confusing!) so that I can explain it there and then and avoid any hassle. I honestly found the process to be fine and the staff were very helpful

Cazzo1980

Thank you so much for taking time to get back to me. Ok this is good to hear.

Caz x

Mrsn

I switched over to UC in December 2018. I have had various issues with my landlord wishing to take rent directly from my award (took 4 months to get that resolved, and to be fair it was more landlord refusing to change it) and then my husbands wages weren’t being reported properly by the RTI system which has caused huge amounts of stress as he was placed in the intensive work search group even the he was employed!! It has the makings to be a good system, however it is badly understaffed and mistakes aren’t quickly rectified. The advisors on the phone I’ve spoken to usually are polite and helpful but they are very limited as to what they can do. As with all benefits things do go wrong and it is the receiver that ends up suffering

Carrieanne

LocoLoco wrote: »

There are lots of horror stories but our claim went through without any problems and so have many others - you do only tend to hear about the bad ones because people only tend to post about it when they need help Personally I check and double check everything with staff, either by email or phone and if it's phone I get the person's name and write everything down so that if there's a problem there's someone to go back to. I'd ask them how far back they want to go if they haven't said already and with our bank statements, I tend to go through and circle anything that might cause confusion (my son's disabled and I manage his money for him so there's an account in my name but it's his money in it, although sometimes money goes from his account in to mine to cover something that I paid for on my card - it gets confusing!) so that I can explain it there and then and avoid any hassle. I honestly found the process to be fine and the staff were very helpful

As an aside concerning your remarks about writing down details of phone calls, if you use a smartphone there's plenty of phone call recorder apps out there which are free and work very well and afford extra protection should the content of a call be disputed. The one I use is called CallRecorder (one word, no space) and automatically records and saves every incoming and outgoing call and can be kept, played back or deleted easily.

Earlier this year a customer service rep for a utility company really took the you know what out of my speech impediment. I made a complaint via their procedures without letting on I had compelling evidence of the person doing so. Weeks later came a response which indicated the miscreant had flatly denied the allegation and no action would be taken, so I emailed them a copy of the file which proved conclusively that he had lied. It was most satisfying to receive a much quicker and apologetic response in which I was assured he wouldn't be communicating on behalf of that company ever again.

ev8

Cazzo1980 wrote: »

Hi,

When claiming first time for Universal Credit, I am aware you have to take bank statements for all your bank accounts? How many months should I take with me? Or do they access your incomings online and if so how far back do they go?

So many mixed reviews on UC....not sure whether to stick to old style system of being paid via HMRC.

Cheers for your help.

Is that a choice you can make then? I wasn't aware you could decide against UC.

calcotti

I inferred that OP currently gets tax credits and is considering a switch to UC but they haven’t us much to go on. If they are not currently getting tax credits then they have no choice.

poppy12345

ev8 wrote: »

Is that a choice you can make then? I wasn't aware you could decide against UC.

It depends on the circumstances of the OP. A change of circumstances can prompt a move but the OP may just be thinking about claiming because they could be better off, some are.

TELLIT01

Mrsn wrote: »

It has the makings to be a good system, however it is badly understaffed and mistakes aren’t quickly rectified. The advisors on the phone I’ve spoken to usually are polite and helpful but they are very limited as to what they can do.

Sadly, the same observations could be made of every system introduced by Government, not just the current one. Systems are underfunded and implemented in far too short a timescale because the Minister of the day thinks they will be covered in glory with their super new system. Staff are under trained and under resourced.
When ESA came in we had staff from the software house on site, and we complained about just how many problems there were with the system. The reply by the software house staff? "We weren't paid enough to be able to do the job properly". I promise you that is exactly what they said.