Universal Credit Phone line

BruceLea

Hi everyone
Can anyone tell me - when you call the UC hotline to make appointment, do you actually have to get through to a human - or does the phone line recognise you and then process the claim, as i have now had dates appear on my journal that weren't there before....2nd May advise how much I will receive, 6th May receive payment...
I was on hold 2:10mins and gave up........Thanks in advance

rubble2

Can't help with your question but I am a first time UC claimant (Self employed) and seem to be getting conflicting information regarding the need to make an appointment - on the UC home page there is a big red banner message saying 'You do not need to call us or visit even if you have an appointment' but on my 'To Do' list it says to phone and make an appointment ?
Totally new to all this so could someone confirm if I need to make an appointment or not please? Thanks

tomtom256

The information on your account is generic and an automatic response when making a claim. All claimants will get that message. You may need to ring them to arrange a telephone appoinment for ID verification etc.

Spacepig

I called up last week for my appointment and you do get through to a Human who just asks basic details and then arranges an over the phone appointment. I was waiting just over 2 hours, the stressful part is actually getting into the waiting queue as the phone kept cutting off.

The dates for payments I believe are there regardless if you have an appointment or not but you'll need to appointment for them to be processed.

rubble2

Excellent, just tried to get through to book the appointment, first four attempts I got through all the menu options to the one I need and then got a busy tone. Final attempt got through to the option I need and got a recording that due to the high volume of calls the appointment booking option is closed, please try later - call terminated.

Spotnpaul

Hi,
Self employed income gone!
Couldn't verify online last night.
Message on the UC to do list said call to arrange ID check. Line been busy all day.
We were all advised by the chancellor to apply for UC if we needed help fast?
Anyone got through today?

brummybloke

Wife is self employed, I have to put my details onto digiverify.
I will not be providing my bank card details AND the cvv code ? Are they nuts ?
Try phoning and get answer machine message which just cuts me off.
So what can I do ? 

jcnot

The phone number is answered by a real person at one of our contact centres, but they are overwhelmed with calls, as you can imagine; when you get through they will arrange an appointment, which will be by phone. In addition to that process, we have started a new system to try and crack the backlog, whereby we will call you, without an appointment, at any time of day (standard working hours); if you don't answer, we will send you a message in your Journal to say we tried to contact you and will try again the next day. 

busy_mom_2

What if you cant get through? My daughter has been trying since friday.

huckster

If you cannot get through to book the appointment, if the claim has registered, you can still send journal messages.  They will be looked at within a few days and will certainly help the staff dealing with UC understand you have had problems, They may then try to call you, to book a phone appointment.  All calls from UC/Job Centre will show on phones as from a withheld number, so don't ignore such calls.

rubble2

This is so frustrating, I can get past the initial busy tone about one attempt in five - I then have to trawl through the recorded messages and menu options to get to the one I need, I press the option and get the engaged tone again. I have no option other than to start again from the beginning.

If you are going to require potentially millions of new claimants to call you as part of the claim process at least put in some form of infrastructure to handle the call volume. I would rather they just put me in a queue, that way I would have some idea as to how long the process would take.