DWP Paying me erroniously

calcotti

born_again said:

Well £300 will be the Winter Fuel payment.
PC = Pension Credit
SP = State Pension
Given that it seems that no one has flagged that the payments are missing that it is either a deceased person, or the account the funds go to is not monitored.
If there was a NI number than they would be able to trace the account that way.

Benefits were identified earlier in thread and there is an NI number stated which has also been discussed earlier in the thread. Possibility of intended recipient being deceased has also been mentioned.

John72Oliver

I didn't look at those ref numbers for long enough to realise that they contained NI numbers. They are redacted now.

TELLIT01

What does seem utterly ridiculous is DWP claiming that the 'reference number' wasn't any help to them.  It is, as many have pointed out, a NI number so should be comparatively easy to trace when combined with the other information.

Alice_Holt

TELLIT01 said:

What does seem utterly ridiculous is DWP claiming that the 'reference number' wasn't any help to them.  It is, as many have pointed out, a NI number so should be comparatively easy to trace when combined with the other information.

     Quite.

     I'd be interested to know what response the OP got from his MP, when he copied them into the correspondence with the DWP.

     Might even be worth a letter to the Sec of State for Work & Pensions -  https://members.parliament.uk/member/4098/contact

    It's poor management of public funds, when the DWP are unwilling to react sensibly to the OP's continuing attempts to alert them to erroneous payments of many thousand pounds.

John72Oliver

Rather than copying my MP in I just went directly to him. He responded immediately saying that he will take this up with DWP on my behalf. I'll keep you all posted as the story unfolds.

TELLIT01

John72Oliver said:

Rather than copying my MP in I just went directly to him. He responded immediately saying that he will take this up with DWP on my behalf. I'll keep you all posted as the story unfolds.

I think you will find the issue is resolved very quickly now.  DWP don't like it when MPs get involved and it does then concentrate minds.  When I worked at DWP we actually used to advise people to get their MP involved when we were hitting brick walls trying to get problems solved for them.  It worked in the vast majority of cases.

Robbie64

TELLIT01 said:

John72Oliver said:

Rather than copying my MP in I just went directly to him. He responded immediately saying that he will take this up with DWP on my behalf. I'll keep you all posted as the story unfolds.

I think you will find the issue is resolved very quickly now.  DWP don't like it when MPs get involved and it does then concentrate minds.  When I worked at DWP we actually used to advise people to get their MP involved when we were hitting brick walls trying to get problems solved for them.  It worked in the vast majority of cases.

I don't know what the timescales are now but when I worked for what became the DWP MPs letters had to be dealt with straight away with a maximum of a 5 working days turnaround. Back then of course local offices dealt with local addresses and there was a counter service. Now it's all contact centres with the back office work in remote benefit centres.

John72Oliver

For anyone eagerly awaiting an update; The DWP have come back to my MP's office asking for more information. Most of it is information that the MP's office have already supplied. I guess they wanted to hear it from me. Again.

TELLIT01

At least you have had a response.  Be grateful for small mercies.

John72Oliver

So now that they have the information that they need (twice) they have advised that it will be next year before they look into it. That only gives them a window of 54 weeks. I have little faith.