DWP Paying me erroniously

John72Oliver

And now they've asked for a copy of my bank statement, even though I sent them screenshots of their transactions. No reason given for asking for it. I'm becoming more sceptical.

TELLIT01

If the reference information is the same on all transactions, just blank out all other transactions and send it through.  If you don't they will start blaming you for holding things up.  Never argue with stupid, they will always beat you on experience!

John72Oliver

TELLIT01 said:

If the reference information is the same on all transactions, just blank out all other transactions and send it through.  If you don't they will start blaming you for holding things up.  Never argue with stupid, they will always beat you on experience!

Each reference is a concatenation of [NI NUMBER][DWP BLAH][SERIAL NUMBER] so the third part is always unique. I sent them one redacted statement with just their information but it would take me hours to download and redact all of the statements with their transactions in (There's about 14-18 of them). Instead I downloaded all of the relevant transactions as a csv file and sent them that. It has the date, reference and amount for each one. They're going to have to learn to be satisfied with that as it is all that they need. They can blame me for anything they like because I don't believe that any magistrate could agree with them. I'm not having a blast at you, I'm just becoming weary of their incompetence with their own system.

TELLIT01

No problem John.  I didn't realise how many bank statements were involved.  Your solution seems a sensible one, which probably means DWP won't like it!

pmduk

John72Oliver said:

Each reference is a concatenation of [NI NUMBER][DWP BLAH][SERIAL NUMBER] so the third part is always unique. I sent them one redacted statement with just their information but it would take me hours to download and redact all of the statements with their transactions in (There's about 14-18 of them). Instead I downloaded all of the relevant transactions as a csv file and sent them that. It has the date, reference and amount for each one. They're going to have to learn to be satisfied with that as it is all that they need. They can blame me for anything they like because I don't believe that any magistrate could agree with them. I'm not having a blast at you, I'm just becoming weary of their incompetence with their own system.

Depending on your bank it may be possible to download just a list of transactions from the DWP. I know you can do this from a Barclays account. It's probable others have similar systems.

wakeupalarm

Someone else reporting a similar issue
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6234561/random-universal-credit-payments#latest

prs899

I'm experiencing a similar problem. In Nov, Dec and Jan random payments have some into my bank account with a 'DWP UC' reference. I called DWP and they had no record of payments associated with me or my address and could offer no further help on how to resolve. Could I ask what DWP postal address you wrote to? Thanks

TELLIT01

As with the OP, best advice is to contact your MP and tell them that DWP aren't interested in recovering the money.

John72Oliver

Hi

I've had a response and I intend to write back. I'm wondering if anybody thinks I m being un/reasonnable please?

They have sent me a letter which aknowledges the issue and goes on to say that I should pay money into one of their bank accounts for Pensions and another for Income Support. It then goes on to list the dates and amounts for payments from pensions and another list for payments from Pension Credit. Between the two lists there are five mistakes. Two incorrect dates and three transactions are missing. They also seem to be asking me to pay the pension credits amount into their income support account but that is not made clear at all.

I intend to write back and say that although I want to pay the money back to them I want the bill to be correct. I want to point out that it is not clear that the money for pension credits should go to the income support account and if this is the case then they should make it clear.

I also want to point out the the lists of transactions are incorrect. I want to do this without saying what their mistakes are. My reason for that is because they should have all of this information on their system and there is no reason not to get it right. I am worried that if I supply them with the correct list they could come back to me later disputing amounts and blaming me on the basis that they were acting on information supplied by me.

I'm not just being a jerk about this. I know that the civil service will have other people look at this case in the future and assess it's merit. These are unlikely to be the people handling the case now and will simply see mistakes and want them rectifed. I want this situation to be concluded in the space of one payment or group of payments from me and for that to be the end of it.

Does this all seem reasonable to you?

Thanks in advance

John72Oliver

TELLIT01 said:

As with the OP, best advice is to contact your MP and tell them that DWP aren't interested in recovering the money.

prs899 - I have just scanned over your thread and I would say this to you:

1. Do not spend the money that they give you, put it aside and be ready to pay it back.
2. Contact the UC Department (https://www.gov.uk/universal-credit/contact-universal-credit) and make a note of the time and date and the name of any people with whom you discuss the matter. Do not agree to pay any money back until they have confirmed and fixed their error and sent you a correct bill asking for the money back.
3. If that doesn't work write to them (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/new-dwp-postal-addresses) explaining everything and asking them to stop paying you and to send you a correct bill for you to pay the money back.
4. Only if you have followed the prvious two steps and not gained a satisfactory conclusion can you go through your MP. Your MP's secretary will deal with the matter and you will be asked to demonstrate that you have made reasonable efforts to deal with yourself.

If this gets as far as an MP intervention you will be asked by DWP to provide bank statements showing all of the transactions. You don't have to do that, your bank account is your own private business. You should provide them with as much information as possible though. A spreadsheet with dates, amounts and any references that they have left on your bank account is satisfactory.

When you do get a bill from them make sure that it is exactly correct. If it is not ask them to correct it and pay them when they have sent you a correct bill.

I'm going to post this on your thread as well.