Child Tax Credit - Messed Around By HRMC

svssolutions1

Hi,

I am in the process of having a claim for Chid Tax Credits processed by HMRC, the problem is that they have had the completed forms for 3 weeks now and nothing has been done with them, I have called a few times and each time I am told different things, the latests today was that my wifes NI numbers does not exist - I have had to call and find this out they have not contacted me.

The problem is that this money will really mean the difference to my family as I was made redundant 3 months ago and all I am getting is "Income Based JSA" bearing in mind that I have me, my wife and 5 kids all under 7 who I need to provide for. As you can imagine, its not a nice place to be but I just want to get myself sorted. Is there anything anyone can recommend to get the claim speeded up and processed at least before Christmas?

Thanks

Gaz83

Is your wife a UK national?

I used to work for HMRC but it was a couple of years ago I left - but don't you get the equivalent of the CTC paid in with income-based JSA?

System

If they are saying your wifes NI number does not exist then this might flag your claim up as a potential fraud case and so it would not be in their interest to warn you that they were investigating you and your wife.

Make an appointment at your local HMRC enquiry centre and take proof of your NI numbers and ID (photographic and address) so that they can pass them on to TCO and hopefully get your claim into payment.

BTW waiting more than 3 weeks for a claim to go into payment is not unusual.

Gemmzie

I've been waiting 12 weeks now for a WTC claim, they are useless.

System

Gemmzie wrote: »

I've been waiting 12 weeks now for a WTC claim, they are useless.

What reason have they given for the delay?

A claim can sit as "awaiting award" forever due to simple things like mis-spelt names, being Ms instead of Miss, a person appearing on another live claim or mistakes with dates of birth. In those cases just calling to clarify those details and having any errors corrected can push the award into payment.

Scarlett1

svssolutions1 wrote: »

Hi,

I am in the process of having a claim for Chid Tax Credits processed by HMRC, the problem is that they have had the completed forms for 3 weeks now and nothing has been done with them, I have called a few times and each time I am told different things, the latests today was that my wifes NI numbers does not exist - I have had to call and find this out they have not contacted me.

The problem is that this money will really mean the difference to my family as I was made redundant 3 months ago and all I am getting is "Income Based JSA" bearing in mind that I have me, my wife and 5 kids all under 7 who I need to provide for. As you can imagine, its not a nice place to be but I just want to get myself sorted. Is there anything anyone can recommend to get the claim speeded up and processed at least before Christmas?

Thanks

are you not claiming joint JSA of £90 or 5 x child benefit ?

charmedy2k

Hi,

Pam is right about 3 weeks not being unusual, they had my bleeding forms for six months before I found out what was wrong!
I've been on materinity leave since April this year so my income is very low £112.75 a week to be exact and yet the TCO messed me about to the point where I was diagnosed with depression by my doctor.
I spent almost everyday of this six months calling the helpline who could only tell me that it was awaiting a payment schedule and it should only take a few more days, weeks, blah blah blah!
Eventually I decided enough was enough and went down to my local HMRC enquiry centre to sort it out in person, there they told me that my sons date of birth was incorrect on their system and I would need to provide them with birth certificates for both my children, to say I was highly annoyed is the understatement of the year!!
What I can't believe is that for six months they held up my claim because some idiot hadn't entered the information right in the first place and what makes it worse is that I never recieved so much as a letter to tell me something was wrong, if I hadn't of taken the initiative to head down to the enquiry centre I would still not have had my claim sorted out now. And whats really funny is that for the 150+ phonecalls I made to the TC Helpline before my visit, not once did an advisor say well it seems that we can't match your son's date of birth to his Child benefit number, but a week after I had been down to the enquiry centre to sort it out one of the helpline advisors was able to tell me that very same thing!

So my advice to you is to try and get an appointment before Xmas and take all your information, birth certificates, NI numbers, P45 (even if they haven't asked for it because they have a really bad habit of losing things or getting things wrong!) and hopefully they will be able to get it sorted in a matter of days (hopefully).

P.S. I don't really blame the helpline advisors because I understand that there is a lack of communication with the TCO (they only communicate by email), and in my phonecalls I spoke with some exceptionally helpful advisors but then I also spoke to some exceptionally rude and unhelpful staff too who don't seem to be able to understand how someones life can actually be affected detrimentally by the TCO.

Gemmzie

Pam17 wrote: »

What reason have they given for the delay?

A claim can sit as "awaiting award" forever due to simple things like mis-spelt names, being Ms instead of Miss, a person appearing on another live claim or mistakes with dates of birth. In those cases just calling to clarify those details and having any errors corrected can push the award into payment.

They haven't when I phoned it (six weeks ago) they said it was processed and ready to go. Have heard nothing since. Will phone them again later

Gemmzie

Phoned them again and they are looking for my claim - useless

jay1jay

Charmedy2k"some idiot hadn't entered the information right in the first place"Claim forms are "read" by computer. Maybe it was your handwriting at fault rather than "some idiot".

charmedy2k

Jay1Jay I do not wish to get into a debate with you, but I can tell you now that I keep copies of all the forms I send to HMRC, My handwriting is as clear as day and the form was filled in in block capitals and all the numbers on my form were written clearly, So I refute your claim that my handwriting was to blame. Maybe it was the X multimillion pound computer system that seems to keep crashing for days on end that is at fault, did you consider that?

I simply wanted to point out that it is best to go down to the HMRC enquiry centre and get it sorted there, as I am living proof that they do get it wrong!
And unfortunately a lot of the helpline advisors don't tell you that you can go there and they hold the information about your claim too!