Help needed!

calcotti

I think Robbie's approach is sensible.
Money is only yours for benefits purposes if you are the 'beneficial owner'. Clearly there is considerable doubt about that.
Currently you are investigating the matter.
In the unlikely event that the money is yours you will have been overpaid benefit but will be in a position to pay it off.

Hezy

Hi all 

Thank you for all the advice. It all got sorted out Tuesday and a letter came in the post today apologising for the error and thanking me for my prompt and honest response, which was nice.
So what happened was i got notice on my mobile app that £73000 was added to my balance. well at 0100 in the morning leads to no sleep for the rest of the night in confusion, concern and amazement. So after a hour on the phone to the bank i find its not a trick someone had indeed sent me a life changing amount of money. first thoughts where of a nice boat and spending the rest of my life in the sun on the sea teaching my kids and traveling the world. That was amazing, for 30 or seconds that played through my mind. Reality hit heavy and hard and i set my self to finding where this had come from. I had a bank account number sort code, and some abbreviated company name, that company house website said was apart of my local authority. Cool, dam not cool i was stone walled with, "your pulling my leg no way we could have done this" in various forms. 

So with a spark of clarity i remembered that at the start of the year i had a telephone call with my local careers service (part of the local council) that once a year assess my situation and may offer a "careers budget"  Which is a small amount of money i can use to "treat myself" Or pay for a course i want to do, like keeping my first aid upto date, or taking a class learning something new. So with remembering this i cross reference account numbers ect and bingo, i now know who the money came from and a solid "dam it was a error" So calling the local manager, she sprang into action, she initially got the same answers i did, untill she asked if she could have a screen shot or something showing that indeed this really did happen. So that sent and done and a long weekend of trying not to think of this rather large account balance, over with. We get some where, someone admitted to making a error i assume. and i have details of how to give the money back, Great you might think. No poor people cant send that amount of money from their accounts with out paying a charge to the bank. dam it! ok another few hours later and the local authority account person on the phone giving exact payment details and a kind lady from the bank helping and amused.

payment sent. charge refunded and a nice letter thanking me and apologising for the error and a letter to confirm i had this money in error and it wasn't mine in hand. I can let you all know what happened with a cuppa tea and nice feeling knowing that my dead grandmother would smother me with praise and a lovely Sunday lunch for such an honest boy.

Again thank you all for the advice, much needed.

Cheers
H

Spoonie_Turtle

PHEW!  So glad that's sorted for you, now hopefully you can rest easy.

Hezy

Thanks! 

Yes, cant believe how stressed i got with some one else's error. im normally to laid back to get concerned,

Bogof_OAP

It would have been nice if they'd let you keep some of it, say £100 or so, to make up for all your worry and the work involved in getting to the bottom of it.