Overpaid carer's allowance 2 September 2022 at 3:37PM in Benefits & tax credits 15 replies 994 views

Brie

So far we have contacted DWP 3 times to advise them that OH shouldn't be still getting carer's allowance.  And they keep paying it.  Now obviously this is not a massive amount of money (under £280 a month) but they are obviously going to notice eventually and ask for the excess back.  Not a problem as I'm keeping it ring fenced so it can go back to them.  

But rather than ring yet again and wait an hour for someone to pick up is there any way that we can advise them?  I'm tempted to send them a letter with a cheque so someone actually has to deal with something.  And it would at least show that we are willing to co-operate as I know their default will be to make this something that is our fault.  

Any ideas?

Brie

Ignore me - I found this can now be reported online.  Which I have done complete with a comment to explain how many times we've informed them since May.  

Should anyone else need the info:

Report a change online at https://www.gov.uk/carers-allowance-report-change.

If you can’t report a change online you can contact the Carer’s Allowance Unit by post or telephone.

Carer’s Allowance Unit
Mail Handling Site A
Wolverhampton
WV98 2AB

Telephone: 0800 731 0297

Alice_Holt

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/79396734/#Comment_79396734

Write to them (keeping a copy) and list the dates / times you have contacted them.

If payments are still made, send a copy of that letter to your MP and ask for their intervention to get the CA ended.

Don't post a cheque - it will thoroughly confuse matters, and DWP may still chase you for payment.
( The cheque may be cashed, but not recorded against your CA account).

Brie

Alice_Holt said:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/79396734/#Comment_79396734

Write to them (keeping a copy) and list the dates / times you have contacted them.

If payments are still made, send a copy of that letter to your MP and ask for their intervention to get the CA ended.

Don't post a cheque - it will thoroughly confuse matters, and DWP may still chase you for payment.
( The cheque may be cashed, but not recorded against your CA account).

Thanks Alice - I knew I had posted something somewhere previously!!!  Just couldn't see it!!!  No dates available unfortunately but apparently the OH has done this online at least once so it should be in the ether somewhere.

calcotti

If you can confirm that you told them and they continued to pay then it is official error and they should not recover the overpayment.
As advised in your previous thread

calcotti said:

If you have informed the Carer's Allowance unit at the proper time and the Attendance Allowance has been correctly stopped then if CA payments have continued they are official error and they shouldn't recover it. They'll try but you can challenge it if it's their failure.

Brie

The Attendance Allowance was stopped a bit late - we kept expecting MiL to get out of hospital and then she'd get worse again.  And I was thinking it was 8 weeks rather than 4 or whatever.....anyways that overpayment was repaid and AA has been restarted after a couple of months when MiL moved into a care home from hospital. 

I'm sure I could find out the dates of the phone calls from our phone bill and then whatever emails have been sent from notifying them twice now online.  

xxxxxxxx

your phone records don't prove you got connected or what you said, you might have hung up before getting through. If you had a receipt acknowledgement email that says what you reported that should be good evidence.

9 times out of 10 if you did get through the CA staff will have recorded a note on your CA file and they will not try to recover it.  but it depends what you told them and when.  From the date you first told them it would be non recoverable. 

I'm pretty sure you can declare you continued to care for them when they were in hospital, if so, you are allowed (I think) the first 4 weeks CA while they are in Hosp.  But if you told them you stopped caring when they went into hosp then you will have a larger overpayment. 

If I were you, I would phone CA and ask them to read you the date of the earliest note that you informed them of the ceased to care.   They are also your notes and you can ask for a copy to be sent to you. should you feel the need to.  

However in my experience when you tell them you have stopped caring they stop the payments there and then so it sounds strange that payments have continued.   It depends what you told them.  

JIL

xxxxxxxx said:

your phone records don't prove you got connected or what you said, you might have hung up before getting through. If you had a receipt acknowledgement email that says what you reported that should be good evidence.

9 times out of 10 if you did get through the CA staff will have recorded a note on your CA file and they will not try to recover it.  but it depends what you told them and when.  From the date you first told them it would be non recoverable. 

I'm pretty sure you can declare you continued to care for them when they were in hospital, if so, you are allowed (I think) the first 4 weeks CA while they are in Hosp.  But if you told them you stopped caring when they went into hosp then you will have a larger overpayment. 

If I were you, I would phone CA and ask them to read you the date of the earliest note that you informed them of the ceased to care.   They are also your notes and you can ask for a copy to be sent to you. should you feel the need to.  

However in my experience when you tell them you have stopped caring they stop the payments there and then so it sounds strange that payments have continued.   It depends what you told them.  

But the phone records will give a time and as the message says, our calls are recorded for training and quality purposes.

I'm not sure it will go on what the op has told them. It will be covered in guidance and it will be seen to be a temporary break in caring, because it wont be known what the eventual outcome will be.

If it comes to you being asked to repay, I would advise you do a sequence of events.

So something like this.

1/1/22 mrs x admitted to hospital 
14/1/22 @ time  contacted carers allowance. 
30/1/22 no response so contacted again
Xx/xx/×× discharged from hospital into care home.

xxxxxxxx

Your phone record is circumstantial evidence, it proves nothing other than what time you called and started waiting in the queue. 
If you hung up after an hour out of frustration that's on you. 
You would need the name and the office of the person who answered your call and the time that they said "hello" for them to find and listen to the call.  
If you know you did talk to them and the conversation took no more than 5 mins then you know with a fair amount of accuracy, from your phone record, what time they said "hello".  

I would stipulate 

14/1/22 called CA at 14:00 waited in queue, call was answered by Jackie from DWP office Bootle Service Centre at approx 14:55, call ended at 15:01

Brie

Turns out it's unlikely that any phone evidence will be available as apparently (!!!) phone companies are BY LAW (!!!!!??!?!) not allowed to keep a record of any 800 numbers you ring.  Not sure when that started as I always used to see those when we were with BT.  But now we're with ee and that's what they are telling me.  I have as a result asked for a SAR to get all the records they hold of any calls made over the relevant period.....just in case.

Yes and normally I keep rather detailed notes of calls made but for some reason didn't for these.  But having logged online recently that the CA should have stopped by now (citing that previous contact had been made) I received an email confirming the change being logged.  That was on 2nd Sept.  Having got this email I asked the OH if he had received something similar and he still had it - and that was dated 20th June!  So likely they will claim there was an overpayment of about a month.  So maybe £260 something to be repaid which is much better than something approaching £1k.  I don't mind repaying if we've been slow to report stuff, we repaid some of MiL's AA as well.  But I object to being asked for money when it's not our fault.

JIL

xxxxxxxx said:

Your phone record is circumstantial evidence, it proves nothing other than what time you called and started waiting in the queue. 
If you hung up after an hour out of frustration that's on you. 
You would need the name and the office of the person who answered your call and the time that they said "hello" for them to find and listen to the call.  
If you know you did talk to them and the conversation took no more than 5 mins then you know with a fair amount of accuracy, from your phone record, what time they said "hello".  

I would stipulate 

14/1/22 called CA at 14:00 waited in queue, call was answered by Jackie from DWP office Bootle Service Centre at approx 14:55, call ended at 15:01

Calls are also logged back to numbers, so if mr brie was able to say I phoned from my mobile number of xxx and a rough date the call can be traced.