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DWP & Pension

Sam0101
Posts: 13 Forumite

I received a letter from my Bank today stating that the DWP had tried to access the old joint account which related to both myself and late wife in order to recover overpayment on my late wife's pension. I contacted Bank to find out more about this, quoting ref and Bank cannot find any details. DWP have never been in touch with me regarding any arrears, in fact the DWP have sent a payment on to the old joint account prior to it's change to a single named account - acknowledging a £65 underpayment was made ( I seriously think the underpayment was £350. light as the payments from the start of my wife's pension were paid 3 weeks in arrears) Seems a bit disturbing that DWP can just try and pull money from accounts without informing individuals - does this sound right? I have already had one conversation with DWP and frankly am not really up for an argument regarding my wife's pension - the last call resulted in me being cut -off when i tried to discuss the 3 weeks in advance situation. Any help is appreciated.
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There is little alternative I am afraid to you disentangling the different (multiple issues) that may exist and trying again
1) a historic miscalculation and underpayment for which you are aware a payment was made but are clearly unhappy about it and don't currently believe in the calculation used for (what may be) the correction payment. But without details nobody here could tell you one way or the other if it's correct, or she was still underpaid.
2) when in the payment cycle the death certificate date is, and the impact on that months payment as may exist - overpayment etc. It not being uncommon for a pension to have been overpaid and reclaimed from estate around the month of death as a "true up" along with any checks on inheritance issues for the subset of people for whom older state pensions are still entangled.
If you try again with a DWP pension centre by phone then it will be helpful to disentangle in your own mind first what you wish to achieve from the call. Closure. Or digging up the historic underpayment issue (or understanding thereof if correct), Or settling estate affairs (2). A front line telephone agent is much less likely to be able to cope with an obscure version of the former (hand off to specialist team working historic error cases - workflow not phones more than likely).
The latter death date vs payment and entitltement is a much more common transaction.
And if you muddle the two up a successful call is going to be challenging - as always depending on the luck of the draw around the experience level of the agent.
If you find that call centre process difficult then gathering the records and writing to them - will perhaps work better for you
So before you close this off by resolving issue 2. You need to take a view if you have a genuine case of prior error, of a size where you still wish to take the time and effort to pursue it further for a potential issue 1. Without specifics it would be hard for forum members to help you decide
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Sam0101 said:I received a letter from my Bank today stating that the DWP had tried to access the old joint account which related to both myself and late wife in order to recover overpayment on my late wife's pension. I contacted Bank to find out more about this, quoting ref and Bank cannot find any details. DWP have never been in touch with me regarding any arrears, in fact the DWP have sent a payment on to the old joint account prior to it's change to a single named account - acknowledging a £65 underpayment was made ( I seriously think the underpayment was £350. light as the payments from the start of my wife's pension were paid 3 weeks in arrears) Seems a bit disturbing that DWP can just try and pull money from accounts without informing individuals - does this sound right? I have already had one conversation with DWP and frankly am not really up for an argument regarding my wife's pension - the last call resulted in me being cut -off when i tried to discuss the 3 weeks in advance situation. Any help is appreciated.
I'd make written complaints to both the bank and the DWP, depending on how much you wish to pursue the issue.Googling on your question might have been both quicker and easier, if you're only after simple facts rather than opinions!0 -
Some type of scam???0
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Was your wife receiving Attendance Allowance?
When my husband died in 2015 he was paid his weekly AA 2 days later, before I could register his death. I was asked to pay this back by the DWP, about 5 months after I was widowed. DWP wrote to the solicitor who had dealt with the probate, who passed it on to me.
State Pension is paid in arrears. I got a letter from the DWP a few days after I registered the death and did "Tell Us Once". I was quickly paid the SP due to my husband between the date of his last SP payment and the date he died. I was also paid his Winter Fuel Allowance as he was alive in the qualifying week.
I was happy to pay back the AA, but was surprised that they contacted me via the probate solicitor, and didn't deduct it from either of the payments made to me. Its probably because sub sections of the DWP deal with different things?
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All sorted out, Nationwide Bank again have blocked a fraudulent attempt - good on them1
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