Friends ESA stopped due to fraudulent UC claim.

kkkklinky

I will give a full breakdown:
Friend received migration letter in November to claim UC by middle of February. Decided to claim in February. Doesn't receive her ESA payment and is told that she has started a UC claim but it is incomplete due to only providing email, nI number, address and name, the email and phone number are not hers. She has been told that once a claim is started it ends your ESA even if the application is incomplete or incorrect. This sounds bad to me because all someone would need is your name and address and your money is stopped.

She has a communal mailbox and spend a day in hospital and suspects someone on that day has stolen the reminder migration notice and used that to start a claim. The fraudsters have not been able to provide a DOB, or any other documents only information that is in the migration letter(which is usually sent 6 weeks before you have to claim which is around now)

She is now worried she will have to go through the WCA again. Any advice.

UPDATE. They did not provide her N I Number(error on my part)just checked my old migration notice and there is no NI number just a reference number 

huckster

Friend should make a claim to UC online with their correct information and attend local Job Centre to prove their identity. And query that some third party has allegedly tried to fraudulently make the claim in her name stopping the ESA claim. Ask the Job Centre to raise an investigation into what has happened.

The third party would not provide NI number as part of making UC claim. For a UC claim to be correctly made ID would have to be verified.  It is only after ID has been verified that the UC system would assign correct NI number.