Does anyone know WTF this letter means

Pudsey Bear

Pudsey Bear

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Is it beyond them to explain in the damned letter so a thick effer like me does not have to ring them and waste time for everyone they have sent this too?

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If I was you, I'd hold back on booking the cruise until you've seen the new payment.
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they are already taking £56 a month off use coz they effed up by paying us too much even though we and they have evidence that we informed them in advance of a change in circumstances.

They are just crap.
 
Pudsey Bear said:
they are already taking £56 a month off use coz they effed up by paying us too much even though we and they have evidence that we informed them in advance of a change in circumstances.

They are just crap.
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You need to talk to DWP, Kev. There's nobody here qualified to comment on the principles, and more importantly, the specifics of your case. One thing I would raise with DWP is, if you raised the issue of an overpayment with them and they assured you that you were entitled to it, and you then altered your position in reliance of that assurance, and in good faith, DWP should not seek to reclaim that overpayment. It would be an overpayment arising from a DWP mistake after you had queried whether it was correct and had been assured that it was a valid payment to you. There is an important rider to this. If the Benefit that DWP is clawing back at £52.69pw was, say, £65pw as a standard amount detailed in the current year's Benefits Leaflet, and you were paid £117.69pw, then you would be hard pressed to claim that you had relied on DWP's assurance that the £117.69pw was correct, because you had a leaflet that said otherwise.

I had a Jobseeker's Payment awarded on an interim basis about 15 years ago and queried it. I was told that it was a valid payment and the quirky amount [less than a full week's payment] would have been because of a deduction of 3 days waiting tme to qualify and a timing difference, and 'these things make it difficult to work out what you're due from the first payment, best to wait until your first full payment is processed'. Next thing was an overpayment claim, so I wrote to the Debt Recovery Team in Gloucester and made my case for not repaying. It took them 2 years+ to process the case, but they wrote the overpayment off because I had queried the payment with DWP, there was no glaring error, and I had been assured that the wrong payment was in fact correct ...

Steve
 
Fear not I will be on the phone 8am sharp, and claiming pension credit as that deduction takes us below the level.
 
Hope you've got an unlimited minutes phone contact ?
Monday morning is one bad time to phone anyone working for financial entities..
Particularly, if they're WFH and it's school hours.
Hope it's not over stressful 🙂
 
I normally just start at 07.59 and hang on while I do you emails n forum stuff, 30 mins is fairly normal for me.
 
Pauljenny said:
Hope you've got an unlimited minutes phone contact ?
Monday morning is one bad time to phone anyone working for financial entities..
Particularly, if they're WFH and it's school hours.
Hope it's not over stressful 🙂
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Correct, spent over a hr twice last week trying to get my private pension sorted, a 5 year old would have sorted it faster.
 
WELL!!

I slept in til 08:40 so missed calling early, so I got my breakfast ready and made us a cup of tea, sat down in the lounge and started getting me drugs for the day sorted in amongst I thought I'd better ring DWP and at least get in the queue, and then sort my emails out and look on the forums, I didn't even get as far as picking up my laptop before I was being spoken at by DWP, so no long wait for me, not even 1 minute.

Anyway I digress, on phone for 31 minutes with no result, the lad I spoke to said it made no sense, he could see there was a debt recovery in progress, but no sign of the letter in any place he looked so I now have to ring back on the same number but choose pension credit, and if that fails to ring the head office number, they are not allowed to go into the debt management side as it has details not for outside that department, bank etc.

So I'll go again tomorrow unless I can stand the pain later today.
 
All you need to check what your pension is now, then multiply the £105 by 4 to find out how much you are better off. Ignore the rest because you cannot do anything about it unless theDWP has cocked up and the calculations are wrong.

My State Pension has risen by around 11 or 12%.
 
We apparently owe them £291.17p

They will take £161.77 every four weeks.

from 2/2/23 £161.77
from 2/3/23 £129.40

until paid back, still no wiser re letter in OP.
 
Pudsey Bear said:
We apparently owe them £291.17p

They will take £161.77 every four weeks.

from 2/2/23 £161.77
from 2/3/23 £129.40

until paid back, still no wiser re letter in OP.
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Kev, DWP should be able to explain what the overpayment relates to, so that you ARE the wiser. A 'it's what you owe us' is not an explanation! At the very least, DWP ought to be able to say, e.g. 'You were receving Pension Credit of £x pw between dd/mm/yyyy and dd/mm/yyyy, but the State Pension increased by £x pw on dd/mm/yyyy. The £x pw increase should have been matched by a reduction of £x pw in your State Pension from the State Pension increase date, but this was not processed for y weeks. So, you owe us £x for y weeks, = £291.17'

If DWP cannot provide this type of explanation, then they are open to challenge. They must be able to explain the basis of their reclaim of Benefits, otherwise someone in DWP could be fiddling the system/guessing/ covering up another mistake etc, and that would undermine public faith in the DWP Systems [and, despite the perennial criticism, DWP Payments do hit a very high degree of accuracy and the percentages of payments made in error or in response to fraudulent claims are very low, about 1.3% IIRC. But I accept readily that this degree of accuracy is small comfort if yours is one of the 1.3% of errors ...]

Steve
 
I keep out of the money stuff as it all goes into Lizs account for simplicity, I call them as it's in my name not hers and she speaks to them as it is her pension which causes the problems and she has the info in her head, it also stops me screaming at the dopey pratts who man the phones.

I'll call them tomorrow.
 
trevskoda said:
Brother in-laws wife works in a gov benefits office cause she is as thick as cement with a teachers degree. :LOL:
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So does my Daughter in Law Trev. She really enjoys her job when she knows they are trying to milk the system fraudulently. They soon regret trying it on.
When she realises she is dealing with a genuine hardship case she pulls out all the stops to get them everything they are entitled to and will follow up, for weeks if necessary until she is happy they are sorted. You would be surprised at what information she can pull up on her computer.
 
Go to GOV.UK DWP The new State Pension transition and contracting - out: fact sheet At some point in your life it looks like you have contracted out of the state pension during your working life, more than once.
My husband got a reduced State Pension because he had contracted out while he worked as a Miner
He gets a small Mine Workers Pension.
If you can't remember contracting out contact DWP or HMRC we found the HMRC to be the most helpful.

State Pension is paid every 4 weeks in arrears.
You might be eligible for Pension Credits if your income is below a certain amount. Pension Credits should get you a rent and Council tax reduction.
If you have any health issue you can also apply for the non means tested benefit Attendance Allowance.

Not everyone is aware that the State Pension is not paid automatically you have to apply for it we did it via GOV.UK or people can down load the forms and post them registered tracked mail.Do this 3months before your pension is due.
 
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