MR not received - next steps

Kirkers

Hello all,

I have a very simple question, but have now spent over 3 hours on hold (two different phonecalls a week apart) to try to speak to someone at DWP who can answer my query.

I sent my PIP MR letter (2,500 words) on 18th April 1st class post. DWP are claiming that they have not yet received it. In retrospect, I should have sent it signed for, but money is extremely tight and I kind of resented it. 

When I speak to someone at DWP, they keep putting me through to Customer Services - hence the extremely long hold time. Will they just tell me to resend the letter via recorded delivery? Is there not an email address they can provide for me? My disability means that a trip to the PO where there are inevitably long queues is almost impossible for me. 

Thanks
Kirkers

poppy123456

When you ring any DWP department you will be speaking to someone from a call centre and not someone from DWP itself. 

Sending anything to DWP by recorded delivery is a waste of money because it doesn’t mean they will receive it the following day. All post going to DWP has to go through the same mail sorting process. It will be signed for by someone from Royal Mail. 

Letters are not treated as arriving until they’ve been added to the system which often takes anything up to a few weeks. 

There is no email address that you can use unfortunately.

They will eventually receive it but until then all you can do is wait for the decision to be made, which can take up to 12 weeks after it’s received. 

Kirkers

Thank you for that information. The deadline for the MR was today, and they've given me a two week extension, so guess I'll just sit tight for now and not waste anymore time phoning. 

poppy123456

You have 13 months to request the MR so if the deadline you mentioned is referring to the 1 month then no extension is needed. 

I would usually advise that you would need to give a reason but you’ve sent the request and you’ve also mentioned the MR request over the phone, which is fine. 

Deppi

@Kirkers Speaking from personal experience, and purely for PIP, and that goes from the original application, MR and more docs for MR, and even more while on appeal ( I kept sending to DWP anyway), I was using Next day special delivery, and I was calling at the end of the day to check it was in the system. I was practically asking them to confirm what the first page was saying on the top. And without a single exception, it was with them, in the system the next day, hours from delivery. I was posting here about that, but I took time off and deleted my account.

This "makes no difference" is not true from my experience. I respect areas are different, but then again, its the same PIP post address.

You seem to be in a challenging situation, spend the extra, check with them the next day by the end of the working day after you can see it was delivered, and write here a comment so people know how was your experience.

I bet it will be same like mine.

Kirkers

Ironically, I got a text today suggesting they'd received my MR. Shame, as I was going to write even more evidence and send it again. My daughter has been waiting 15 months for a tribunal hearing, so if they don't award me anything from my MR, I want to get to the appeal stage as quickly as possible because it's a long, long wait. 
Thanks for your comments.