worried about many UC reviews
Hi all,
Does anyone else feel victimised by the UC reviews. I have submitted my bank statements only 2 months ago and having to supply my past 4 years. I am on LWRCA and pip. I got backdated payment after waiting a long period for pip and DWP have been asking questions on my transactions as I spent on moving home. This is causing me severe mental health. I know Ime okay and no wrong doing has occurred but this is the 3rd time in two years. Is this happening elsewhere to others?
Comments
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Your back payment is disregarded for a year so whatever you spent your payback on I thought was up to you dreading it I spend money like water and don't remember what on that must be extremely stressful
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Hi @Ellen108 and welcome to the community 😊 I'm sorry it's affecting your mental health. I can completely understand, it feels so invasive and makes you worry that you're doing something wrong. I've also had to supply years of bank statements which I found really stressful, not to mention a waste of paper! This was a couple of years ago and we heard nothing back from them. I would have felt much better if they had even just said that everything was ok. Just keep reminding yourself that you're not doing anything wrong.
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Hi Ellen, yes going through the same process, my experience so far is they presume you are guilty until you have proved your innocence. The review telephone interview took over an hour and at the end of it you're presented with demands to produce bank statements with threats to close your benefits if you don't comply. My interviewer has made it quite clear that any organisation like a bank is third party to them and that I am solely responsible for producing evidence to support my innocence, whether or not the banks supply the required statements within the specified time frame, ie hard luck if they don't. The whole exercise seems weighted in favour of catching claimants out, whether or not they have done anything wrong. And of course the stated aim in Parliament is to cut claimant numbers and cases of "fraud". I wouldn't be surprised if quite a few claimants have their benefits stopped because the evidence provided hasn't been sufficient for them, even though they've done nothing wrong.
Grit your teeth and keep going Ellen, try to make sure you give them everything they ask for.
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I'm dreading my spending out of control and I won't remember half of what I spent on
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Catherine,
I'll remind you what I said before, they should only be checking what goes in and has remained in if over 6k and anyone who's been abroad for longer than 4 weeks spending in another country.
what goes out is absolutely none of their business, either redact all outgoings with a permanent marker or tell them to rack off if they quiz any outgoings.
You can buy what you like, if they make any threats remind them this is still is a free country and they are still a nobody with too much old rattle.
Be firm stand up for your freedom.
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You always make people feel better even when your suffering really appreciate what you do for me and the group x
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you're welcome at the end of the day these work coaches have too much to say and seem to push their luck, knowing very well outgoings are not their concern.
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Keep praying postcode lottery will come to my street
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They're mostly interested in big spends Ellen, things costing over £100 or more, especially new cars, holidays etc. Once you've been on benefits for a while, you won't have any money for big spends anyway! But if you do buy anything over £100 in the meantime, in your shoes I'd buy a little notebook and jot down the date + cost + what it was for - end of worries ; ) Things like a new mattress or a new microwave, or repairs to your heating, everyone has these things and that's acceptable expenditure, nothing to worry about.
The other thing they want to know about are things like: 1. Have you got a secret partner giving you regular payments 2. Are you paying a secret partner regularly 3. Have you money stashed away in stocks and shares etc 4. Have you got another house you're renting out + getting paid for. etc etc
In other words, they want to know if there's any regular money coming in or going out of your account that you haven't declared and would make you better off than you've told them. eg I'm housebound and get a family relative to do my shopping, and I pay him regularly into his bank account. They suspected he was a secret partner and quizzed me on it - bad luck they found nothing!
Another thing they're "big" on is inheritance, eg if one of your parents / spouse have died, what have you done with the money. So make sure everyone you tot it up and can justify expenditure if this is you. If the inheritance is the property you are living in, then that's not counted as income and you'll be ok.
Also note you can make a bit on the side by selling your belongings (if you're desperate), they allow you to keep the first few hundred pounds (but check, I can't remember what they told me). If you sell stuff for cash so much the better, you don't need to go through the rigmarole of justifying every last penny that way.
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Got to warn you NightCity, you've got to be careful about spending loads before you sign on for benefits. DWP calls this "deprivation of assets" and they'll stop your benefits + demand repayments if they catch you out. They can be nasty, whether or not you stand up for your rights…
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What if you have a condition that causes you too have no impulse control
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They don't stop benefits they calculate everything you gone over by and do monthly paybacks
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i believe as had been said many times they are checking to see if you are getting the correct amount whether you have money not declared if you are over the amount before your money starts to taper off what you spend your money on is up to you if you abide by the rules you have nothing to fret over
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Hi Catherine21, what I'd do in that case is make sure I have a written statement from a health professional, doctor, psychiatrist, or someone similar, that says I have a compulsion to buy things. That way if they ask you why you've splashed out loads of cash you can prove you have a condition that makes you do it. If you've not got a written statement, I'd make an appointment with your doc or whoever and explain why you need one. Better to be prepared in advance than wait for the DWP to threaten you with benefit cuts because you've no proof you have a problem.
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Yes you're right, I meant to say that.. I think Labour have just shrunk the amount you need to pay back to 25% of your benefit (mentioned in the budget). That's still a huge chunk when you get peanuts in the first place though.
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Dammed right Summerlove. Most fraud is not committed by benefit claimants, they make up a tiny percentage of UK fraud, last year 3.7%:
"Four fifths of reported fraud are cyber-enabled according to the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau. The most common types of fraud in the UK are payment diversion fraud, investment fraud, romance fraud, courier fraud as well as cheque, plastic card and online bank account fraud." Quotation from:
https://www.nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk/what-we-do/crime-threats/fraud-and-economic-crime
As usual, they target the easy ones / victims, in other words us, and let the real criminals escape through the net. This fraud investigation was of course set up by Mel Stride + friends, but Labour are showing their true colours, carrying on with the full program just the same. It's all to show those with the real money (investors) they are keeping the system going just like the Tories. Same reason they wouldn't remove the 2-child benefit cap, slashed the oldies heating allowance, won't increase income support by more than 1% next year, etc etc.
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No, they always go after the little guys + gals, the ones least likely to fight back
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