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Brown envelope's arrived after years of nothing!

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10 months 1 week ago #280790 by petrocelli
Hi all

Been out of the loop for a long time.

As always feeling sick to the pit of my stomach, just home to find brownie on the doormat, no form to complete just a letter which reads;

About your claim for benefit
We need some information from you.

Dear

We are missing some information about you. We have been unable to contact you by pone. To allow quick and easy communication with you please give us an up to date phone number that we can contact you on.

Please call us on the number at th top of this letter to give us your phone number. Or fill in the section called your reply and send it back to us. You can use the nvelope we have sent you. It does not need a stamp.
Yours sincerely
R
Compliance Officer

I stated on the last form I had, /2016/before that I'd, as was my right, not supplied my phone number as I find unexpected official calls very distressing (as you can imagine, certainly by the DWP). I have a Mental Health worker shadowing me at the moment, if she phoned them next week on my behalf and asked that they deal with me via the post only, given that they have a note in a box on the letr telling me 'We have many ways we can communicate with you........listing a few followed by 'somthing else please tell us using the phone number at the top of this letter'.

Is the missing information they want my phone number or could it be something else? Anyone else had one of these who might be able to shed some light? Exactly what does a 'compliance officer deal with please'.

I get told off for negatvie thinking so much and because I'll reach 66years in a few months and will then have my state pension, I had that niggling thought they'd be in touch this year, its usually March!

Any help/info grately received.

I was just starting to come back up a bit, mentally, now wallop.

Heartfelt thanks P.

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10 months 1 week ago #280799 by BIS
Hi Petrocelli

Compliance officers check that people are receiving the level of benefits they are entitled to. I can't tell you any more than that because what they want to know is decided on a case-to-case basis, and therefore you may want to ask your mental health worker to contact them. They are unlikely to have contacted you just to ask for a telephone number.

BIS

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10 months 1 week ago #280813 by petrocelli
Replied by petrocelli on topic Brown envelope's arrived after years of nothing!
Thanks Bis, my worker got through to them about an hour ago and will speak with DWP again Monday. Thank goodness my worker is still with me, as I have no family, partner, children or anyone I would entrust to make phone call for me. My GP is off sick and will then go straight into retirement and non of the other doctors know me like she did!

I don't claim PIP because it's bad enough dealing with ESA (C)...........my worker and arthritis sector think I should put in for it!!!!!!!!

I know I'm not alone in my situation, but as usual, my heartfelt thanks to all mods and members, no doubt if this is a long haul I shall be popping up more often.
Kind regards
P.
The following user(s) said Thank You: Gary

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10 months 2 days ago #281102 by petrocelli
Replied by petrocelli on topic Brown envelope's arrived after years of nothing!
Hi all
I never want to experience that again,can't tell you how my stress levels have suffered.
What I will share with you though is that in good faith I went somewhere that we're all often signposted to for help to ascertain whether or not I could do something due to ESA (C). Thank God I asked them for it in writing, just incase. That was over 5 yrs ago. They got the first part correct, that this financial amount was within allowance, however, they told me that because of which I did NOT have to inform DWP. The consequential damages to myself via my health, not good because another Government organisation must have contacted DWP after I phoned them the previous week, which I hasten to add, I'd been phoning once a year for the same thing, since I commenced ESA! Without my worker to facilitate the call on their phone and for them to bear witness to the letter I had, which was self explanatory as to why I hadn't contacted the DWP about it. The call was like a machine gun was firing questions at me.................horrendous, suffice to say relieved it's over and they don't tell you the REAL reason for the call straight away!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Kind regards an exhausted P.
The following user(s) said Thank You: Gordon

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2 months 3 weeks ago #287434 by petrocelli
Replied by petrocelli on topic Brown envelope's arrived after years of nothing!
Hi all

I now have my state pension, thank God, however, I felt the need to come back and ask the following................especially to Gordon.

Since that awful experience, I've been clearing out a great deal of paperwork. Amongst my paperwork I came across 3 letters from different places that I went for advice regarding having two small pensions coming in, less than the £85 allowance. They'd all advised me of the same in that, I didn't need to contact the DWP as I was receiving less than the allowance.

They couldn't all have been wrong and then it dawned on me:
My DWP journey had gone Invalidity Benefit to Incapacity Benefit to ESA (CB)., might it have been the case that due to the TRANSITION RULES the DWP were in the wrong to put me through the hell that they did. I'm asking not just for myself but for others' too?

One of the letters I had was from a well known qualified benefits advisor, who like so many of them uses Rights net.

Kind regards
P.

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2 months 3 weeks ago #287440 by Gordon
p

I'm going to say that it was bad advice for you not to contact the DWP. It may well be that your total pension payments are under the £85 but you still have an obligation to contact the DWP about them. There is a UTT case published today about this very subject albeit that the claimant's pensions were over the £85 limit but still in regard to notifying the DWP and the claimant lost

You don't say when your pensions started and what benefit you were claiming at the time.

There were circumstances for Incapacity Benefit where the claimant's pensions were disregarded, this may have been the case for you. The disregard would have been carried forward to ESA.

Whether this was the case or not, if the pensions started when you were still receiving IB or even before then the problem likely lies with the DWP and the total failure of the IB staff to keep proper records.

There hasn't been one on the forum for a while but we used to regularly get former IB claimants being chased by the DWP for information about their pensions.

I'm glad to hear that everything is now OK.

Gordon

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