Beware sanctions ESA -pension

Afternoon

In October I took receipt of one of my pensions. I notified DWP. They wanted me to send a letter but this pension does not send letters it is an electronic system, email alerts to go into the system to read your letters etc. I told them this, not a problem they would send a form for me to authorise them to contact the pension people. Form came and was returned.

Then I got another form 2 weeks later asking for information about my pension and my husbands income/pensions. I am on contribution based ESA in the support group.
I rang them up, they looked on the system and told me to ignore the form, I may get another but mu husbands income does not count and they have my authorisation. They have contacted the pension provider.

Today I got a letter, 4 pages long with a load of gobbledegook with dates about amounts of money 2015-2016. The only relevant one line was " we will nolonger pay your ESA
from the 17th Dec 2017 but you qualify for £10 Christmas bonus"

Rang them up, took the usual forever costing money to get through. Apparently I have been sanctioned because my pension fund had not returned the info requested. A nice chap suggested I return the form anyway with a printout of my pension details even though it insists on the original letter. To speed up a resolution take the form to the jobcentre for an internal mail transfer. I assume I will not be getting any money for the period they sent the form until they sort this out. The excuse is that they don't want to overpay me and me struggle to pay it back.... Excuse me but what do they think having no money does, makes you say thank you Santa!

Husband has taken the letter.

The fact is that letter did not mention sanction, it did not mention a form, it did not say anything of any significance other than to intend to confuse, upset and get some money out of those they say they are there to help. If I did not have my brain in the chilled place today this would have been a free fall disaster and I suspect anyone with severe mental health problems would be in a terrible state

So please anyone gets a stupid gobbledegook letter, don't panic! Call them up, put the phone down and drink tea, watch the TV, while waiting with the phone on speaker. They have completely lost the plot or should I say the computer system has

Will update when I find out how much they have sanctioned me, or if it actually does get resolved anytime soon.

Merry Christmas

Update

Finally got paid yesterday following another phone call. The lady on the phone was very helpful (called on 4th Jan) and was confused as to why I was not paid. Anyway its sorted now until the next one. I also asked for details regarding my award. I did not have a F2F assessment this time. I am down as long term and the report arrived today. It states no expected improvement in the long term based on further deterioration shown in letters from specialists etc since last F2F. Just one paragraph. I did not get a letter stating how long just a standard letter saying due to changes you are in the support group.

Thanks Gordon

when I rang up the first time about the pension, I asked and was told 3 years. I forgot to ask for my report. This time I asked for my report and how long the award was for, just to check, the lady said there was no DM report or letter on the system, just the statement from the medical assessor on the system and the conclusion from the report 'Prognosis reflects the longevity and chronic nature of the clients conditions.' The lady just said 'Oh!' have they sent you a letter yet? I said I got the standard change one back in Sept but that was all.

I suspect things are getting a bit messy