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My brother took universal credit to tribunal and on 10 September won is case he never received the letter till 28 so rang them up said why haven’t u paid me they said they ad not received the letter so can take letter down job centre with other evidence so did  but could not understand them not getting letter so rang tribunal up they said you ad your case on 7 won on 10 we sent automatic on 10 to universal credit they are lieing then gave him 1014 took 680 of got 340 my brother who ad advisor message universal credit saying he was awarded full year’s housing benefit that’s 4700 then got awarded all hotel bills 2650 then they shouldn’t took 680 of that’s 7800 take 340 paid total 7460 this wot he should got is advisor message them told my bother message them nothing been heard from for two weeks they have gone past date when they supposed to pay by two mouths my bother got lot health problems he won case now they refusing to pay even tribunal said they have to pay can’t go to a decision maker or tribunal that’s wot done decision maker said no more money tribunal said how can do that are decision final they are lieing again can tack them to court

Sad thing is judges back up DWP and make themselves look like fools.

Unlawful is the name of the game, they said I had been overpaid by a certain amount which was incorrect, so I appealed against the decison. They had my appeal for 6 months and I heard nothing, meanwhile they kept sending me threatning pay now letters. I wrote to my MP, and the DWP then called me and said they would sort it (I was challenging the amount they said I owed, as I had correctly calculated it as less). They then paid me ANOTHER payment of UC (where is the logic?) to make the overpayment up to the amount they said it was and did an attachment to earnings order, withhout making a decision on my appeal. I will be back in contact with my MP.

I am so sorry to hear that this mother of two disabled children was treated with such cold-hearted callousness by the DWP. I am so glad she found the strength to pursue the matter so doggedly and that the Judicial Review revealed the truth. I would also like to thank her, the judge and B&W for publishing this Guide so that we all have access to this information should any of us find ourselves in the position of having been accidentally overpaid even when we had endeavoured to be truthful about our circumstances to the DWP.

i sent in a letter asking for an overpayment of ESA to be waived on financial grounds-when i called up to see what the outcome was they had simply marked it as no further action required on the letter -they said you couldnt ask for payment to be waived on finncial grounds-when i stated that you could according to the benefits handbook they spoke to a supervisor and came back saying you had to apply on a specific waiver form which they then sent out- it has now been completed and currently waiting on a decision which will very likely be negative by the sounds of things.

They said I had been overpaid in my contribution ESA.  I wrote to them and they never responded.  Proceeded to take off £22 every fortnight.  They are total assxxx holes.  It made me in arrears.  Why don't they take account when it was their error.  

I had to repay £7000 that DWP claimed I owed them for not letting them know I had a civil service I’ll health pension. When I had initially applied for benefits I had a home visit, as unable to get to their offices. The DWP agent was shown all my financial documents including the Civil Service Ill Health pension details. He left and gave me a check list ticked with what he had seen which included this pension. I had a breakdown at the time. Anyway this resulted in me having to sell my home and I now have to rent as unable to get mortgage. I have had cancer since then, had a stroke and lost a partner to cancer. I was advised by someone in a DWP call centre to try and claim this back but haven’t had the ability to do so and probably no chance of being repaid. As I said the agent had seen all details and recorded them.

Macmillan assisted me to claim carers allowance when my husband was diagnosed with cancer, his DLA was migrated to PiP at a higher rate care, I knew it would be an underlying entitlement awarded because we’re receiving pension credit, they awarded carers allowance but we’re paying it into our old bank account so payments were rejected, I discovered I. January 2022 when we received the paperwork, I rang them immediately and queried it they wrongly told me I would be receiving CA not UE as I hadn’t reached retirement age, I rang them 3 times in total as Macmillan disagreed, the DWP rang & said no you’re ok it won’t affect PC then all our money stopped, including HB & CTB we had nightmares trying to correct it, then the DWP advised me to stop claiming CA & the UE would be automatic, I did this, it too 6 weeks to correct them I received a letter saying we owed DWP £1100 overpayment of CA! They wanted to take £63 per week from PC I rang & renegotiated to £5pw which I’m still paying, they stated they’d wiped the debt from the Jan date I’d  phoned but not from award date, we didn’t get any back pay of the severe disability premium we should have received if they’d awarded UE in the first place so not only am I paying back £1100 but we also lost approx £40pw from November 2021 until Jan 2022 each time I rang I was given a different answer, my appeal was rejected because I don’t have proof even though they admitted that I didn’t actually receive any CA until after I’d phoned them to ask if it was correct!

They did this with me with child tax credit  for an overpayment I had'nt been overpaid! They told me to get proof that my son was in full time education from 2011 to 2014 and ring back when I had the proof and it would be sorted. I got a letter of proof from the college rang back to inform them and was told it wasn't for that and it was for a form I never sent back in 2013. I always filled forms in and sent back straight away as it was important! I couldn't get any help with it from anywhere as even CAB advisors said I needed to see a specialist benefit advisor or legal advisor so I exhausted all options and they took £3,800 off me which I didn't owe. I was going through some life threatening brain conditions at the time and they kicked me while i was down. UC advance payment was deducted from my UC payments for 6 months at £50 a month automatic but they couldn't find one of the repayments for a month and was told they were taking out of my benefit as they hadn't received it! They deducted it from my UC before I was paid so they took it from me twice! They also treat me unlawfully for 4 years. The stuff they did was unbelievable but I kept a record of everything. One woman advisor I saw listened to me and went through all my UC account and was gobsmacked at it all and was reporting it all and helping me so they took her off my case. They make me sick.

The DWP's Benefit Overpayment Recovery Guide is engagingly referred to in the judgment as "the BORG" - how splendidly apt, in the context of that monolithic and intransigent bureaucracy.

Last year about half way through we were told by Tax Credits we were being overpaid and they needed to claim back some money. We had submitted all figures in the usual way, so it was their mistake not ours that they over paid us. It hasn't been a massive amount per week that has been taken from our tax credits to pay it back. None the less every penny counts right now. We were never told we could waiver this? 

My partner and myself both received letters stating we were both having £61.71 per week stopped out of our state pension of £185 each per week for an overpayment of £1400  of working tax credit from 2012.

Well that just confirms what we have all known for a very long time, the DWP are criminals as well as liars.

I should be appalled but SADLY and not surprisingly im not -  my mother has had SEVERAL  encounters where the DWP have outright lied even though we had the paperwork to show the truth of info ,  one time they said to the Tribunal my mums account was a new one - even though in the bundle of info for the Tribunal-  there were years back awards paperwork  and a previous won Tribunal award ! Another time they said my mum needed to unfortunately answer some questions on a form that day before the f2f could continue due to some error in her paperwork or reschedule another F2F ( bearing in mind she was already there with the assessor ! ) she did the F2F and gained 0 points so took it to Tribunal , when she  went to Tribunal THEY said to my mum that the DWP had unlawfully got her to answer questions at the assessment with the new criteria points system without her knowledge ! If the Tribunal had not pointed this out she would not of known ! She won her award but it shook her to the core by the sheer lies and deceit of a goverment body .