Post update on letter sent to my local MP

As you know in post, I hope it’s not going to get more difficult this year, I had a bit of a rant in that one and as I said ranted in that post,
I also sent a letter to my local MP and got my rant off my chest with him. Details in that above post link, if you need a reminder of what I ranted to him about.
A person that works alongside him quickly got back to me, (case worker) introduced herself and said she’d been asked to take on my case by the MP. She said that a letter has been sent to Working Tax department and as soon as they have an update, she’d get back to me and let me know where I stand on that situation. I replied back with my thanks, adding I hope they get a better response and reply to her, then they have done to me, saying it’s not the first time I have written to them and never heard.
If there was anything else I needed help with, just to email back.
I left it to that, as although I had a rant on different topics, the letter started off about WTC and that is my main thing. I just wanted to give an insight into my struggles currently.

So did they hear anything back from the WTC people?

Yes, they did and the letter sent to them was forwarded to me. HMRC have written it off and I owe nothing. This was because of the delay and failing to ask for it back when they should have done and my difficult financial circumstances and becoming a carer. They also apologised for not contacting me to claim this and also for never replying to my letters when I queried. Because of the worry and distress their actions have caused me, they are sending me a payment into my bank account in the next 14 days, although this amount they said is not intended to put a value on the worry and distress it caused. This small amount I received, I wasn’t expecting anything of any amount from HMRC.

When I read their response, I was both relieved and very angry at the same time and it raised a couple of questions also. One being was why did the money go up to what I was expected to owe in the letter?  So I sent another email to my MP asking them to forward that email to HMRC. The same day from them doing this for me, which I thanked the MP and the case worker helping me with this, they received a phone call from HMRC who let them know they had forwarded it to the complaints department to be escalated. So as soon as my MP and the case worker hear from them with a response, they will let me know.

HMRC may have written it off but because of that letter it added further questions I was not going to let drop. It has proved the point of why I have always said I will never apply for Universal Credit and also why I will never apply for WTC again.

I am also very angry that it took an MP to get my answer and that HMRC no matter what department has NEVER acknowledged any of my letters, including when I was dealing with my mum’s personal details and informing them in two letters, one being when she went in hospital and another when she was out back home, because if her having DLA. Yet if it was the other way round, I be expected to jump and get onto it basically.

I also raised how I observed at the beginning of this letter where they thanked my MP for his email and said that HMRC never offer email to people, yet he emailed. So I highlighted how once again HMRC are failing. Businesses are expected to comply with the law and make reasonable adjustments. As in my case it’s reasonable adjustment to offer email to me because I am deaf. Businesses do it, but HMRC don’t because they say it’s a security thing, yet here the MP has been able to email them.

My email that now will be in the hands of HMRC will show once again just how angry I am and how I feel that people like us, (low-income) are hit hard, but if you are rich, you get away with it.

I also added that if HMRC was a paid service business, they would not have a business because of them never answering queries, or complaints. So why is HMRC allowed to get away with it further? Again, to me it highlights just how there is a tier here, we (low-income) are expected to jump to what HMRC want, but HMRC just ignore us.

So when I hear further what they have to say, I keep you updated. But how I felt today with all these emotions, has just shown to me how stressed and triggered I am. I also realise I have been harbouring more stress than I realised and right now still, since yesterday, I still feel very angry. Angry in a way I have not felt for a very long time and so I hope I do get rid of this with the tactics I use and not let it overwhelmed me further.

Post update on the hand that gives, is also the hand that can bite!

A short post to update on the The hand that gives, is also the hand that can bite! post.

I have been looking around the council website and realised that the request of it going further to the Review Board I made is probably the wrong direction, because it is not about the money, it is about the service and also that letter I received where I was judged. So I have sent another email on this, saying just that and where my complaint will be going, because I do expect an apology for that judgement made.

I have also requested that I would like a copy of the statement I signed back in November 2018, so I can check nothing has been edited since it left my hands and that if they don’t like that, that I say, then to imagine just how I was feeling with their judgement they made. I want that copy sent to me within the next three weeks by post, or email.

Once I have that and I have checked that is fine, I shall write my formal complaint – stage 1 process. The form I have downloaded ready for it.

Plans

Life may be a struggle that I hate January and money-wise this month difficult, but I am determined on certain plans regardless. Even if there is a side of me that is really emotional at times and stressed, which makes me feel like I want to give up, these plans are still happening:

• Going to Windsor Castle on my birthday.
• Seeing my friend in Oxford, in June.
• I refuse to claim Universal Credit regardless of my struggle. They are not going to have the chance to mess me up down the line.
• To hunt for that second job I need.
• Not painting my flat originally as planned. If I do paint, it will only be my bedroom walls. Nothing else.
• When I get that second job, it’s save, save, save!
• When there is enough in my ISA that I feel happy with, I will look at moving, unless I am lucky to get a council flat before that happens.

The hand that gives, is also the hand that can bite!

As you will know in January, I had enough, if you read this post; Oh, go away January! I mentioned in that post of another issue I was having, the council from the district I left. This post is an update on that issue. I ended up paying it! No surprise there, because I have been reading up that even if the council is at fault, they will still claim back. I have also paid it now on principle, because I found their response even more insulting. They are making out that when I went in November, that I was aware of being paid benefit that I was not entitled to. And that has what has really fucked me off. They have judged me on something I did not say, because I did not know at that time I had been paid. I have took this matter further, as it said in their letter I could do. They also commented that I did not provide the evidence to back up my claim why I should not have been paid. So the follow-up email shows, I hope, how offended I am by their reply. I have told them that I wasn’t aware they were still paying me when I went in November. I did not know they paid me this until I viewed my online banking account in December. I told them I went because I had a new council tax bill and this was what made me wonder if they had not closed it.

This is my email to them, below. I wish I could type you the letter I received from them today, but it was a very long letter. But my reply will highlight what has really got to me.

I am aware there are small typos in my email below, but I have left it like this to show how I responded to the council.

I don’t want any offer of money back, should they offer. Not that I think this would happen. But if they do, I won’t keep it and instead it will go to a charity of my choice. The whole argument I have with this, is that it should not have happened. It has not happened before when I moved in the Ashfield district. So why happen now? This is what I want them to acknowledge. I don’t want anyone else going through this.

Dear Sir//madam

After receiving your letter today, that was dated18th January 2019, I am not happy with your response and now I seek to request  that you take it to the Review Board, as you stated at the end of your letter. Please email me with regards to your Review Board process.

I am not happy with your response to how you make out my email dated 5th October 2018. When i written that email with details of everything required that I was vacating, that was an official notice. It wasn’t a warning what was to come, because this was happening. You were informed that day because i knew the details on that day.

When I came in on 5th November 2018 and made that statement. It wasn’t to inform you I officially left. I was there to complain about it and why it had been ignored. Hence I was asked to write that statement.

I have noticed how the service has slacked over the coming last few months and although I have not complained about that, I wasn’t going to let this one drop.

This what I experience, I have never experienced this before. I have done what i was asked, providing you information on moving in the same fashion as before. Yet this time, this happens. Why? I feel there is a cover up for your mistake and you are trying to pass the buck on me. I don’t like being made out that I am trying to seek extra benefit as if i am frauding.

I have always updated you accordingly and yet made out I was in the wrong.

I wasn’t aware until December that money had gone into my account by you, when viewing my online account. I acted in November on suspicion it had not been closed, because of receiving a new council tax bill.

You say I did not provide extra evidence on 18th January 2019. This was because you already have the evidence, which you have acknowledged in this letter! That email on 5th October 2018 was my official notice i was leaving and it should have been closed by you on 22nd October 2018, my leaving day or before, depending on how you are supposed to act on this information.

When I received that payment, I thought this was some overpayment owed, because around this time, i received council tax refund.

You have not explained why the papers were bundled in no particular order that confused me in November.

You have not explained why again when sending request to pay you back invoice why, you put that together, that it ended up going to old address, instead of new address?

You accept that and you apologise in letter on taking long to act on closing my account. Which if this was acted on in October, on my email received, we would not be having this conversation right now.

After I send this email, I will next pay that amount for the principle on what I say that I don’t con out of the council. The point is what I want acknowledged, which you have partly, but not fully, that you have not acted accordingly in closing my account when you should and that is clearly your fault because you did not close it in October with information supplied.

I do not want tis to happen to other people and I want you to make sure it does not happen to other people.

I will never return back to Ashfield to live for different reasons. But this one will be another that I  shall add to that list of reasons not to return.

Regards

 

Miss Elizabeth Fisher

Oh, go away January!

It may come as a surprise, or not, that I want January to go. I have had enough!
Now you may have expected this sooner, with the stress I had with Spark Energy. I felt on breaking point the final week I pleaded to communicate with someone higher, until I made contact with a manager.

But as of today, I have really had enough. When one issue gets resolved and it’s wait and, see with them, another issue now crops up.
This time it’s the council from the district I left. I received this morning an invoice to pay them back an overpayment on Housing Benefit. I have been down directly this morning, raising what happened last year and telling them how when I went in November to raise my concern then, of an email in October I sent with regards to my moving part not being acknowledged, that this was supposedly sorted.

I let them know when my tenancy started and when I moving out and in from one property, to another. This same email also notified them of overtime done.

I went in November, because I felt they had not closed down my account and I was proven right. I signed a statement, pointing my out when I originally contacted them and why I was there that day. It was supposed to be sorted. But it’s not, because I have received an invoice for housing they want back, that they say they overpaid. The dates of when they overpaid, they should not have even been paying me. I wasn’t living there, as they already know.

As I have my proof and I know they have it too, because it’s been mentioned both today and when I went last November, they will know they should not be even doing this!

I can’t believe what is happening this month. I have had enough.

Anyone who knows me well, knows how organised I am with paperwork. I even have my emails sent still. I can pull anything out at a question and say, “here you are.”

I am very angry. I am tired. I have had enough.

Does anyone else like to have a go, so I can lock up January with a key?

DWP is a trigger for me

After going through the PIP crap last year and finding like many others who had DLA for life not getting PIP, I find DWP are a trigger for me. When I see news articles of people who lost PIP when it was bloody obvious they should have got it and having to fight for it, makes me bloody angry. It is huge stress that does not help the individual’s health on top of what ever they are already experiencing. It makes me fume. and I feel for them, like how I felt it when going through all this.
As readers know, I did not appeal my PIP. PIP was stressful enough, but when I learnt I had not got it, I was already grieving the loss of a double-death in my family and on top of this, finding an ex boyfriend was jailed for a historic case of child assault. I was broken from loss in the family and hugely triggered by the news of the ex. I had no strength to fight for PIP. I had to think about next year, as I knew I got the job and I wanted to be in the best of health for this job. Not be off sick before I started.

Now I am free of DLA/PIP and WTC, I feel bloody free. I have been sick and tired of answering to people in general over the years, including DWP, feeling I have to prove my deafness. My medical notes tell how fucking deaf I am.

So this year, DWP contacted revenues, who wrote to my mum, because DWP said to them that I was living at my mum’s and so revenues had to check my mum out. My mum is not well and I insisted and told my mum to insist that revenues comes to her to do the checks. I was bloody fuming and the trust I don’t have for DWP on top of this makes me hate them even more. This part has already been sorted now, although my MP is getting involved in this and so she is currently waiting for a reply from DWP too.
BUT… I have now a personal gripe with DWP and I have raised this with my MP and because of what I have raised, meant I have now raised about the PIP experience, what I think of DWP in general and a question why can ‘t DWP follow a bloody simple instruction, as in why are they phoning me, when my phone number I gave was just for text purposes? I can’t hear on the phone. Explaining how they also tried to let me know of PIP assessment that was cancelled via phone, which I did not know about cancellation until I arrived there, wasting my time and getting stressed for nothing, because they did not contact me appropriate way.
I have also expressed how I now get easily angry when I read about others who have lost and have had to fight for their PIP, like the recent case she shared on her Facebook wall at the time. I questioned, that does DWP think they are above the law? When my MP had received reply to her first letter, she will raise the next one that I personally have.

I recommend watching film, “I, Daniel Blake.”

I recommend anyone watching the film, “I, Daniel Blake.” The film is about 59 years old carpenter; Daniel Blake, who after suffering a heart attack has to fight the system in order to receive Employment and support Allowance. daniel Blake also befriends a single mum who is also fighting her own battles with the system. I watched this last year on 16th November 2017.
It was after watching this film, that I was able to write the following on my Facebook wall, which I made public. This film obviously stirred up something in me, to find I could write what I shared that day. I share this here on my blog, that I written that day.

“I have watched “I, Daniel Blake,” this morning. If you have not seen this film, then I totally recommend for different reasons; if you are struggling yourself, knowing you are not alone, an inspirational film, truly hitting, inspiring.”

Although the film has inspired me, for my own personal situation, I still don’t have the energy to appeal. Too may things have gone on and I have to think about my mental health. To do that, means I am not appealing PIP.

But for people who have no choice, but to appeal and face hardship because of this system being so fucked up that someone who was denied ESA because they made them fit for work, regardless that medical people have said they are not fit for work, this film shows just what goes on in our country.

Today, this still happens and I would like every Government member sit and watch this film. I would like every person who works at DWP to see this film. The Government have created this mess, the DWP are of no help. You treat us as numbers, as service users still. But we are not. We are citizens as this film explains. Yet this is still going on.

I am one less person currently that you the Government and the DWP will be happy to hear that does not have the energy to appeal. I have too much happen to me in a short space of time and that is not including applying for PIP. I was given DLA for life, but because you created PIP, (this was just to save you money in your pocket, regardless what you say,) I now not seen worthy. My deafness and the difficulties remain the same. PIP does not support the deaf as it is made out to be. People that see you to assess you and make this decision are not qualified enough in my eyes to decide how to decide whether I am entitled to PIP or not and mess with my life.

There will be many more that will face possible hardship due to this fucked up system and I could be another to the system.

The Government and DWP don’t give a shit and as much as they try to say they do, sorry I don’t believe them, because I have seen it too many times where lives have been fucked up. There are also too may people now on the streets than I have ever seen and people using food banks. Seeing all this and my personal experience is proof how they don’t care.”

#IDanielBlake #PIP #disgraceful #welfarereform #DWP #Government