DWP driving me insane

Rilot

Rilot

Rilot

Don
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
23,189
Location
Wargrave, UK
Recently, I lost my job due to redundency. Then followed a minor breakdown brought on by my medical condition (MS) and the stress of it. Concequently, I've been signed off work by my doctor for quite a long time pending some MRI scans and psychotherapy.
So, no income.
But, we have this marvellous benefits system, in to which I have paid 100s of thousands of pounds over the last 15 years of my life.

So, on my doctor's advice, I apply for Employment and Support allowence while my wife starts looking for a job (she was a housewife previously).

After a mountain of forms and hours on the phone over the last few weeks, I finally got to the point where I thought everything was done and the money would start to come in (pittance though it will be). More fool me for thinking things would be so simple.

As many of you know, my wife is Finnish and moved to the UK in 2007 to live and be supported by me. Somewhere along the raod, the DWP have got it on a database somewhere that it is in fact ME who is Finnish and not my partner. This caused me much headache during the applications process for E&SA but I thought it was sorted. Again, more fool me.

Fast forward to today when I call the DWP for a status update on my claim....

"Your claim for E&SA has been rejected due to you being a Finnish national and the time you spent living in Finland".

FFS, now waiting for a call back.

You couldn't make it up.

I don't want to be on benefits. I don't want the state to pay me. I want to work but my medical situation precludes this currently. How do people who don't want to work and never have worked get benefits when someone like myself who has paid in to the system for 15 frikkin years out of the vast amount of tax and NI that my salary demands I should pay, finds it so damn difficult?
 
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Thats the DWP for ya. Can totally understand what you mean by the mountain of paperwork / forms to fill out, it is quite ridiculous.
I applied for some support when i was out of work for a few month a while back, but the amount of forms to fill in was "eep!". After getting through them all with help from my local joke shop (job center) it turned out i was only entitled to under half of what the people in the joke shop said i was. This was followed by me refilling the same forms in again because of 'admin errors' on their end. If theres a next time i need the help i don't think i'll bother.

Anyhoo, got a little sidetracked from your experience. So, you sure your not finnish? :) Hope you get it sorted soon
 
Hope you get this sorted soon. Theres nothing more infuriating than molehills turning into mountains. The worst part is that they will no doubt expect you to fill all the forms in again to prove youre not Finnish.
 
What you have to realise is that the people that put the most into the system get the least out of it and when you do need help they are loathe to give it to you. Thats one of the things that I hate most about this country is that we seem to tax people to high heaven and the harder people have worked and the more they have sacrificed to be successful the more the government take. And then they say there is an ever growing gap between the rich and poor.

Whos more likely to be well off out of the guy that works 60 hour weeks and has worked hard his whole life or some lazy layabout who hasnt done an honest days work in their life. There is usually a reason why some people are richer than others. Yes you should help people better themselves but will still have to do some work at some point to be successful.

I feel for you mate, good luck with the application. Just make sure that when you are earning again that you pay less tax than you should. Take the power back!
 
Rilot said:
Snip!

You couldn't make it up.
Click to expand...

Yup you could.

I moved to Belgium in 1996 with my then girlfriend we lived together for 8 months but then she got ill whilst on holiday back home (different country from me) and was back in her home country for around 8 months.

I stayed in Belgium for 3 months more but our lease was up on the flat so I decided to return to the UK for a while.

Came home tried to sign on but they said that since I'd lived with my GF for 8 months and that she was still earning a salary she'd have to support me.

I tried saying she was no longer living with me and in fact she wasn't even living in the same country as me.

7 weeks and 7 homevisits later I got my dole. Actually on the last visit I said that we had split up just to get them off my back.

Finally I got my 25£ per week dole (should have been 35£ but I was under 25 at the time so deserved less.)

They are a complete nightmare.
 
I had a nightmare with the DWP about 14 years ago.
Apart from 3 months out of work through redundancy, I have worked since I left school until now (almost 24yrs)
I got made redundant and at the time I was house sharing with a friend.
I went to "sign-on" a couple of days after finishing and was told that due to receiving 2 weeks pay, I wasn't able to claim anything for a while. Filled out the forms, included my rent payments and council tax payments, etc.
You would have thought it would have been pretty simple for them to sort it out.

Nope, ended up having to leave the house 6 weeks later, due to not getting any benefits at all. I had to move back into my mother's 1 bedroom flat and sleep on the settee (as soon as she informed them I was staying there her rent went up the following week, so there was no delay there, she was on benefits)

I found my current employer 3 months later and in that time I received £140 in benefits in total!!
Not even £12 a week to live on (I had got about £500 in a savings account)
I had to sell my car and other belongings to live.
6 weeks after I started work, I get a message from my mother telling me that there are 4 letters from the DWP for me.
3 of them were for benefits owed to me, totalling approx £600.
When I needed the help of the state, I didn't get it.

Believe me, they can be cretins of the highest order.
 
The paperwork and paper chase for anything with the DWP and claiming benefits is a complete nightmare. I have been so sick of filling out forms since I have had to sign on. Go to an open day/interview at the job centre, fill out a form to say you have been, which then someone there has to input to the computer... imagine that for 50+ people rather than just writing a name/NI number on an attendance list.

I applied for work there and they have the application form, then go for some skills test, then return with 4-5 more forms to fill out for pensions, health etc, then get to interview, fill out two more forms for crb and to say I've been. Bare in mind this is before being offered a position. It's crazy but at least with more people applying for benefit there should be some work there for me!

The world of business works so much simpler and more efficiently!
 
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