I am having extreme difficulty in dealing with the appeal office in Oldham and was wondering if others are also experiencing the same! The way in which my ESA claim is being handled is causing me so much stress, I am just sat crying in frustration!! I will try to keep the details brief but I really would like to know if others are being treated in the same manner!! I have Psoriatic Arthiritis, which I have had for over 20 years and managed to work with until a severe attack in 08 that has not abated, suffer tier 1 incontinence which is made worse by inability to get to toilet due to arthritis also have Fibromyalgia and Osteoarthritis!

Payment of ESA due on 30/12/11 failed to appear in my bank and when phoning the call centre 03/01 was advised my payments had been stopped on 19/12/11 due to failing medical in November! Told call taker that I had received no notification of this which fell on deaf ears, was advised to go to my doctor for a sick note and send with a letter stating I wanted to appeal the decision!

Sent sick note and letter by registered post (received 09/01) and having heard nothing made a couple of calls to call centre and was told it could take 10 working days for letter to be processed and nothing on system! Eventually 20/01 I was told sick note had been received but no notes with regard to appeal, after a call back from the appeal office it appeared they had mis-placed the letter! Advised to send another and take to local JC for scanning and emailing to them and it would be dealt with as a priority!! Meanwhile I received a letter dated 06/01 advising that payments stopped and a enclosure stating I had 0 points!

Sent second letter 23/01 and phoned 27/01 to see if it had been received only to be advised appeal not accepted as I did not state reasons for appealing, quite difficult to do when no paperwork received from DWP at time of writing! Also advised them that I was not advised to state reasons for appeal just that I wanted to appeal!! No official notification of appeal decline received to date but eventually received copy of report! " Healthcare professional" decided to omit medication for incontinence from my repeat prescription supplied as proof of medication! Has basically failed to report notes of importance the are evident to my condition and noted matters in a twisted way that work in the DWP's favour!! Even stating that my shoe soles were worn, obviously in question as to my statement that I can walk any distance, had he asked I could have informed him they are 12 years old!! Even trivialised my incontinence problem as being just when I cough, I wish!! I am disgusted that they seem to be getting away with this!!

Letter Three sent 31/01 11 pages in total sent replying one by one to both the points table and the medical report's fabrications and omissions! Again took to local JC for emailing to appeal office!! Called on Friday to see if this had been received and ended up with an afternoon of complete frustration trying to trace this letter!! As it was not scanned and emailed by JC but put in internal post but no notes on system to state it had been handed in!!! The stress caused is making me ill, have spent the weekend crying and biting the heads of family and friends that are trying to help me!! i have developed an outbreak of psoriasis which i have managed to keep at bay for over 8 years save foe a couple of small patches!!

This morning I have received appeal decision decline and have had to call again to have it confirmed which letter they are referring to!! Advised in another call back this was my second letter and also my third letter has been received!!! So now have to wait and see what outcome that brings!! I have tried to get advice from Welfare Rights but the number for the local office is just impossible to get through on, that local adviser that is usually at my doctors surgery is on maternity leave and no replacement available for her!!! Which is why I have come to the internet!!!

I am just disgusted at the way in which my case is being handled and wanted to share my experience to let others now that it may not be as straight forward as it can seem from reading other posts!! My phone bill for calls to the DWP 0845 number for January is over £20!! However if this is par for the course then I believe someone, don't even know who or how, needs to raise this issue!! Would like to point out that this has been typed for me by a friend, just in case the DWP like to read these posts!!

Thanks to anyone taking the time to read this and Good Luck to anyone caught up in this unfair, unjust system!!

Hello there and welcome to CAG. I'm sorry you're having a tough time of it, your office do sound difficult to deal with.

I don't know enough about the system, but quite a few people here do and I hope they'll have suggestions on how to deal with this when they're able to get here.

My best, HB

OMG that is awful ...thought I was having problems but not so after reading yours .....I managed to get my appeal done in 2mths as I asked for a reconsideration first but I am now awaiting a call back for the group reconsideration due to further issues happening to me since then making me more imobile now then I was when had my assesment and recon done .

VAR68, what a catalogue of incompetance, poor you. Do you have a local JCP? If so, can you befriend someone there who can advocate for you and in future fax/internal corrier everything across for you? Too late for your situation now but I had several sick notes go missing in transit when I needed to regularly send them in so I now have the personal direct line phone number and name of one JCP worker near me and she sends everything over internally by courier and faxes and copies everything as back up. She does this a lot as so much gets lost in transit, she rolls her eyes at it all.