I received a letter Saturday morning notifying me my 365 day cb ESA had ended & I will no longer get anymore money it goes without saying I panicked big time! As I had to wait all weekend to sort it out,so this morning I phoned the number it told me to & the lady (I use that term very loosely) I spoke to with utter distain & disgust in her voice proceeded to tell me it wasn't her problem & I'm just going to have to put up with it!

I told her me & my partner have 2 children under the age of 16 to try & cloth & feed so what am we supposed to do? I was imploring her to give me some reassurance & advise me with what to do next because we made a joint claim for me to go on my partner's JSA claim over a month ago (surprise surprise they have no record of a form being sent in!) she then proceeded to basically accuse me of trying to defraud the benefit system until I finally got it through her head the claim hasn't gone through by this time I knew I was gonna get absolutely no help off this woman so sick was I of her attitude I asked what her name was "why?" she asked so I can make a complaint against you,on hearing that she hung up the phone abruptly while I was mid sentence.

I would just like some advice of where I & my partner stand because nobody is helping us. I find it incomprehensible that the dwp are continually getting away with treating people like this taking away sick people's money with no warning & being expected just to put up with it! It got me wondering if there's any human rights violations here as surely it's a basic human right to get what the law says is enough money to live on.

I always knew this evil,sadistic coalition government hated the poor & love treating us like parasites but never to this extent! All these poor (deserving) sick people are just going to get worse I myself have bi-poler disorder & I thought I was getting my life back on some sort of an even keel that was until today that is & it does make you wonder if playing by the rules & doing things by the book is the right thing to do.

You know iv'e never wished Ill on anyone but I really do hope that 1 day the people sorry scumbags that are responsible for this disgusting practice of taking the money away from the sick & needy etc Ian Duncan smith are alone & some poor desperate soul at their wits end & with seemingly no hope asks for his wallet or else then maybe just maybe he'll realise what his & others actions have caused because this once great country of ours is imploding from within & now more than ever the rich are getting richer & the poor will just have to swallow it while we rot in the gutter

Hello and welcome to CAG.

I'm moving your thread to the benefits forum here and expect the guys will be along with advice for you. I'll also leave a short term redirect on this forum.

In the meantime, if you're able to edit a bit of spacing into your thread [there is an Edit Post button at the bottom of what you write] it might help the guys trying to advise you.

My best, hB

Ok no problem,but what do you mean add some spacing?

I think spacing means - make a few paragraphs instead of putting all the text in one bumper paragraph. Fully appreciate what you say about the attitude of some of the staff. Some are really nasty and then sometimes you are lucky enough to get someone really helpful on the phone. I hate when brown envelopes arrive on a Saturday and you have to wait all weekend until you can speak to them. I cannot believe this is not done on purpose but it happens so often.

Ok no problem,but what do you mean add some spacing?

I added some paragraphs and spacing - it helps make posts easier to read.

I hate when brown envelopes arrive on a Saturday and you have to wait all weekend until you can speak to them. I cannot believe this is not done on purpose but it happens so often.

It's not done deliberately. Most of these letters are sent automatically by the computer system, and they're triggered in response to particular actions by the benefit processors. There's no reason at all why the DWP would contrive to ensure these letters all arrive on Saturdays - all that would achieve would be to make the phones much busier on Mondays, and Mondays are bad enough at the best of times.

Staff should not be nasty, though. If someone encounters a rude member of staff, I'd recommend they note the date and time of the call and then complain to the BDC or call centre manager.

OK, you have run up against the new law, introduced in April this year, that ESA© can only be paid for 365 days. On a personal level, this strikes me as unjust, but no-one at the DWP has any power to change it - it's been determined by Parliament and the DWP answers to Parliament. Now, that doesn't excuse staff members being rude to you or accusing you of fraud, but it does mean that shouting at them will achieve nothing. Still, as I said, they should not be offensive to you, and if they have been then you have grounds for complaint - note the date and time of the call, and also the number you called, then call that number and ask for their complaints address.

But, and I can't stress this enough, don't get so hung up on complaining that you don't actually solve your underlying problem. First off, do you claim Child Tax Credits for your children? Second, if your partner is not working, you may be entitled to income based ESA. Note, though, that you can't both claim an income based benefit - either your partner claims JSA(IB) for you both or you claim ESA(IR).

Hi ICE77 I experienced a very similar issue with a member of staff at a DWP call centre, her attitude was to say the very least ignorant and very demoralizing.. when I asked for her name she snapped her christian name down the phone at me.. when I asked for her surname she told me in a very hacked off voice I don't have to give you that and hung up...

I came off the phone seething, to put it lightly the air was very blue in my kitchen. Once I had ranted and calmed down I rang back... I was lucky and got another operator who was very professional and polite, she answered the questions in a positive manner that I asked. I commented on her politeness and explained about the previous phone call with one of her colleagues. She was disappointed and perturbed that this had happened and proceeded to explain about the complaints procedure, she said she would be speaking to her manager and would get them to ring me back. The manager rang me back within 10 minutes and took details of my phone conversation and apologised profusely that I had been treated in this way, they said they would post a form out for me to lodge an official complaint. The next morning I received a call from the lady who had been great the previous evening who said she had the form in front of her and just needed some final details about the incident, she was filling the form out for me.

Less than a week later I received a letter from Newport call centre apologising for their employees behaviour and assuring me that the matter was being dealt with.

So it is worth complaining there are some DWP call centre staff who really do need their attitude to claiments looking at but on a whole the staff I have dealt with have been polite and in this case went that further mile to right a colleague's wrong doing.