Hi,

Hope someone can help, we applied for attendance allowance for my 85 year old mum, she had to send her PO details on the form, but unfortunately when she got the details of her account from the PO help line, the last number of the sort code was put down wrong, whether they told her wrong or mum put it down wrong we don't know, her account number was correct, £411 was paid out in back pay to her, but obviously didn't get into mum's account, when I phoned DWP they said because we had put the number wrong, and mum had signed it there was nothing they could do and suggested calling the PO, on calling the PO help line we were told, there was nothing they could do and it was up to the DWP to sort it, I believe that this money has been sat in limbo for the past 2 weeks as it hasn't been sent back to DWP.

Can anyone help my mum is getting very distressed about this, and both sides seem to just wash their hands of it, I cant understand why the DWP are happy just to leave £411 going nowhere!!!

DWP should be able to recall the payment.

Neither seem to be very helpful, time to get firm with them and dont let them fob you off.

Thank you, that's what I thought I they could do, especially if it hasn't actually gone into someone else's account, DWP were basically its your error so we don't have to do anything, and the PO completely dismissed mum, and obviously being 85 and not really understanding sort codes or bank numbers, (cash is what she has dealt in!) I thought they were pretty heartless really

Have the post office confirmed that it is in an uncleared account rather than paid to someone else? If so it should be a matter of the po returning the money to the DWP then the DWP paying it to the correct account

yeh if its a wrong account ie does not exist it should just bounce back to DWP who then pay it back to you/your mom ie the correct account

The PO didn't confirm that it had been paid to someone else, but mum's account number was correct, it was just the last digit of the sort code that was a mistake, so I was just assuming that it would be just sat somewhere at the PO, I don't understand why it just didn't bounce back, because if I put in wrong info to pay something it just rejects it, the PO were adamant to mum though that it is down to the DWP to re-call the money back and there was nothing they could do, its all very frustrating.

I am going to make some phone calls on Tuesday to try and get one of them to agree to sort something, its very difficult though as obviously being mum's account they cant disclose very much to me! very frustrating

Thank you all for your thoughts on this

Perhaps you may want to get your mum to sign a letter giving you standing permission to discuss her claim- I know it's no help now but in the future it may be.

The AA unit can check with the Bank Liason Service (no customer contact) to check if the Post Office have rejected. Where I work payments don't get replace unless they have confirmation from the BLS service that it has been rejected and can take a couple of weeks for system to be updated. If the payment t has credited an account then not sure what they would do.

http://www.sortcodes.co.uk/

You can try and enter the details here and it might tell you of what was given to the AA unit is a valid account or not.