My partner who is on lifetime DLA is being reassessed for PIP. Having had an uphill struggle to claim other benefits and his pension, we are well versed with their tricks by now.

This morning he a received a random phonecall from someone unwilling to identify themselves, who was asking for personal information. He refused, unless the person identified themselves and gave a return phone number (it was a 'private number on the caller ID) for him to call on. They refused point blank and said "There's no point in continuing the conversation and slammed the phone down"

Despite the fact my partner has had no contact from the DWP or ATOS since he filled in his form. I immediately suspected this was ATOS, fortunately I was around the corner from their assessment centre at the time and went round.

When I went in the person who I saw was the person who had called my partner! However they kept refusing to discuss anything with me (which is fair enough, except confirm it was them who had called my partner), but I requested a phone no so he could call up, confirm his details but much more importantly find out when his assessment is!

She refused point blank and said that's "his problem for refusing to hand over his details". Cut a long story short (which was mainly filled with lies from this person about the PIP procedure) I found out his appointment is this Friday from the main ATOS call centre. WTF! we have had no letters, no text's and most importantly this woman was refusing to tell us when it was was!

Anyway we have had the appointment shifted.

Some quick questions.

1) Is there any chance this lady I spoke to, will be the one who will be doing the assessment ? i.e. is it the assessor who makes that phonecall before the appointment

2) We want to record assessment, how do i get written permission ?

Hi.

You would normally ask them to record it. Last time I saw anything about recording a yourself you had to jump through so many hoops it wasn't worth it.

Other people may be more up to date than I am though, please wait and see what they say.

HB

Just contact the assessment centre and ask for the assessment to be voice and/or video recorded for your records.

The person you saw will just be doing the admin. It will be a qualified healthcare professional that does the assessment.

Be aware that as soon as you put one foot in the door of the assessment centre, the person having the assessment will be assessed. It does not start when they take them into the assessment room. This is why the assessor will come to the waiting room to collect the person to be assessed.

PUIP assesments are not recorded, they have not provided any recording equipment

If that is the case, take your own recording equipment and advise them in advance that the assessment will be recorded.

they look out of the window an watch peopel walking up the road towards their building. Anyone being a bit nippy crossing the road to avoid becoming a statistic will get marked down. Cheekiest I saw was the assessor sitting in their car in the car park ajacent to the building watching the people who parked up there get out of their cars.

Just contact the assessment centre and ask for the assessment to be voice and/or video recorded for your records.

 

The person you saw will just be doing the admin. It will be a qualified healthcare professional that does the assessment.

 

Be aware that as soon as you put one foot in the door of the assessment centre, the person having the assessment will be assessed. It does not start when they take them into the assessment room. This is why the assessor will come to the waiting room to collect the person to be assessed.

they look out of the window an watch peopel walking up the road towards their building. Anyone being a bit nippy crossing the road to avoid becoming a statistic will get marked down. Cheekiest I saw was the assessor sitting in their car in the car park ajacent to the building watching the people who parked up there get out of their cars.

I actually dont think its that cheeky.

If you say you can only walk 50 yards but are skipping from the car park and then "put it on" when you step thru the door then its a fraudulent claim.

Unfortunately these ATOS numptys think every claim is a fraudulent one, not a tiny percentage.

Thanks for the responses, will keep you all updated with how things go. I fully expect us to be turned down, we always are, but then win on appeal. However I have got fed up of the blatant lies they make and the time and distress involved in appealing. So this time, I'm going to be fully prepared and will be taking action beyond just appealing.

With the help of this group in the past, I have taken on a billion pound company on my own in court and won. So I'm not averse to a big fight against these kind of sharks.

Update on this, we went for the assessment and had the thing recorded. The whole thing took about 2 hours complete.

Assessor seemed fair, and when using an old report to compare against. I asked her to read out some bits where we know we have been "misquoted" in the past.

However we have now had a phonecall from the assessors wanting to "clarify" some answers. I presume her boss is not happy with the report and think we are a soft target for our claim to be rejected.

Stupidly, the other half agreed to have the phonecall there and then without rearranging.

Anyone have any insight on why they do this ? How common it is ?