This was the bill they sent me after my council tax benefit stopped on 05/10/09 for the rest of the year owing. Sorry but I had terrible trouble putting that on here You'll need to zoom in to see it properly obviously. Looking at that and considering no one has explained where they got the £359.25 figure from yet, I paid my bill. The breakdown doesn't make any sense to me so surely if they're unwilling to explain that figure, why it's wrong and why they billed me with it as far as can be seen, they stopped the benefit, they sent this and I paid it. So......last years bill has been paid as far as I can see. Am I wrong?

I've had the final notice - cancellation of instalments threatening the summons if I don't pay in full this morning. They really are complete imbeciles. When it's gone to independent appeal are they allowed to still send those out? I'm doing the formal complaint to the Chief Exec as we speak, thanks for that info.

I took my appeal in by hand to the council offices this morning and asked them for a receipt. The look I got was priceless and the woman who dealt with me immediately emmanated an air of unhelpfulness and misery. I asked for the address of the appeals service since it was meant to be an independent service. She rang upstairs, they use a few different ones so they couldn't tell me which one it would be. I know I shouldn't but I lost my temper. I asked for her to give me them all then but no she suddenly didn't know any of them and neither did anyone else. There was suddenly no one available to come down from upstairs and speak to me. How are they going to pass my appeal on if they claim not to know the address or which one they use? What's the big secret? I got her to write on the receipt that she wouldn't give me the address and took the name of the person she rang upstairs for advice. She wasn't very happy and made out like I'd leaned over the counter and strangled her. They really are a bunch of utter d*ckheads. I can only imagine how much money Trafford Council are raking in that they may not be entitled to. Mine was a straightforward cased and they couldn't get it right. I don't think any of them have any idea what they're doing. How do I go about getting the address they're supposedly sending my appeal to?

Dragons Dennis that was class loved it! I've just received a letter from the council benefit team manager and he says 'I apologise for the delay in ending your council tax benefit which led to the overpayment that was created. It has been decided that the overpayment is recoverable as you would have known that you were being overpaid' I wrote to the them telling them when it should stop and they sent me a bill for the rest of the year owing and I paid it. I didn't hear another peep until this years bill came at a nil balance. Then I rang them to tell them it was wrong. How would I have known that I was being overpaid? I sat and had a meeting with this manager who was absolutely not thick by any means so I have to assume that by writing that he's not unwilling to be ridiculed about the fact that this is a rather low standard of management skills. I should also send my appeal to him and he'll pass it on to where it should go.....I don't think so

Just thought I'd update. I managed to get the council tax benefits manager to hold back the summons for the £350 until he'd looked into it and the up shot is, he believes I do owe the money and they made a mistake. They gave me a bill from the period I went back to work covering Oct 09 to Mar 10 telling me I owed them £165 and I had no reason to believe that bill was wrong. I had no idea how they calculate their breakdowns for council tax benefit and this bill had a breakdown of what they'd awarded me. The bill itself wasn't added up wrong. I paid this bill. The manager tells me the £350 should have been included in this bill but how am I supposed to tell when their bills are wrong? Like anyone else, I have to trust, hope and rely on them to make sure the bills sent to me are correct. He admits it's their error and told me I can appeal. He asked me if it didn't occurr to me that this amount was a bit low and I told him I had no bloody idea what council tax benefit they'd awarded me after a 100 pages worth of breakdowns and they clearly had no idea themselves otherwise they wouldn't have awarded me more benefit than I may have been entitled to and sent a bill out that was incorrect. I also told him it was outstanding work from his team coming to me 6 months later to ask for it outrightly. They'll try and make it your fault no matter what, the dam cheek of it. Do you think I'll have to pay it? They've put me in a right mess financially having to pay this years bill in a 6 month period as it is, I don't have the money to pay £350 up front and he told me the only thing they could do would be to extend the 6 months to 8 months but they'd have to include the £350 on top of what I have left of this years bill. I can't even begin to tell you how angry I am. All this because they made mistakes.

Well, when the CAB were fobbed off by the council in which they told me I had to send my P60 and bank statements from last year I've now received the documentation supposedly requesting this and guess what it is? It's a form to be filled in if I want to claim housing/council tax benefit. That's it, that's all that's in the envelope and no mention of any phone call or cover letter. The form is dated from the 15th July 2010. I don't want to claim housing or council tax benefit, I'm not entitled to it, is it just me being unreasonable and thick here or are these people deliberately trying to be obtuse. How am I supposed to get anywhere with this, I'm more than happy to pay this years bill and show them their error regarding last years 4 month council tax benefit that I was entitled to and given, until I rang to query my nil balance bill for this year. Anyone got any suggestions on how I'm supposed to get this sorted, the CAB are clearly not able to and no matter who seems to deal with it at the council they still keep getting it wrong? The complaints procedure for this council is an online web page form and it's not adressed to anybody. It even asks if you want a reply! Who do I write to that's not going to pass it to the very dept that can't get it right?

I don't think it is an assumption. The letter shown through the envelope was mine. This letter stated that it enclosed a breakdown of benefit awarded for me. That breakdown included was not mine and was addressed to someone else. I hand delivered it to her whilst the council tried to persuade me to give it back to them. I don't know if the breakdown I should have received went to her, I only know that they had a breakdown there to post for me and it wasn't there so it's not a giant leap to believe they sent it elsewhere.

My local council tax office sent a breakdown of council tax benefit awarded to me for a 4 month period to someone else and I received someone elses breakdown instead. I complained but the woman whose information I received didn't. Whoever recieved my information never sent it to me or returned it to the council and also didn't complain. I went to the Independent Complaints Ombudsman because of their breach regarding data protection and the fact that they kept changing their excuses as to what happened. Whilst they couldn't deny they had sent me someone elses details they wouldn't accept they had sent mine elsewhere. To cut a long story short while the ICO were taking this case on board I received my council tax bill for this year 2010-2011 and it was a nil balance. Last year I claimed council tax benefit for 4 months, I wrote to them to let them know when I was back at work and they sent me a new bill for the rest of the year owing minus tax benefit and I paid it in full. I heard nothing else from them until my new bill came this year to find it was a nil balance. I rang them to ask why it was a nil balance when I was not entitled to council tax benefit having returned to work and earned too much monthly to claim it. The guy I spoke to said 'you didn't tell us you wanted to stop your benefit from last year so it's been carried on hence the nil balance'. I explained that I had stopped it and had paid the rest of the year via the bill they sent me after my council tax benefit stopped. Basically, they'd made another mistake. He told me to send in my wages to see if I was still entitled to claim as it could be that I was still eligible. I asked him which part of what I'd explained to him did he not understand but he would not stop talking general rubbish. He was then attempting to tell me that I had been claiming the benefit when I was not entitled to it and knew I was doing it. All I needed was a new bill for the year telling me the correct amount I should be paying without council tax benefit. It's that simple, or so you'd think. No, instead he sent me a form telling me to send in my wage slips, bank statements etc and I ignored it. That was in March. I passed all this information on to the ICO who told me to stop communicating with them completely and they would deal with it. I've now received an email from them telling me they can write to the council regarding me receiving information that was someone elses but as the council deny they sent my details elsewhere they can't do anything with that. No mention of the council being awkward with me regarding my new bill even though they'd told me to stop communicating with them as it was all part and parcel to the case :-? I've only now just received my new bill for this year with the correct amount to pay although I now have only 6 months to pay instead of 10. They've also sent me a bill they want right now for £350 they claim I am owing from last year. This is because this guy I spoke to cancelled my whole awarded claim for the council tax benefit for the 4 months that I was entitled to it. I went to the CAB today and they spoke to the council on my behalf regarding this £350 and their reluctance to accept that I wrote in to stop the benefit and let them know when I was back at work and even to acknowledge that I'd paid the bill they sent me. I definitley don't owe them anything from last year. Unbelievably the CAB made it worse, they let the council tell them that I needed to send in my P60 for the year last year and my bank statements so they can look again at my benefit claim for the 4 months last year. They had all the info they needed and asked for at the time and I have receipts for everything I took in to them. I'm not sending anything back in when it's their error and inconveniencing myself because of them anymore. All they had to do was send me an ammended bill for this year and say sorry we made a mistake. They're now trying to make out I was purposefully claiming benefit when I actually wasn't claiming anything. I'm tempted to let them take me to court because I have all my paperwork and proof of everything but the CAB kept saying don't let it get to court :-? What would you do?