Thank you all for your advise. Hopefullly it will be reconsidered in my favour. If not, I will probably be back here. I have been without Jobseekers Allowance for several months now so I have asked them to make this reconsideration a priority. How long should I expect them to take in coming to a decision?

It's 3

Yes, they say I get full service in this area. I don't have problems like this elsewhere.

I never said I believed that innocence is a defence in itself.

My reception keeps dropping out while I am making calls. I have had similar problems before and the provider said that they have no records of any problems in my area so there is nothing they can do. Firstly, How can I gather irrefutable evidence that my reception is dropping out? Thanks.

No we are not financially associated. I have been given no indication that the benifits center believes we are.

Except in the case that the accuser is unreasonable providing some paperwork now usually does not make the situation go away and the paperwork they are asking for is substantial. If they had enough evidence to suggest fraud then they would have gone ahead with a prosecution, which they have not. If your innocent and you know they have no leg to stand on (which I’m suggesting you find out), I guarantee you will be much less stressed than if you let them keep you in the dark while they constantly threaten you. Appeal any overpayment decision as soon as possible. Again, get as much information and evidence against their argument as you can.

Yes.

If you are told that the information is exempt from the Data Protection Act you should become familiar with this link. In particular: "However, the exemption applies, in any particular case, only to the extent that applying those provisions would be likely to prejudice the crime and taxation purposes." So they can only withhold what they can reasonably justify would predujice their investigation. They cannot simply withold all information just because it is a fraud investigation. And if this case ceases to be "for crime and taxation purposes" this exemption will not apply, so you may be able to get all information they were planning on using against you.

We are in a friendship.

What did you report earlier?

I still suggest you get as much information as possible on what exactly they have against you. Find out how they can justify these claims? Use the Freedom of Information Act, Data Protection Act, whatever. There is no harm in asking as they can only say no. If they say no and it turns out they had an obligation to provide that information to you then you may be able to hold that against them later.

"The Freedom of Information Act gives you the right to ask any public sector organisation for all the recorded information they have on any subject. If you ask for information about yourself, then your request will be handled under the Data Protection Act." -gov.uk My understanding of this is that if you ask for information about yourself under the Freedom of Information Act it will be handled under the Data Protection Act. Is that correct or do you have to specifically request that they provide information under the Data Protection Act?

Your saying this was made up in order to waste people's time?

We are in a friendship, we are not maritally separated. If you mean by "geographically separated" we live in seperate places then yes we do.

It doesn't.

Why is Freedom of Information not applicable in this case? Where does your third point come from? What legislation? Thanks.

By cave in I mean give them every little thing they ask of you, letting them disrupt your life to the point of causing extreme stress within your family or your personal life when it turned out they had nothing substantial in the first place.

In my original application there was a question on ex-partners. Julia is my ex-partner.

It may bite you if they have a clear, reasonable, strong case against you. If they don't then dont cave in to their threats or intimidating behaviour. Let them prove it. My point was to simply gather all the information they have against you and only then decide whether to fight the case or cooperate and minimise the damage. In my experiance of these situations most people allow themselves to be intimidated by this sort of behaviour and they cave in before they realise the case against them was hollow.

Firstly, don't let some sad people (I had to refrain from using offensive language there) at the benefits office lead you to suicide. There are some good people there but there are lots of saddos that want to bring people down to compensate for their own sad lives. Sounds like you’re having a very rough time, but there is always a way out, sometimes it is just hard to see when you’re that far down. Secondly, possibly because you were emotional (and I don't blame you) when you wrote this your case is a little hard to understand. Try and keep it as simple and clear as possible and you will get the best advice possible from the people on here. My general advice is to get everything (and put everything important) in writing. You have a right to ask for a written explanation for any decision they make. Ask them for a written explanation as to why they consider you to be in a relationship with your friend. Use freedom of information to request all the evidence they have for this accusation. Once you have that, see how strong their case is. If you can clear up any confusion and they start being reasonable, sort it out as much as you can. If they have a weak case and they continue to be unreasonable, let them make a decision against you, then appeal. Use the court system, put together the strongest, clearest case you can, then pray that someone reasonable decides in your favor. All that is likely to take more than three weeks so keep onto the benefits center informing them of your desperate situation (and keep records of this) and see what you may be entitled to. You may get a hardship payment or a crisis loan etc. Keep your chin up, you will get through it I’m sure and when you do, you will be stronger for it. Then use your experience to help someone else.

Regardless of what they "believe" the onus is on them to prove that you have done something wrong. Have you got all their accusations in writing? You have the right to ask them to explain any decision in writing, and if you haven't, I suggest you do. Also use Freedom of Information to get all information they have on you that is relevant to their accusation. Once you have all this information you will know how strong their case against you is (it could all be hot air). Then if your confident they have nothing, let them take you to court if they are not bluffing, the onus will be on them to prove you did something wrong, not on you to defend every transaction. It could be a good idea to get a solicitor at this point. Having all this information for them will reduce your cost. Many reasonable judges/magistrates believe very strongly in the "innocent till proven guilty" principle. The problem is many councils and job center employers don’t. Fortunately, when you take it to the level I suggested, they don’t matter.

I totally agree they messed you around big time. And it is very frustrating. Jobcenter Plus do it to me on a regular basis. But don't annoy the people who might ultimately help you. If the decision goes against you or it becomes apparent they are messing you around deliberately, then definitely complain if you think that will get you what you want or it might help others.

@silygirl1 The jobcenter generally give you a certain amount of time to find a job within your skills and experience level. After that, you are expected to apply for jobs outside of this. I think it is 3 months. Im interested to know how you put extra things on your agreement form. I was not given any choice (I could have chosen not to sign it, but then they would have made life difficult for me). How did you go about this?

Thank you both for your advice, I sent off answers to similar questions in my request for them to reconsider the decision which I believe show she is not my partner. What do you think about their case that because I put Julia's details on the JSA3 form in response to their request that this is an admission that she is my partner? How can I defend against this? Do you believe my explanation above is sufficient? I want to make my case as strong as possible as I am anticipating an appeal.