christopherlaw
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Everything posted by christopherlaw
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They ask me for 3 months regularily, just had one yesterday for a rapid reclaim as I was working for an agency for 2.5 weeks and was subsequently let go. The requirements for JSA, ESA, Universal Credit is that you to have less than £5000 in the bank otherwise the payment will get reduced. If you have over £16,000 then you will get nothing. Therefore the reason they ask for fully itemised bank statement to assess your entitlement is invalid. You can filter your statement in many different ways with any online bank so only relevant information is provided, but the DWP say you are not allowed to use these filters and they want every detail. Why? It is understandable that they want to see incoming payments to see if you have any other income (job on the side or whatever), but what right have they to access your out goings. Where you shop, whether you have drunk alcohol recently in a bar, where you go out, the grocery store you use, maybe you are making regular cash withdrawals which might suggest drug use. This request for your personal private data is excessive and has nothing to do with assessing your claim. If they want to know what your rent is you can produce the lease etc (which they already have anyway). If you question them about it they tell you that you dont' need to apply for benefits if thats the way you feel, as if an unemployed person has any choice. I'm interested in hearing peoples opinions and experiences with this, thanks
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I have had to give several 3 month statements. The jobcenter will tell you that its in order for them to assess your claim. It's fair enough if they want to see incoming amounts incase you have extra incoming coming in, like a job on the side, but what reason do they have for seeing what you buy, in other words your out goings? Any online bank allows you to filter the statement yet the job center insists that you supply the full statement with all out goings and ingoings. They will know if you have been buying alcohol, where you go out, have you been traveling and bought rail tickets. Even looking to see if you have been making regular cash withdrawals to assess if you are potentially a drugs user. They'll even know where you buy your food. When you ask them they deny this and say that it is order to assess your entitlement. The guidelines for receiving Job Seekers, Universal Credit are clear; If you have between £5000 and £16000 in your account you will get a reduced amount. This information in other words has nothing to do with assessing your claim and is excessive. It is prying in to your personal life and your spending habits. We can provide house lease photocopies and print outs from our telephone/ internet provider website accounts if they really want a detailed look at our expenditure on essential bills. Hence their claim that it is to assess our claim makes no sense at all. Its a violation of your private life.
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thanks king, good reply. atleast there are somer decent helpful bloggers out there. Yes, and gumtree has a section for freebies to. Im fine though, i just rented a house on private sector and billed the council. Stung themselves in the bottom, landed up costing them more in the end. Point being most unemployed cant get anything on the prtivate sector, i am one of the lucky ones who knew a x-landlord who knew i was a good tenant
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Claiming JSA - Can I use homeless charity for postal address?
christopherlaw replied to bruteforce's topic in Homelessness
My friend was street homeless about a year ago and the DWP made him sign on every day. There are no hard and fast rules to how the DWP will deal with you and will be situation dependent in many circumstances. I cant answer the question, lol, you'll have to phone the DWP. they have introduced 0345 numbers now which are standard rate from mobile. There is also a "0800 wizard" app for Google android operating system run mobiles, which will convert 0800 numbers to local rate on your mobile. Please be aware that numbers starting with "08", even "0800", may be chargable from your mobile, depending on the contract. If your unemployed and on a cheap contract, 0800 numbers are usually 50 p per min -
It will be in your lease the conditions or circumstances when the landlord should be able to enter your property. It is usually to do with emergency situations only; broken pipes, fire etc. It is unlikely the landlord will be able to evict you, even through the courts, inn the foreseeable future. Going to court is not a great strategy if you have savings, as you could shell out on lawyers fees at the end. If you do not, or your savings are low, this is the way go. There are various advice agencies. There are 3rd sector helplines like shelter but my experience of them was not good. There should also be advice centers connected to your local council and courts. In Edinburgh we have EHAP for court action, and the Advice-Shop is the advice section of the council. Obviously each case is situation dependant, but i would approach this confidently. You have a child so it will make it even more difficult. Your a long term tenant and the only reason you have fallen behind is due to work situation and councils incompetence. For example, my current housemate was paid 5000 pounds by his previous landlord to leave a property. His wife had just become pregnant at the time.
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I was told that if there was good reason to use this information by a lawyer, then it could very well be possible used in your defence. Whether the judge sees it in transcript form or listens to the recording himself is here nor there really
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I would record every meeting with them.... everything! Create a database of sound recordings and phone calls for every contact you have with a civil servant, it may serve you well. If you want to pursue them in court then this would be a great place to start. There's an app for most smart phones which will capture incoming calls, for samsung it is called the "galaxy recorder". Every smart phone has a sound recording device for meetings. ps do not tell them as they will terminate the interview. It is perfectly legal for personal reference and would stand up in the court of law
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I am merely trying to highlight a few things and add to the knowledge base of the services/ conditions/ treatment of individuals with in our country today. If I can learn from other bloggers then thats all the better. I am way past being angry. All of what I am adding to this discussion is from personal experience. Thanks for reinstating my thread, be nice to see a more bottoms up approach to the governance of the forum
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https://www.flickr.com/photos/124265710@N05/ heres a photo stream highlighting the inability of bureaucracies to admit to their mistakes. please feel free to post your opinion, unfortunately i will not be able to reply to your posts as giving my opinion will result in the thread being closed. The accommodation in question is a temporary accommodation guest house in edinburgh
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just confirms all of what i previously said then really doesnt it dont worry i have made a number of reports already, i was quick to utilise that function of the forum
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right ok then, ill make sure and put you on the list then i simply do not want reply to bigotry comments because it is me who pays for it at the end of the day when my thread gets closed down, my choice
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sorry, i dont block peoples threads, that admin, i suggest you to speak to them. Please find something more constructive to do than continue this ridiculous debate. Maybe some of the other threads have members more congenial to your tastes if i do not want to enter a discussion about who is paying taxes and who are the workers and who are the supposed scroungers in our society, then i have the right to say so. I can not force people to stop their bigotry behavior, but as long as I am still alive i will challenge it. you obviously have a problem with my stance
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i know you bureaucrats like to gang up and find some one from the feral underclass to pick on but not on my thread. find your own thanks have you analysed what happened in my previous threads then, i can pick out man instances where your admin team did not follow their own rules. difference between me and them is i am not trying to get them banned, i believe in freedom of speech,i just want them to go and hassle someone else
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look, do you mind finding another thread unless you have something to add think about it. thanks for your contribution you pointed to one thing i would like to contest; " free, reliable advice is available". This is something i have found untrue and again have gathered much evidence to the contrary; even CAB frequently come back with wrong answers; local council policy seems enshrined in a cloud of secrecy. They will try and trick and manipulate people into not getting there entitlement because there is simply not enough resources to go around. People have a problem with the word entitlement but it is a completely valid word used by the DWP and councils. Everyone has a different entitlement depending on personal circumstances.
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No sabresheep, not everyone on here is allowed a point of view. if your view strains away from the middle class bureaucratic point of view of the admin staff, you get your thread closed. Please refer to my previous threads. Now, while your on posting on my thread please be respectful, thank you! Obviously to much to ask As i said in the post (rainbow tears), i was offered alternative accommodation at the time through an acquaintance and only had a 2 day period to make a choice on the council property. This fell through, it was more a hesitation than a refusal. I was refused the right to meet my housing officer at the time, and refused the right to complain about the state of the place. You would think this would be a monumental time in a homeless persons life where he should get accesss to these resources in making this decision, why do they have housing officers otherwise. Instead i was constantly bullied by a woman down the phone who i had never met, into coming in and signing the property into my name with out having the right to put my views across. Regardless of how desperate and grateful people think i should have felt, i am a firm believer that homeless people have rights to, and they are not to blame for the shortage of housing. Its a socially engineered ploy to keep people desperate and competitive with in the capitalist system, so they will except exploitative working and housing conditions.
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thanks for that stu007 i have to add to these findings that although i really appreciate the response and the information is good, there are between 350 and 1500 street homeless in Edinburgh on any given night, depending which source I get my in for from. Shelter claim 350, a crisis worker claimed 1500. Obviously people fall between the lines of the government documentation. I was told i would be left on the street because i missed the 2 day deadline to make a decision on the property in question, and i have evidence to prove it. This was valuable information though and i will look into it at depth I've been through it, i don't know where to start. It was a horrendous experience and i can only hope you are not under the jurisdiction of edinburgh council. Initially you will be sent to B&bs. They will put your stuff in storage and your only allowed to take 2 black bags of belongings with you. Say bye bye yo the rest of your stuff until you find a secure tenancy which will most likely be 1 year. The good news is that if you complain enough they will find supported accomodation or a temp flat for you after some time . Then you can pay £60 to go to the storage unit and get some of your belongings back. People who are homeless often have problems, particularily substance abuse. They are clumped together like in some sort of segregation unit for the poverty stricken. Conditions are terrible and this often leads to people going in a downhill spiral being caught in the cycle that such poor social planning brings. Make sure it does not happen to you, you got to either fight for your rights or if possible save up and get out of there could people stop using the thread as a place to moan about paying taxes like they were the only ones in the world who ever did a days work, thanks, much appreciated the best place to start for advice will be the advice section of the council, in Edinburgh this is called the "advice shop". They will send you to a 3rd sector agency who will provide support and work on your side. If you are reasonably literate and computer savy then you might not think it is necessary to contact these people, but i highly recommend that you do, as councils can treat you highly unfairly in order to meet austerity measure cut targets, so having one of these organisations helping you helps you get a fair trial you dont have privacy in the B&B places, alot of the staff seem to be x military and enter your room when you are not there and demand right of access at anytime. The council are equally as unhelpful, for instance they never gave me forewarning about the 2 bag policy, so within 1 week i had been moved to 3 separate B&Bs, mainly because of the fact i had brought 8 black bags worth of stuff. I spent a weeks dole money paying for taxis transferring accommodation alone. The fact you have a kid should benefit you greatly, i hope you do not have the experience i had but feel i wouldn't be doing you justice if i didn't highlight some of the possible experiences you could face sorry i started writing not realising the time span this thread had been running being new to the forum yesterday. Glad to hear you got a flat, i can relate to the crazy neighbour. i had the police out about the neighbor around 20 time when i was in temp accom flat. He had no carpets and habitually ust to hit objects of the floor sometimes 18 hrs out of the day, suffice to say he wasn't wired properly. to top it of there was a whole in one of my cupboards which led directly into his flat. you couldnt fit an adult through it, maybe a small child
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i have many personal problems with this property, but the main problem which i was highlighting was the ease that council dismisses peoples concerns and throws them on the street, and what this inevitable means for those who find themselves in that position its plain to see that this property is very badly smoked damage, we are talking 60 years of chain smoking here. It is not as if a lick of paint will fix it. I congradulate you in your efforts in refurbishing 3 homes at your own expense.
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have you stats for the people who are left on the street like that? How many die soon after or land in prison? As explained i got a private let, I am asking out of curiosity and because i think its an issue which should be openly talked about as it is a travesty of justice. It one thing saying i could have gotten the property and done it up, but how are people supposed to fund the sort of work needed to do that property up on £73 a week which is entirely consumed by living expenses/ utility bills. Unfortunately these people may have more to worry about than coming on to blogg here so i thought i would raise the question for them. Thank you for answering "think about it" no i would not,i had already spent a year in hostiles surrounded by heroin addicts, putting up with all sorts of absurd abuse, before i was offered this accomodation. Once you knock back your offer of permanent housing the council wipe there hands off you. If you are unable to find a private let like most people in this situation, you are left on the streets I have tried contacting an MP before and the process was as good as useless. The MP just emails you back confirming the councils position and tellingyou what you already know. I made an appeal on the decision stating my concerns and was knocked back within the week.
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http://www.nidirect.gov.uk/benefits-adviser here's one, there are many. this one is throughthe cab
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i think they should apply the same rules to their moderators then as clearly they dont looking at the site rules 1.4 The Group is not responsible for the views or actions of its users who post on this website. funny that as the admin team, generally the people who respond (do not answer) thread questions, seem to decide whos views are valid and whos are not. Youll get more freedom blogging in the daily mail than you will on this forum 1.7 Above all else, use your common sense, be respectful and reasonable to people and companies. seems to be a one way street so will someone answer the question i asked or your as well closing this thread to
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sorry if i do not entertain your company
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there were posts made on my initial post in the benefits section after i was denied the right to post. you were one of them
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yes but the difference is if you disagree with the admin on this site you get your thread banned while they continue to post on it like a desk top mafia. They are generally demeaning and insulting and if you try and defend your self you get banned. This is a bureaucrats forum, not a consumer action group
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I think this is relevant because this part of the forum is to do with benefits advice. I think the admin team responsible for monitoring these threads should be impartial, and not allowed to act like a blue collar gang, closing threads and then allowing admin staff to continue to post, after the creator has been banished from his own thread. They seem to want to put their opinions across and stifle and repress all opposition to it. This is the behavior of school children, and not a consumer actions group it is often the case that no attempt is made to answer the thread authors questions. instead they gang up to demean the post and post snotty school boy remarks. please look at my other thread in the homeless section
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the people who seem to be in control of this forum are petty and have a superiority complexs. They accuse me of not taking advice and reacting negatively to advice, and trying to stifle other peoples opinions, when in fact they close my own threads, and then continue to post on them after i have been denied access. This is the behaviour of a bunch of spoiled school boy well it was not 5 years ago the good Samaritans are an 0845 no now, saw it with my own eyes in the doctors surgery the other day. Good if your feeling suicidal due to benefit cuts eh it does seem that they have now revised there practise and are now using 0808 no which are costly from a mobile but you can download a free app now according to moneyexpert.com it has come to my attention that none of these so called gods of the forum, the chosen ones with such overseeing good advice, have not even attempted to answer my question yet. Instead they have insisted on putting all their energy and resources into demeaning my post, acting like a blue collar gang
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