JSA & temp job

[mkb]

My son (18 ) signed on for the 1st time 4wks ago. He got a letter confirming he was eligible for income based JSA.

 

Signed on a week later & the interviewer said 'I have just released your payment & you should have it in your account next Thurs' which was Thurs last week.

 

Son went to bank - no money

 

Phoned DWP who said that it had defo been sent & to check bank again on Fri which he did & still no money.

Rang DWP again - O we have the wrong a/c number for you!!! (The guy who tok all his details when he 1st went wrote all the info & as well as writing the wrong days for signing on, he wrote down the a/c no. wrong! Nice work if you can get it ) We'll send a form for you to take to bank & they can search for the money, send it back to us & we can then pay you!

 

Sat - letter came confirming change of a/c number but no form for bank.

 

Mon - still no form so rang DWP again & asked if I could collect form as he has now got a temp job. Sorry no, you need an appointment for 30mins to fill in form!!!! You then need to take the form to bank & make another appointment with DWP (10mins) to return the form so we can pay you!

 

WTF is all that about??

 

So, no payment without 2 appointments plus visit to bank?

 

In the meantime he has found a temp job til 31/12/09 which may lead to perm job so will he have to go through this palaver again if he doesn't get kept on by job?

 

Never having claimed JSA, I can't advise him but I know a few people on here who can & I look forward to your replies.

 

Thanks again from a VERY stressed out mkb

[andydd]

Is there a specific question ?

 

It would appear that the situation can be resolved by simply attending the appointments suggested.

 

Andy

[mkb]

In the meantime he has found a temp job til 31/12/09 which may lead to perm job so will he have to go through this palaver again if he doesn't get kept on by job?

 

 

Seeing as we always ask for details before offering advice, I explained the situation hoping to get some advice on the procedure for lost payments however this is the question.

 

To have to keep 2 appointments in order to sort out the mess of their making seems ridiculous as I can't understand why they simply cannot recall the payment from the bank and would appreciate comments on this procedure.

[andydd]

Seeing as we always ask for details before offering advice, I explained the situation hoping to get some advice on the procedure for lost payments however this is the question.

 

To have to keep 2 appointments in order to sort out the mess of their making seems ridiculous as I can't understand why they simply cannot recall the payment from the bank and would appreciate comments on this procedure.

 

Sorry..but there still doesnt actually seem to be a question that can be easily answered.

 

If you are asking 'Do the job centre and dwp make umpteen mistakes every day then expect you to sort it out', then the answer is yes ! I've just found out my JSA hasnt been paid into my bank, upon phoning them I was passed around and given no real answer why this had happened apart from 'something to do with housing benefits', now ive got to wait a few days with no money thanks to their mistakes

 

Andy

[ErikaPNP]

Hi mkb. The long and short of it is, if the payment going into the wrong account was their error, they must replace the payment. If the payment going into the wrong accoutn was the claimant's error, they don't have to replace the payment.

 

Forms do have to be completed for payments which a claimant says they did not receive, but if it is accepted that the error is on DWP's part, they should make attempts to retrieve the payment and in the meantime, should issue him with a payment, regardless of whether they can actually retrieve the payment from the bank. (Which in some cases they cannot).

[Jan4a]

Hi

 

Can't help with lost payments but I have been temping and claiming JSA inbetween so know the procedure.

 

Tell him to be careful when signing off. They say they overpaid me back in September because I hadn't told them I'd started a temp job. I had and could prove I rang them (BT bill) but can't prove I sent the form in as well because I didn't send it recorded.

 

They have a newish system for temp jobs - Rapid Reclaims. They will probably explain it to him when he signs off, if not if he doesn't get the perm job then when he next rings them to sign on, just tell them he's doing a rapid reclaim.

 

Keep all paperwork, keep a note of dates/times of phone calls you make to them, and get receipts for anything you hand in or post it recorded ,in case it comes back to haunt you 2 months down the line. I think you already know how disorganised they are but they won't admit that, they'll try and put the blame for any mistake on you.

 

Good luck

[mkb]

Thanks Erica & Andy re DWP errors & Jana for answering my question!

[Jan4a]

No problem.

 

Forgot to say, you can also do Rapid reclaims on-line but I've never done it this way as people have posted on here that DWP say they haven't received on-line claims resulting either in lost benefit or a big saga to get it backdated.

 

It can take 30 mins on phone (there seem to be lots of new people and computers that crash!) when you ring but at least they can't say you haven't rang because they give you an appointment at JobCentre to go in and sign the forms once they have taken all your details.

[mkb]

Cheers for the tip! Would have automatically done it online but now I'll make sure he does it by phone if it needs to be done

 

I'm hoping its a good sign that they rang him yesterday & asked him to cover the night shift and we heard 3rd hand that he did really well in his interview. Add to this that last year they kept all the temps they had employed, I'm hopeful that this will be the case this year

[mkb]

Sadly, the temp contract has not led to anything so he did rapid reclaim by phone on 4th Jan then signed on 8th.

 

He's just been told today that he wont be paid until Jan 27th cos he has to sign on again on 22nd.

 

My question is......is this right?????

 

If it is right, then what is the 'rapid' referring to since this is exactly the same waiting time as a new claim

 

Bless him, he's only 18 & having to deal with all this bureaucracy that cannot or will not give straight answers & don't appear to know what the correct procedure is.

[chipsnmayo]

Jsa is paid two weeks in arrears, so he needs to complete a full signing cycle before he will get paid, that's why. The rapid reclaim simply means that rather than up to six weeks to process a new claim his claim should be processed on the day they recieve it or latest day after, it also means that he will not have to serve the three waiting days that all new claimants have to so he will get a full two weeks pay.

[mkb]

Thanks for that.

 

The term rapid reclaim is then, IMO, rather misleading to non-DWP persons

[chipsnmayo]

No not really just unfortunate that his pay cycle is two weeks away, he could be waiting a lot longer due to the sheer volume of work they have currently if he was a new claimant starting from scratch. Anyway hope he finds a job soon, good luck!

[privatehudson]

Forgot to say, you can also do Rapid reclaims on-line but I've never done it this way as people have posted on here that DWP say they haven't received on-line claims resulting either in lost benefit or a big saga to get it backdated.

I missed this when first posted but would like to add a slight correction.

 

There's two ways someone can apply for Jobseeker's Allowance online. The original route is known as a TES claim. Although it can be used to claim other benefits this is now mostly used to claim Income Based Jobseeker's Allowance. The more recent addition deals purely with Contributions Only based Jobseeker's Allowance and is known as "Jobseeker's Allowance Online" (I'll call this JSAOL for ease).

 

I don't know about the TES system since its been quite a while since I've had cause to look at it, but I know that the JSAOL system will not recognise whether a customer is eligible for a Rapid Reclaim at all. There's a warning early on in the process which says

To use this service you must:

• not have claimed Jobseeker's Allowance in the last 26 weeks

• not have been in full-time education or training in the last four years

• not want to claim from a future date

• be aged 18 or over

• have a National Insurance number

• have a phone number we can contact you on

• complete your own claim

 

Customer's are advised below this list that if they do not meet the criteria mentioned they can still continue with the JSAOL claim but it may potentially delay any benefit. There's various reasons for why each of the above makes a JSAOL claim unsuitable but for now the one that concerns us is "claimed JSA within 26 weeks" - the current magic figure for a rapid reclaim.

 

Its possible that whoever picks up the JSAOL claim to make the callback might identify it as a potential Rapid Reclaim but the JSAOL claim would have to be completely withdrawn to do a Rapid Reclaim. As the customer has in effect stated that they want to discount the 26 week rule its generally not picked up.

 

Part of why they don't prevent you from claiming online if you have claimed JSA recently is because you might have had a Change of Circumstances in which case you have to claim again from scratch which can be done any way you please.

 

The term rapid reclaim is then, IMO, rather misleading to non-DWP persons

 

That depends on how you look at it. He won't have had to go through all the same details over the phone as he did when he first claimed. For some people that takes 40+ minutes, a Rapid Reclaim call about 10-15 minutes. He also usually won't have to supply all of the same documents to prove his circumstances again. If for example when he made his first claim he'd recently been a University student he usually has to bring proof of his course and Student Loans to the interview. He wouldn't usually need to bring all them again for a Rapid Reclaim appointment.

 

Being 18 he might not notice much of a difference but imagine if you were 40 with a mortgage, moderate amounts of savings and had recently finished a university course, all of which you usually have to prove with umpteen pieces of official documents. Not having to go over that detail or bring official documents to confirm it can by itself make the process quicker for some people.

[heliosuk]

Welcome to the world of JSA and the DWP. I can assure you this is a taster of things to come on a regular basis.

[mkb]

LOL helios - o what joy!!!!!

[MIKEY DABODEE]

did he ever get the lost money from his first claim?

[mkb]

Eventually Mickey but not before he made many calls to them chasing it up! It's as well he lives at home cos he'd never have known what to do otherwise.

[heliosuk]

Still waiting peeps after 42 weeks!!! Apparently Secretary of State put it on his expense claim form "by mistake".

[Jan4a]

Hi

 

Sorry I've not been on for a few days.

 

Yes, Rapid Reclaim means basically you don't have to start from scratch ie supply all your bank statements again etc. It is better than the system before they brought it in, that was a nightmare.

 

Housing Benefit/Temping is a completely different matter - at least he won't have to worry about that! They seem to average out a 5 week period to get your weekly income, rather than just pay it for weeks you haven't worked and not pay it for weeks you have!

 

Jan

[mkb]

 

Housing Benefit/Temping is a completely different matter - at least he won't have to worry about that! They seem to average out a 5 week period to get your weekly income, rather than just pay it for weeks you haven't worked and not pay it for weeks you have!

 

Jan

 

Don't be silly now Jan - that would be altogether toooooo straightforward

[Jan4a]

Don't be silly now Jan - that would be altogether toooooo straightforward

 

 

How true that is.

 

Rang landlord today as they've just calculated mine for previous weeks I've temped/work. Neither I nor landlord can understand it and we haven't got a clue whether I owe him money or not. I've paid him on the weeks I worked but might owe some from weeks I haven't cos of the averaging thing. :-?

 

Apparently they're paying up to 24th on 24th so I'm going to ring landlord on that date and see if there are any arrears after the payment -if there are then that's what I owe him. Only way we could come up with to make sense of the letter we've both had!

 

See what I mean??

 

Jan