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Jobseekers allowance cancelled+back date payments


junior232
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Hi,

 

I have a query about jobseekers allowance. I have been studying at university for the past 5 years, i was in my final year this year and completed my final exam on the 7th of may.

 

I made a claim for jobseekers allowance and an appointment was made on the 12th of may, i attended the appointment and i was asked when i would like to claim from, i have never claimed jobseekers before so i stated i would like to claim from the 7th of may because that is when i finished university.

 

Now after the appointment i was told i would recieve a letter stating what i would entitled to and i would receive the money in two weeks, two week went by and no money received and i received a letter on the 25th of may stating i could get jobseekers allowance because i was in full time education, so i phoned jobseekers and they told me my claim was cancelled because my university end date was on the 22nd of may and i was told make a rapid reclaim and claim from the 22nd of may.

 

On the 30th of may i received my results and i didnt do well on a few exams so i had to resit the exams, if anyone has done final year exams they would know it does take up a lot of your time, i was so worried and busy revising for the exams i failed i didnt have time to call jobseekers and go through another 40 minute application and arrange an appointment, i was all the way in wolverhampton away from home so i basically didnt have time.

 

I made another claim on the 5th of july online and called jobeekers to finish the application last week and i was asked what my reason was to claim from the 22nd of may and why i didnt claim before the 2nd of july, i gave my reasons the original claim was cancelled and i have been busy with my resit exams and i was told it would be up to a decision maker if i could claim from the 22nd of may, i have an appointment tommorow now.

 

My query is i supplied an original letter of my course term dates and end dates, so why did they cancel my claim? i even showed the university letter of my term time dates to the advisor when i went to the appointment and she didnt say anything about claming from the 22nd and that i couldnt claim from the 7th.

 

My claim was cancelled which is pretty stupid if you ask me all because of dates they had the letter all they had to do was change the dates and carry on my claim.

 

What can i do about this, i will appeal if they reject to back date the payments, if the claim was cancelled i wouldnt be in this situation now.

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Back dating claims comes down to "Good Cause".

 

In your case you are going to have to argue that you were unable to contact the office to reclaim from the correct date because you were busy with exams. By having to do this you would need to prove that during the two weeks that the resits took up all of your time and that you were physically unable to contact them throughout these ten working days.

 

This is going to be very difficult to do.

 

The official end date is an unfortunate glitch in JSA claims and exists because the system is unable to ignore the period of the claim which overlaps the official period of full time study. Therefore that period cannot just be disallowed and paid from the day after the end date. It's legally not possible to have your first date of claim fall on a day where you are officially unavailable and not actively seeking work.

 

They would also be unable to change the dates on the claim for this reason, so your only course of action is to continue with the back-dating claim appeal.

 

Good luck. :)

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Hi thanks for replying back.

 

If i got a letter from the university stating i had resits to do would that help? i didnt have access to a phone and i was busy during the resit period, but im not sure how i can prove this? any suggestions

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Also i wouldnt be claiming from the 7th of may, it would be the 22nd of may when i officially finished from university. as stated above i dont really know how i could prove i was busy and i couldnt phone jobcentre. I can get a letter from the university stating i had resits but thats about it.

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Sorry, junior232, I don't have anything that is going to help you with this one.

 

i dont really know how i could prove i was busy and i couldnt phone jobcentre

 

That's the whole crux of the issue. If you had an hour at any time in that two week period then it could be argued that you could contact the jobcentre and make the claim. It is near impossible to even argue that you didn't have that time let alone actually prove it.

 

Is it feasible that where you were had no phones that were available to you? Probably not.

 

If you were not able to contact the jobcentre then are you available and actively seeking employment?

 

Back-dating is an incredibly difficult payment to be allowed and appeals tend to fail as well.

 

Sorry :(

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There were phones avialable but not for me to use i was staying at a cousins house just for two weeks.

 

I have been seeking work related to my degree through the internet, and i have a few bookmarks saved of jobs that i intend to apply for.

 

What i dont understand is, when i went to the appointment the advisor asked me when i would like to claim from i stated i dont really know and just said from the day i finished my last exam, i even asked would this be ok she just said yes, i even provided a letter with the end date of my course which was the 22nd of May which the advisor read through but she didnt say anything about that i couldnt claim from the last day of my exam and that it has to be the end date of the university, i was told to bring proof of my end date to the appointment, i mean if the advisor stated you cant claim from that date and that it has to be the end date of the university i would have claimed on the 22nd of may the day the end date of my university.

 

On this basis could i put a claim in for the payments to be backdated?

 

I understand where you are comming from that it is extremely hard to get payments back dated, but i have never been on job seekers before this is the first time, i have never claimed any benefits ever in my life, i have paid my taxes when i was working only to be refused help from the government when i need it the most, its very frustrating.

 

I will continue to pursue this as i wasnt in the wrong i made the appointment and i attended it and i would have continued to attend appointments but they cancelled the claim and i was advised wrong, i just need some guidance thats all

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I understand you completely.

 

The advisor at the jobcentre is not processing the claim so they wouldn't provide any advice in this area. That sounds harsh but they are not trained to do this, imagine what had happened had they provided the information and it turned out to be wrong.

 

The onus is on you to make the claim and provide the information needed for them to process it. When they said it was okay to claim from the day after the last exam this doesn't mean that it is gong to be payable from that day.

 

Your only other option would be misdirection. If you felt that you were advised wrongly then you would need to contact the advisor you saw and they would need to both remember you and be willing to admit the mistake in writing. In most cases, advisors see too many people to remember individual cases.

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I doubt the advisor would remember me like you said they see a lot of people. As for the claim i have been actively seeking work for the past 2 months, and i had to make an online application agian on the 5th of july i missed the calls from the jobcentre and i called them on the 14th of july to arrange an appointment for the 19th of july. I didnt attend the appointment on the 19th of July and i phoned in the same day and i have arranged another appointment for the 22nd of july, when do you think i can claim from? its a little messed up i know but i have been busy with my resit exams which finished on the 8th of july and i have been stressed out trying to deal with incorrect exam grades which teachers got wrong and had to go through a long appeal process.

 

I will try my best to backdate the claim nothing i can do but to tell the truth what happened and see what happens.

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You could claim from the 14th July. What reason did you not attend on the 19th? Otherwise the treat as made date would be the 19th when you contacted to make the new appointment which you did attend.

 

Good luck, junior232.

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