Customer compliance officer interview queries and concerns

[estellyn]

From my experience of sitting next to the compliance team, the guy probably went to his superviser to see if he could get out of having to do a home visit by not doing a compliance check at all, and his boss said no!

 

Nothing triggers these types of compliance checks - a computer randomly picks out claims to do a check on. It is how the DWP get their error and fraud statistics, from the randomly generated compliance checks - so with error and fraud being at 0.7%, you can see how many of these checks happen with no problems at all. And yes, sometimes it is found that the person is getting less than they should - for instance SDP's not being paid are a thing that is commonly picked up on these checks and corrected resulting in increased payment.

[estellyn]

Well, the moving money between accounts issue shouldn't be too difficult - just pre write a covering letter to go with the statements explaining what you do to keep the accounts open. Is there a reason you need all these accounts? If so put that in the covering letter too.

 

Regarding going over £6000, I doubt you'll get in any trouble for it, just have to pay back a small overpayment. It is £1 taken off your benefit for any week where your capital has been over £6000 during that week, but less than £6250. So if it went over the limit 10 times (during 10 separate weeks), then you'd have to pay £10 back.

 

Hope that helps.

[estellyn]

To be honest I opened the 3 reward accounts simply because they reward £5 a month for each account, thats £15 a month including my main account which works out at £180 a year and its a lot to lose. Halifax have stopped it now though and only allow 1 reward account per person. I have had the accounts for a few years now and have just transferred the 1k a month between them to keep them open but they only changed the rules in April so that you have to have 2 monthly direct debits per account set up before 16th April. Because I found out late about the new rules I set up several dd savings accounts for £1 a month in case some didnt make it in time by 16th April with the intention of stopping the uneeded ones later. I also set up 2 lottery dd in case the savings dd's didnt go out on time with a plan to stop those also once the accounts were saved. If it wasnt for the rewards I wouldnt keep them. Im begining to wonder if they are worth it now.

The previous months before April dont look quite as bad as you can see its straight forward transferring between the accounts but with all the adding savings accounts dd's, the lottery dd's and a few utility dd's until the accounts are saved it looks a mess.

I have already swapped the utility dd's back to my main but that will only show on next months dd. I could close some of the savings accounts now and just keep the necessary 2 per account but I thought it might not look very good until they have sorted this stuff out but then I'll close them.

 

Also could I or the people I pay get into trouble for paying them cash in hand for doing jobs for me?

 

I think you're right that it would just look suspect to be closing down the accounts.

 

Regarding paying people cash - you're not responsible for their business practices or what they declare to HMRC. Most workmen, handymen, plumbers, dogwalkers, cleaners are paid in cash.

[estellyn]

Thanks, Could they ask me to name the people I pay in cash? I don't know if they would want me to.

 

The interview might not be all about the money though, its only a home visit because I've requested that but what are they likely to ask me? will they go through my esa application again or ask me to do anything physical or look around my house? They can look if they want but I just want to know what I should expect

 

No they won't want you to do anything physical or look around your house, it is just about checking that the amount you've been awarded is correct. They are generally looking at bankstatements for amounts going in, but will look at amounts going out if they believe money is being spent deliberately to keep below the capital limit - but this is only when larger amounts are involved, in which case they may ask what the amounts are for. With such complicated bankstatements, they may well just take copies away to look at later. They'll mainly want to check they see all of the relevant paperwork - ID, proof of address, proof of income (for instance other benefits), bankstatements, etc.

 

To answer the first question - if it was a large payment taking you under the capital limit then they might ask what it is for and a receipt for the work.

[estellyn]

I cant give reciepts for my odd job man and private home help etc as I pay those cash in hand and dont get receipts. My daughter also gets me lump sums of money out every so often so I have money on me for anything I need to pay for, it saves her going back and forth and I just let her know when I'm running low. I just tell her to get the max amount out each time so it lets me which is £300 with halifax. They may think that is a large amount but I cant go myself and I try to cut down on trips to and from the cash machine that my daughters need to do for me. God knows with all this I feel really worried, I just hope they are going to be understanding.

 

everything you've said sounds perfectly reasonable, and I can't see there being a problem at all. They are generally very nice people and understand how stressful the process can be.

[estellyn]

No, they won't normally know detail about your illness, they are simply there to assess the monetary side of things.