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    • You will probably get a couple more reminders followed by further demands fro unregulated debt collectors with even increasing amounts to pay. They are all designed to scare you into paying.  Don't. It's a scam site and they do not know who was driving and they know the keeper is not liable to pay the PCN. Also the shop was closed so they have no legitimate interest in keeping the car park clear. So to charge £100 is a penalty as there is no legitimate interest which means that the case would be thrown out if it went to Court.  Keep your money in your wallet and be prepared to ignore all their letters and threats. Doubtful they would go to Court since a lot more people would not pay when they heard  MET lost in Court. However they may just send you a Letter of Claim to test your resolve.  If yoy get one of those, come back to us and we will advise a snotty letter to send them.  You probably already have, but take a look through some of our past Met PCNs to see how they are doing.
    • Hello, been a while since I posted on here, really hoping for the same support an advice I received last time :-) Long, long story for us, but basically through bad choices, bad luck and bad advice ended up in an IVA in 2016. The accounts involved all defaulted, to be expected. In 2018, I got contacted by an 'independent advisor' advising me that I shouldn't be in an IVA, that it wasn't the solution for our circumstances and that they would guide us through the process of leaving the IVA and finding a better solution. I feel very stupid for taking this persons advice, and feel they prey on vulnerable people for their own financial gain (it ended with us paying our IVA monthly contribution to them)-long and short of it our IVA failed in 2018. At the same time the IVA failed we also had our shared ownership property voluntarily repossessed (to say this was an incredibly stressful time would be an understatement!) When we moved to our new (rented) property in August 2018, I was aware that creditors would start contacting us from the IVA failure. I got advice from another help website and started sending off SARs and CCAs request letters. I was advised not to bury my head and update our address etc and tackle each company as they came along. Initially there was quite a lot of correspondence, and I still get a daily missed call from PRA group (and the occasional letter from them), but not much else. However, yesterday i had a letter through from Lowell (and one from Capital One) advising that they had bought my debt and would like to speak with me regarding the account. There will be several.of these through our door i suspect, as we did have several accounts with Capital One. Capital One have written to us with regular statements over the last 5 years, and my last communication with them was to advise of of our new address (June 2019), I also note that all of these accounts received a small payment in Jan2019 (i'm assuming the funds from the failed IVA pot). Really sorry for the long long post, but just thought id give (some of) the background for context.... I guess my question at the moment is.....how do I respond to Lowell...do I wait for the inevitable other letters to arrive then deal with them all together or individually...? Do I send them a CCA?  Many thanks
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ESA and Lottery win *** RESOLVED ***


AlwaysSomething
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Hey everyone, just wondered if someone could help me (sorry for the long post).

 

I have been on support group ESA for the last 2 years (after being on Incapacity Benefit for the previous 10) as I am unable to work due to disability.

 

Over the years, i've managed to rack up around £8,000 of debt (including a £2,200 overdraft) through various "buy now, pay later" sites, i've always paid them off in time, but they've always been there.

 

My partner who lives with me won £20,000 on the National Lottery a month ago, the first thing we done was inform ESA and housing benefit about this. At the same time, we instantly paid off all our debts of £8,000 without really giving it a second thought. The debt has been dragging us down for a while now and we were getting charged interest on my overdraft and part of the debt.

 

We just felt so blessed that we could pay it off and start a fresh. We also bought a new mattress as I have a curve in my spine and our old one was making me wake up every hour in absolute agony, a new fridge freezer as our old one broke 12 days after our win and a new washing machine as our old one was starting to get a bit smelly due to complications my disability gives me (i'll leave it there!) We have around £11,000 left now.

 

Housing benefit wrote back and informed us nothing would be changing, we'd still be getting our housing benefit, but I haven't had much joy from ESA. The first call (which I made the day the lottery money cleared in my partners account as we aren't the type of people that would be anything other than 100% honest) they said they want it in writing, so I done that the same day. Couple of days later I was due to be paid ESA and didn't get it so rung back and asked why and got told it had been suspended until the decision maker made a decision.

 

After a month of waiting (and calling each week to chase them up) they finally told me that the decision maker would need to see extra details (I sent copies of our debts we paid off, bank statements etc. with the first letter).

 

I got a capital expenditure questionnaire through the post today and filled it all out, but after doing a bit of research on the internet i've now seen that if the debt wasn't forceable by court, they can use that against you? I had absolutely no idea about this, I thought our benefit would go down a bit because we had a bit of extra money, but I never ever expected to be in a position that they will try to claim we've only paid that debt off to carry on getting benefit.

 

Does anyone have any experience of this type of situation? I guess i'm just wondering what to expect back really... Any help or information would be greatly appreciated.

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Thank you for your reply.

 

I am not to sure what you mean though, sorry, I am quite new to all this!

 

£2,200 of the debt was on an overdraft (I was around -£2,200 and getting charged a lot of interest per month when the lottery win happened) and the rest was on buy now and pay in a year on different sites. One of the sites was charging me £26 per month interest when I was making the minimum payment. The year term was going to be ending February 2014 and then another was going to be ending around June 2014.

 

Does it make a difference that we were getting charged interest on these things, or do you think ESA will still say we've only paid these debts off to be able to claim benefits. I am honestly so shocked that we're in this position, it was one of the happiest moments of my life when I paid it all off because it's been a noose around my neck for ages now and it finally felt like I was free. I never had any idea that ESA would try and claim we only paid it off to be able to carry on claiming benefits :(

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If you still have £11k left then it will affect your claims as notional capital, as anything over £6k is taken into account.

 

DM should look at the debts as acceptable expenditure and just take the remainder into account as notional capital and reduce your ESA accordingly unless it's contribution based, then it will not matter.

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Thank you for your reply.

 

That is exactly what I was expecting to happen when I told them about the win, I completely agree that our money should go down as we have over the £6,000.

 

It just seems to me they are trying to claim the debts i've paid off didn't HAVE to be paid off which is concerning me because having the debts were making myself and my partner extremely low and even with no ESA in 5 weeks our money has gone down to around £11,000.

 

It just feels like they are trying to punish us for being sensible and wanting to start a fresh with no debts.

 

I've just found the letter I received stating that I was placed in the support group of ESA and it says "You are entitled to both contribution-based and income-related Employment and Support Allowance" So i'm not totally sure which one I am on...

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Thank you for your reply.

 

That makes me feel a bit more positive about the situation, at least we shouldn't have all our money taken away from us.

 

Thanks for the help everyone, I will sit by the door and wait for the dreaded brown envelope and keep you all updated :)

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  • 2 months later...

Well 15 weeks after first winning the Lottery, telling the DWP straight away and having our ESA suspended, the decision maker STILL hasn't made a decision on this!!

 

Been contacting them twice a week for the last 15 weeks about this and each time I get a "nothing has been decided, ring back next week"

 

I am really at a loss what to do now. 20k was a nice amount to have but 8k worth of debts and 15 weeks worth of bills while getting no form of income has really had an effect on the amount of money we have! We've been so careful not to spend any of the money too.

 

Is 15 weeks for a decision like this normal? Do they have a limit?

 

Any advice would be great, I feel like I am getting nowhere right now.

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Hi Always

 

Write a Formal Letter of Complaint to the Benefits Office dealing with your claim. Explain that you've provided the requested information and it is unreasonable for them not to have made a decision within this period (15 weeks). Explain that not only is this making your illnesses worse, causing you stress but financially you are beginning to struggle to by basic essentials.

 

Write the name of the Benefits Office and Formal Letter of Complaint in the subject bar. Send it to:-

 

[email protected]

 

Copy your local MP into your complaint.

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Thank you very much for your reply rebel11.

 

I will certainly be taking your advice and taking this step next.

 

This morning I spoke to the person who deals with information from the decision maker (who I've spoke to about 472 times over the last 15 weeks! although I must admit she's been very nice and shares my frustration and finds it shocking the matter hasn't been sorted yet) and apparently the decision maker emailed her this morning claiming she (the decision maker) "doesn't think" (her exact words) she can make a decision yet because some bank statements are "missing", but she will "try" (again exact words, the lady read the email to me)

 

I was requested to send bank statements from the 22nd October which I done (twice as they lost the first lot I sent) so I have no idea what they've done with them.

 

Never knew winning the lottery would be so much hassle!

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Just had another phone call from the person who communicates with the decision makers and finally a decision has been made and the 15 weeks back-payments (minus the expected amount as we have over £6,000) will be made into my bank within 3 days :)

 

Thanks to everyone on this thread who helped and gave advice, very much appreciated!

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Just had another phone call from the person who communicates with the decision makers and finally a decision has been made and the 15 weeks back-payments (minus the expected amount as we have over £6,000) will be made into my bank within 3 days :)

 

Thanks to everyone on this thread who helped and gave advice, very much appreciated!

 

At last! Well done for perservering. It's been a learning curve, hasn't it? :)

 

Once this is sorted, please let us know and we can alter your thread title to show the outcome.

 

HB

Illegitimi non carborundum

 

 

 

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If you pay off all your debt and then try to claim benefits, they could argue it's deprivation of capital. Different if it's the minimum repayments or it's reached court.

I would like to know what you mean by these terms and what they imply.

 

 

I have some monies coming in from a will and if the accountant dealing with the estate has the means I want the monies transferred directly into my mortgage account, hopefully not triggering any loss of benefits and more to the point for me not having to go through the hassle of contacting them as I particularly don't like any engagement/contact with people.

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I would like to know what you mean by these terms and what they imply.

 

 

I have some monies coming in from a will and if the accountant dealing with the estate has the means I want the monies transferred directly into my mortgage account, hopefully not triggering any loss of benefits and more to the point for me not having to go through the hassle of contacting them as I particularly don't like any engagement/contact with people.

 

If you receive any money over £6k which you don't delcare for benefits and get rid of it, not matter how, the DM could decide you still have that money and have only gotten rid of it in order to continue to claim means tested benefits, which they class as deprivation of capital.

 

You are under an obligation to notify them of any changes that happen, however if you are on conttibution based ESA than it will not matter.

 

Maybe open your own topic to discuss?

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I did a similar thing when I got my redundancy money of about £13K. Paid off all the outstanding bills, went on a much needed holiday (first long holiday in years) and then when I claimed I had some young person spouting off about 'depravation of income'. I wrote a detailed letter, explained how my outgoings would have been more than my unemployment money and provided the evidence. They (fortunately for me) quickly changed my adviser at the DM and within a day of the change the decision was made that I had not deprived myself of income.

 

The fact that you tell them immediately goes a long way in your favour as you can use that to show you are not hiding anything.

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I did a similar thing when I got my redundancy money of about £13K. Paid off all the outstanding bills, went on a much needed holiday (first long holiday in years) and then when I claimed I had some young person spouting off about 'depravation of income'. I wrote a detailed letter, explained how my outgoings would have been more than my unemployment money and provided the evidence. They (fortunately for me) quickly changed my adviser at the DM and within a day of the change the decision was made that I had not deprived myself of income.

 

The fact that you tell them immediately goes a long way in your favour as you can use that to show you are not hiding anything.

I'm quite happy to tell them it is just easier to have the money go straight into the mortgage account.

 

 

From your post I now know what is meant by deprivation of income. I couldn't see what it was saying. But the DWP allow you to have up to £6000 before they start to reduce your benefits. I have £5000 in savings so how would that affect how they would view this? Essentially I'm not depriving myself it's just that I have a mortgage to pay off.

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  • 3 weeks later...
At last! Well done for perservering. It's been a learning curve, hasn't it? :)

 

Once this is sorted, please let us know and we can alter your thread title to show the outcome.

 

HB

 

Please feel free to change the title of this thread as it's all been sorted now. Backdated payment has been paid and my benefit is continuing as normal (well, £20 a month less, but after reading some horror stories about having over the limit I am more than happy with this, thought it would be a lot more of a reduction!)

 

Still absolutely shocked it took so long, I honestly don't think they'd even looked at all the details I sent in until the last time I called as I was told then (from the decision maker) they probably wouldn't be able to make a decision as some bank statements were missing (a complete lie) and then 3 hours later I get a call to tell me it's all been sorted.

 

Just so happy after all this time we can now fully enjoy the fact we're debt free and have a clean start without worrying that our benefit will be stopped and we get a massive backdated bill for rent!

 

Thanks everyone again, you were really helpful :)

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