General Chat

I would have the energy to be angry :-|

I am my son's 'Appointee' registered with the DWP to deal with his benefit claims so all correspondence should be addressed to me.

Yesterday a letter came addressed to him regarding his JSA and 'inviting' him to attend an interview with the Compliance Officer.

As a young man with learning difficulties and diagnosed anxiety issues this has sent him into an absolute panic. He thinks I have done something wrong and he is going to be sent to prison and nothing I can say helps. I have had tears, screaming, anger, accusations and I am totally worn out by 24 hours of dealing with it. If they had addressed the letter correctly I would have been able to approach the subject with him in an appropriate manner and the last day wouldn't have been hell.

His claim has been a catalogue of errors from the start and just as I thought everything had come right this happens :-(

Sorry to moan but I just needed to let of steam
I am now gathering my strength to make a formal complaint.

Wish me luck.

Chris

Good Luck, Chris!

Thanks Potty

I will do the letter tomorrow when I am calmer and can write less emotionally.. If I did it now it would end up as a rant :-)

Chris

A single lady we are friends with has exactly the same problems as Chris since her son turned 18. I help her out with computers, games for her son and so on.
What she has to go through is beyond belief so Chris has all my sympathy.

<3

How many times have we all said, none of us are just a number, each of us has a story!

I hope you get the paperwork sorted and someone offers you both an apology.

Sue

Good luck, Chris
xxx

Good luck Chris
Hope you feel better tomorrow
xx

People sitting in offices with no idea about the people they are sending letters to.

I do hope you get it settled quickly.

Thank you all for your very kind words and support.

I am afraid I took to my bed early last night, emotionally worn out, and have only just got back online.

Glad to say things are much calmer today so fingers crossed it will continue.

Girding my loins now for the meeting tomorrow :-|

Thank you all again
Chrs

Good luck at the meeting tomorrow Chris

chris,
my mum is the appointee for my brother with the dwp,
she ripped into them when they sent a letter to him and caused him great distress.
everything has been ok since then,
when we deal with them we take all the hospital & doctor's note's about what is wrong with him ,he has not been called for a medical or anything like that since,
well worth any money it cost's.
just do a lot of photo copying so you alway's have them to hand.

sue

I suspect the problem here might have occurred because 2 seperate departments, Jobcentre and DWP, have been amalgamated. I doubt Jobcentre staff would have had any involvement or dealings with Appointees before as they were only dealing with people capable of work. Any DWP Appointeeship prior to the amalgamation would have been for DWP benefits only and other government depts would be unaware unless they had been seperately informed of the position.

It sounds like he has had one of the new work assessment letters, so now they are amalgamated, this situation certainly needs to be brought to their attention so they can identify staff training needs and/or put procedures in place to stop it happening if they haven't already.

I hope your son has calmed right down now. it must be well nigh impossible to try and explain these things to him and it can't be good for you either. I hope you get it sorted out quickly.