NOT working, part-time or otherwise

[Gemini566]

Good morning,

I received a letter from Jobcentre Plus last week which read as follows;

Dear xxxxxxx,

I am writing to you because you told us you are working part-time. We need to look again at how much money you earn and how many hours you work each week.

Please send us your last five payslips. If you do not have the payslips, you must ask your employer for the wage details. If the amount you earn or the number of hours you work has changed, say when this happened.

When you send us the information you can use the envelope and reply slip sent with this letter. The envelope does not need a stamp.

Yours sincerely,

A. Nother.

I am somewhat perplexed by this because, in the first place I have not contacted Jobcentre Plus for two years and secondly, I am not working part-time or otherwise, nor do I expect to for a few more months yet. I find this letter very disturbing. From my point of view it implies that someone has contacted Jobcentre Plus, pretending to be me and I am, quite frankly, outraged. My dealings with these fools since my accident in 2005 have been anything but cordial, primarily due to the slipshod way in which my personal details, duly filled out and returned forms etc., have been constantly 'misplaced', lost or never received.

Aside from the physical damage I suffered in the accident meaning I could no longer continue to do my job of 25 years, almost immediately afterwards, a personally devastating family tragedy did nothing for my state of mind. I have struggled out of a deep and pervading depression brought on by these events, whilst all the time trying to deal with moronic Government employees intent on my destruction - yes, I am now getting paranoid...but can you blame me?

I cannot afford to allow Jobcentre Plus to mess up yet again, then apologize several months later and give me the money I was always entitled to anyway. My Income Support is a measly £3.00 and some coppers a week because, the say, the amount of Incapacity Benefit I am in receipt of is not enough to live on ( how perspicacious of them!!). However, that small amount of IS saves me a small fortune in prescription charges. If my IS is stopped, I will not be able to afford the drugs I need.


I want to know who has been pretending to be me; it is completely WRONG that someone should be allowed to cause such mental anguish with impunity. I say this because I am fairly sure that Jobcentre Plus are not going to tell me how or when 'I' contacted them about my "part-time job".

Apart from telling them I am not working, what else can I do????

[TUTTSI]

Re: NOT working, part-time or otherwise

As you say, it sounds like either someone is portraying to be you or someone has told them you are working part-time or which I favour the most is that they have their knickers in a twist and have written to the wrong person. It does states in their letter that you told them that you was working and clearly this is not the case.

All you can do is write to them and advise them catorgorically that you are not working and that you have never told them otherwise.

All the best Tuttsi xx

[natweststaffmember]

Re: NOT working, part-time or otherwise

Gemini, I would call DWP and simply quote the reference and ask them whether they have sent you a letter in error. I know how frustrating it is dealing with any benefits department.

[Gemini566]

Re: NOT working, part-time or otherwise

Thank you both for the swift response. I will both call and write today.

It is just so worrying, what with everything else that is going on for me just now. I don't suppose that going on an unpaid course, specifically for people on IB, could be upsetting them? I only ever got travel expenses.