Contacting DWP

Hello, has anyone contacted DWP by phone to notify them about a change of circumstances. I did so a few months ago regarding my son who had had a rise in his pension from his previous employer. He was medically retired at the age of 31, he is now 35. I assumed that it had been sorted until 3 weeks ago he got a letter to say that he had committed Benefit Fraud for not informing them, however someone must of informed them as his ESA was reduced. If you have experienced the same problem what did you do as we are at our wits end as the DWP have threatened to stop his benefits.

Moz wrote: Hello, has anyone contacted DWP by phone to notify them about a change of circumstances. I did so a few months ago regarding my son who had had a rise in his pension from his previous employer. He was medically retired at the age of 31, he is now 35. I assumed that it had been sorted until 3 weeks ago he got a letter to say that he had committed Benefit Fraud for not informing them, however someone must of informed them as his ESA was reduced. If you have experienced the same problem what did you do as we are at our wits end as the DWP have threatened to stop his benefits.

Hi M,

I would always advise members to report a Change of Circumstances (C of C) such as this in writing to create a paper trail :

Sending Documents to the DWP, ATOS, Capita or Maximus.

You will need to try and prove that you did report the C of C over the phone !

A lot of DWP phone calls are recorded, so if you know the day date and time that you made the call, you could refer them to it and if necessary issue a Subject Access Request (SAR) for all and any phone call recordings made around the time that you phoned them.

You can do this using a SAR Form :

SAR Form Download

From this page :

DWP Data Protection Policy

Or you can make the request in the form of a letter, as long as you make it clear that you are making a formal SAR under The Data Protection Act 1998.

Address the envelope : FAO The Data Controller, at the Benefits Office dealing with his ESA.

Write DPA 1998 SAR in front, top, left corner of envelope.

Once received, they have 40 calendar days to comply.

Sending Documents to the DWP.

If you can prove that you did report the C of C, and that the overpayment is therefore down to DWP error, your Son should not have to pay any arrears of overpayment back !!

I would have expected DWP to have sent an ESA 3 financial assessment form out to him or a declaration to fill in once they were made aware of this C of C.

You could also seek professional advice, see : This Topic

bro58

Thank you for the replies, my son did not receive anything from the DWP when we reported a change of circumstances, if they did send something he did not receive it, as I am his carer and I check his post and nothing had arrived, so just assumed rightly or wrongly that it had been sorted. We have also since I posted my question that in fact the Inland Revenue had also informed the DWP surely if they had advised DWP this should of been adequate. Hopefully we can get it sorted if we can ever get my son's pension provider to send us the relevant paper work. Once again Thank you.