Please help, I want stop the world and get off

Following ESA coming to my rescue to inform UC that I already had a WCA and have been in the ESA support group since 2018, during my enforced migration hell, I have now got really dumb letters from ESA saying Ive been on contribution based and would continue to get that alongside UC. I HAVE NOT NOW OR EVER BEEN ON CONTRIBUTION BASED due to being on income support since 1991 then migrated into ESA INCOME RELATED support group since 2018. I tried to call ESA yesterday and got a woman insisting people on income related ESA only get it for a year.... this garbage is making me so ill. Its pure fantasy by DWP and as if I haven't got enough problems with UC being incapable of answering questions on the journal, and refusing to accept their own regulations until you quote chapter and verse with parliamentary deposited papers sources, now this is going to completely mess up what I've so far established on my enforced migration application through official evidence.
I just can't stop crying now. What's the matter with these ignoramouses?

It wasn't me you asked but mine are all fat zeros on my P60U, and my yearly ESA support uprating letter gives the same amount for ESA total as it does in the line under for total Income Related ESA... i.e they both say £244.80

Apologies to all. The topic title has a massive typo (thanks arthritic spaghetti fingers and predictive text). Should say '...stop the world...' not stop the girls, and yes, i really did feel like that yesterday. Sorry again

I'm genuinely sorry to hear about your migration nightmare! It still eludes me to understand why the DWP did not just swap the legacy benefit recipients to U/C themselves? It has caused so much stress and upset for soooooo many people, something they undoubtedly hoped for!! They did it because they knew that some people would not apply for U/C because it would be exactly that, too stressful, too upsetting, not giving a single thought about sick & disabled people's dignity, thus reducing the U/C recipient numbers to look good on the corporate reports. I don't have all the answers, but I am a really good listener! YOU ARE NOT ALONE!!!! We may be small, but we ARE mighty 💪

Hi David

After the 24 hrs deadline passed I ended up speaking to the call agent from hell who was constantly taking things out of context and fabricating BS from it. I begged him to let me finish speaking and he wouldn't then just put the phone down on me

I was forehead splitting ready to explode so wrote that email to the District manager (she is out of the office until first payment statement due but gave anothers email for urgent things), and copied in my MP.
Thought I'd share (before I explode):


Dear Tilini (and Beccy Cooper, MP)

I have to report to you a staggering amount of incompetence by the staff under you both within ESA and UC. This has now lead to an official error about to come to light that in the meantime will deprive me and my very complex needs of money until rectified.
I have been trying to speak to someone at ESA in a position to immediately undo their error to avert this crisis but am constantly only able to talk to someone answering the phone that pretends they understand but when I try to correct them and tell them the facts, they either talk over me and refuse to listen, or spout complete misinformation whilst refusing to listen to me. I have been trying to speak to someone at ESA (a decision maker) who told me to contact him directly if there were further issues and to use his name (Peter McKenna) and I have been trying to do exactly that, urgently. The 5 week ESA Support Group to UC enforced migration period is complete on 3rd Nov when I'm supposed to receive my first payment statement and monies paid on 7 Nov. Due to this official error at ESAs end, this will produce an erroneous payment - if any.

For the record I have not now or ever qualified for, applied for nor received a letter or penny designated Contributions based ESA. Every letter and penny for the last 7 years has only designated my claim as INCOME RELATED support group. Every penny paid into my bank from dwp esa for the last 7 years has exactly matched the dwp esa income related notifications. I have never now or in youth claimed Incapacity Benefit and my P60U shows big, fat zeros everywhere under all the headings relation to taxable anything. Despite this someone at ESA has now decided to start up a contributions based claim based on money paid to me entirely from INCOME RELATED ESA, which will undoubtedly adversely effect my UC migration claim.
I am not only housebound I am often bedbound too and have between 3 and 4 round the clock carers (NHS AACC) so whoever fantasised and bought into being a Contributions based ESA claim needs dismissing at best, demoting and retraining at worst.
Just saying to me hang on it will get sorted out when UC either IGNORE journal messages or take beyond 72 hours to respond with further mistakes or vague, uncommitted statements, is no good. This needs sorting NOW and there is a deadline to resolve this before 3 Nov.

I have tried calling them 3 times now. The first call centre woman last week spouted complete misinformation and refused to listen. Monday morning a nice young man promised me a call back from the named decision maker (Peter McKenna) within 24 hours. 24 hours came and went this morning and the last person I spoke to put the phone down in me as I was begging him to let me speak as he kept getting things wrong and wouldn't let me speak (feel free to listen to the call).

For the last 4 weeks of this migration I have been put through such unnecessary hell by UC staff constantly refusing to look at messages, respond, take in information, and subsequently getting things massively wrong that takes me days or weeks to get them to take in what I told them in the first place both during my biographical phone call with case manager then repeatedly in the journal from day 1. Beyond this the call centre people in both ESA and UC (if they are different, maybe not) who are very misinformed and like the sound of their own voice and refuse to let me speak and when I do, they take what you say and apply their own warped logic to basic facts contradicting what they are saying. But they won't listen and you cant get beyond them to speak to someone who will and actually knows what they are talking about.

So far I have only lightly touched on one of the multiples of errors, omissions and frankly malicious behaviour by some of your staff that has contributed to literally round the clock stress trying to resolve even straightforward matters to the point where I have quote UCs own regulations (as per parliamentary deposited papers), chapter and verse at UC.

Did you know chronic stress magnifies pain and I have now had to double my prescribed for pain Fentanyl doses from 8 to 16 (sometimes more) every day - the same prescribed medication that stage 4 cancer patients have for intractable pain - your staff's gross incompetence is making me *that* ill.

Just so you know I am also sending this to my MP, Dr. Beccy Cooper.

I hope you get the urgency of this request for immediate action, and apart from retraining your staff, think about service users trying to resolve problems they identify before they become issues causing those of us who have been there and got the t-shirt to think ending it all by killing ourselves is the only answer

Kind regards