Put Your "Service" Horror Stories Here...

[Cyclefrance]

I think our government departments over here take the biscuit virtually every time, when it comes to sorting out problems - a drawn out saga, but if you show you have the staying power for reading this to the end then it shows you have the staying power to sort out your own service nightmares!

A relatively recent sortie concerning my deceased father's estate. He had endured a series of trips in and out of hospital during his last year of living, nothing majorly wrong but he needed the care during spells of illness that could only be provided as an in-patient.

During this time, the various benefit payments, along with the State pension he received were in regular on/off mode and it didn't help that each benefit had its own set of rules about when it switched on and when it switched off. Initially I sent his payment books back, but the switch back on, once switched off, took weeks to achieve and they made a mess of it as might be expected - so, on the advice of the Post Office where he collected his payments, I retained the books thereafter, drawing money for him when it fell due.

Come November that year he secured the place he had been wanting for so long in a Rest Home. I was at last able to return the remainder of his payment books and ask to be informed of any balance due either one direction or the other. I was fairly clear in my own mind that nothing had been drawn that shouldn't have been and therefore wasn't overly surprised that nothing came back from the various offices to change this view. Then, sadly, my father suffered a repeat stroke only 3 months after entering the Home, a vicious one this time, however, and he never recovered. I cleared his estate, and brought matters to what I thought was a close.

Not so.

Another 3 months passed and then, one day, a letter landed on the doormat from one of the Benefits offices. The letter was badly written referring to my deceased father as 'her' and 'their' in several places and ending up pronouncing that my father had collected benefit of £500 or so while he was in hospital. This was not allowed and so they wanted a cheque from me for this amount as the administrator and major beneficiary of his estate.

Barring the insensitivity of the letter, this was fair enough – if it was true. However, I was convinced that it was not and so I wrote back suggesting they might have their facts wrong and asking for proof. Silence for two months. Then the very same letter as before arrived (same errors), but signed by someone new. I wrote back again, as before.

4 weeks later, the Office sent me a list of the dates they claimed corresponded to the times my father was in hospital and the payments he received, but nothing to support these. I wrote back again asking for evidence – hospital entry/release confirmations and copies of receipts for monies paid.

Next letter (another 3 weeks passed) just asked again for the money and also for a copy of the Power of Attorney I had arranged when he finally moved into the Home and I needed to clear up his household accounts for him. I sent the POA explaining that my father was now deceased and that the POA had therefore expired and in any event had only been established after the monies they claimed were due would have accrued.

4 weeks and then again they wrote saying they wanted another copy of my POA - they’d lost the last one. I replied again as before, sending another copy, and again asking for evidence. The penny dropped over the POA - , next letter, they asked for my Certificate of Appointment as administrator of my father’s estate, but they still gave no evidence to support their claim.

Off went the second document and again the request for evidence. In reply, my POA and Certificate back and a copy of the hospital’s admission and release dates. Two of the dates they were claiming for didn’t tally. There was still no evidence to show what payments had been made. You can guess what I wrote next!

Another 4 weeks, and I received a coded computer printout that was supposed to be a record of his payments. Not at all easy to decipher, but it looked as though some of the date information was duplicated. Back again but with a slight change of tack - at the same time as I asked for the details to be deciphered, I also billed them for the excessive work I had undertaken trying to get simple information out of them - I believed it was unreasonable to expect my father’s estate to absorb this ‘cost’ as they were the ones causing all the work - God knows how many letters went back and forth when only one or two should have been needed.

Two weeks later success – they cancelled their claim, but as expected refused to pay my invoice. So, it looked as though they had made a mistake after all - although it could have been that the invoice was the thing that brought things to an abrupt halt. Anyway as far as I was concerned, a satisfactory conclusion. But what a waste of time and effort on their part – six months of protracted and unnecessary communications and time that could have been put to better use elsewhere. If they had checked their facts properly at the outset the whole issue would most likely never have happened. No wonder our benefits system is in chaos - and that its officers seem never to have time available to pursue those that deliberately abuse the system and get off scot free.