dexcidium

[yaminerua]

Man… I am so fed up with the dwp

In February I applied for Carer’s Allowance online bc I wanted to avoid phone conversations and we really struggled so much over winter with the energy bills and other utilities, and because I look after my brother I was eligible for it anyway. This was back in February. I waited nearly 15 whole weeks to hear back (bc I’d read online the backlog might take that long). Then my dad called up to chase up the application. I had to verify everything again. I wasn’t sure if they were treating it as a new application from the date of the phonecall or if they’d hurry the February application along.

Few more weeks pass and my brother’s CPN came for a visit and heard about this and so HE calls up to chase it up. I got put on the phone again to verify everything all over again. This time I asked if they had received the application at all in February. I was told they had, on the 11th of February but that for some reason it had never been moved along. This was in June by this point. I was told my February application would be marked as priority to move it through faster.

Some time later a letter came in saying I owed the Dwp £1000 for excess payments I’d never received. This had me panicking bc I didn’t have £1000. Shortly after that a second letter came in rejecting my application outright because for some reason despite the numerous phone calls and the original online application all being told that my brother is the one I look after, and giving them his national insurance number and full name… they somehow thought I was applying to look after my granny who has been in a care home since 2021 and doesn’t receive attendance allowance anymore. This was just. Baffling. I used to receive carer’s allowance up until 2021 when she went into hospital but that was all cancelled so I don’t know how they managed to get it so confused.

So yet another phonecall was made to fix both this misunderstanding and the £1000 thing with an emphasis on absolute clarity, making sure they know we’ve been waiting months for this application process to end, that it’s my brother I’m looking after and that we were told the application would be given priority to hurry it along.

Anyway that was in June

it’s August now. And we haven’t heard a fucking peep….

I’m not sure I’m ever going to receive it, which is scary as we move closer to the end of summer. We only got through last winter because I had had money saved up from trying to buy a new laptop. That extra was all that kept us going and then it ran out and we stopped using the heating and anything else we could as much as we could to cut costs.

I’m honestly kind of scared that when it gets cold again and the energy bills are still high that we’re not gonna have money for utilities and bills and food.. Summer has been a relief bc we haven’t had to have the heating on pretty much at all but that’ll change once things get colder again…

I’m just fed up tbh. We’ve been waiting since February. We have had multiple phone calls chasing it up and correcting their mistakes. What is taking so long now???

why the hell is it such a nightmare just to get an extra bit of money to keep us going…