Page 1 of Job Seekers Allowance Farce

The company i worked for went into receivership on Friday 13th June.
I have filled in forms to claim lack of notice, lost wages etc. Went into our local benefits office to see if i can claim JSA. After explaining i didnt think i would because my partner earns too much. I was told i should still get it.
The farce now starts. Thought i would start the claim online as all the info was at hand and it would be quicker. After filling in a form of several pages i came to a screen which informed me i would be contacted by a claim adviser by phone within 42 hours to complete the claim which may take upto an hour!. This entailed either staying in or carrying the relevant paperwork they may ask for wherever i went as they will only try to ring twice. I received the call roughly 42 hours later and a further 20 minutes later i thought i had finished but no. You now need to attend the benefits office to sign to say what you had told them was true. Fair enough i thought bit this then turned into nearly another hour as i had to see a personnal job advisor, aswell as sign the forms, to see what jobs i am looking for.
The place i worked is being taken back into council ownership and i am expected to be back there by September at the latest. I said i would like temporary work but was told i had to pretty much accept anything.I said surely this is unfair to the employer if i turn up and tell them i may only be with them a few weeks or months at the longest and i would be wasting their time.The advisor looked confused and just repeated the mantra of you must apply for anything.
Anyway to get to the gist of the story i am to sign on next Wednesday with my evidence of job search until lo and behold i receive a letter this morning telling me i will not be getting contribution based JSA as i have not paid enough NI contributions based tax year 2006-2007.
I only worked part time but have been at the place 4 years so in essence my NI contributions, although not a lot, don`t benefit myself at all.
Does anyone know if i can claim anything else as the medication i am on at the moment was costing me a fair bit when working and i still wont be eligible for free prescriptions so even a small amount would help.
So much for progress, the last time i signed on some 15 or so years ago all you did was make an appointment and fill a claim booklet in all in the same interview.

This item was edited on Saturday, 28th June 2008, 18:32

Andy c,

The Welfare System is not for honest claiments but for the workshy who know how to milk the system!

How long have you worked for the DWP, Alijar? ;)

J Mark Oates

This item was edited on Saturday, 28th June 2008, 21:39

Suppose if i had turned up in a krappa tracky with my cap on at a jaunty raised angle with 5 kids in tow all to different mothers i may have got something! ;)

Mark,

I don`t work for the DWP but, from personal experience a few years ago, they do not want to help truthful, hardworking people!

I don`t work for the DWP but, from personal experience a few years ago, they do not want to help truthful, hardworking people!

I have to agree. You can work hard for 30 years and never claim a thing, but if you hit hard times you are no better of than some idle scab that is too lazy to get of his arse and work. In fact you will probably be worse off, penalised for prudent savings and trying to buy your own home.

Speaking from experience - i`ve worked with DWP and a couple of charities involved in Tony`s New Deal arseup. In that line of work you meet them all. They are a complete waste of office space (spent 6 months in the DWP - never again). The rules are undoubtably in favour of the lazy and the charachters who find lying a piece of cakje. Get yourself a drug habit, start shagging for money (whats it called prostitution) & they will give you a care worker/paqckets of johnnies and will get you your cash sorted & help with whaterever you need b4 you can say "got any smack, crack or glue mister ?"I have a 29yr old female pal with cancer and she cannae get a penny out of them. Been told she will have to wait a minimum 12 to16 weeksfor it to be process. I pray not but she may be dead by then >:( >:( >:( >:( Docs gave her 3 to 4 momths.

Makes it harder being an ex but still very close 12 years later with the wife & I. If things get too bad for her we will try to persuade her to move in.

This country is a shambles. Meanwhile I`m paid handsomely by the Govt. to lend my expertise in developening countries like Uzbekestan, Kyrgystan, Ukraine etc. Great fun but we can`t even look after our bloody own.

Someone stop the world ...................... I wanna get off!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The farce continues.....................................
After receiving the letter on the 26th telling me i cannot claim jsa as i haven`t paid enough Ni contributions. I rang them to query this as i looked after my son and the child benefit is in my name so you are automatically given Ni credits (HRP i think its called)
Explained to lady on the phone what had happened and she informed me i am getting it!
But i have a letter from yourselves telling me i aren`t.
Apparently a payment was made to my account on the 27th and her computer says i am getting it.
Should be happy but i have a sneeky feeling this won`t be the end of it. They will no doubt want it back in a couple of weeks because i shouldn`t have been paid it.

I am having problems regarding JSA at the moment. I have worked for nearly 40 years but the past couple of years I have found difficulty in getting a permanent job, mainly I think because of my age. I had to sign on and stuck to the rules i.e. filling in my book saying what vacancies I had gone for etc., after 18 months and a few interviews later I was still on JSA. They then sent me to New Deal. What a farce this turned out to be. After 13 weeks of making an hour bus journey each way to get to the ND office, I had not been shown ONE job (although I was still looking myself), all they seemed interested in was putting me on a course for 4 months to keep me off the streets. Being 59 years old I couldn`t think what course would benefit me. After a lot of stress a friend actually paid for me to sign off and enough money to have a 5 month break. When the 5 months was up I phoned the Job Centre and asked if I could come back on JSA as a new claim - the answer was yes. It has been nearly 7 weeks and I have not received a penny. The Job Centre gave me a phone number to ring (which I have done 3 times) and it has been a waste of time. I have now been told (after loosing my temper) that a Decision Maker is looking into whether I will get any money or not. It seems they didn`t like the fact that I signed off without having a job to go to, and they are also not happy that I managed to get by without claiming any benefit for 5 months. My reaction was that if I wanted to sign off and live off my own money that was up to me. It seems they think that there is more to it (which there isn`t). I will be retiring in 7 months and I have been treated like a criminal - it is a disgrace - especially when I have worked all my life life:( It is obvious that they ones who have no intention of working are allowed to get away with it - I have sat with people at the Job Centre who have strolled in hours after their time with a can of beer in their hand and they are "slotted in" so they don`t miss their payment - makes me sick.

Don`t they give you income based JSA if you fail contribution? I can`t remember how it works, as I`ve only signed on twice (last time was 8 years ago) and I swore I`d never do it again.

They treat you like s***, talk down to you, make you jump through hoops for £50 a week (£40 back when I was signing on because of my age) and generally by the time you get any money you`ve got another job - that you found yourself because they`re fekkin` useless. Honestly, the way I was treated when I went in, like some waster with no ambition. I felt like telling them where to go and waving my last payslip in their faces to make them cry.

I don`t have a hope of getting JSA now anyway. I`m a contractor and I`ve been off of work for going on three months now, mostly because I finished a 14 month contract in the middle of a recession and IT is one of the things no one spends cash on if they don`t have to (all the recent jobs are junior roles with s*** rates). My years as a contractor have taught me to save so I have money in the bank, which means they won`t give me JSA, but obviously I`m burning through cash with bills etc.

However, I got a letter a year of so ago stating that I hadn`t paid enough NI contributions and I would need to send them hundreds of pounds or `risk` having a smaller pension when I`m older. Apart from the fact their probably won`t be any pensions at the rate we`re going, I pay both employers and employees tax when I am working, amounting to more tax a week than a lot of people take home. So not wanting to sponge off of the State has actually backfired on me.

Getting your own pension is a joke as well. The amount of money you have to put in each month to have a decent final pension is like half of your wages!

What really annoys me though is that I live in a fairly rough area of Bristol, which has a high density of people who think it`s acceptable to coast through life on my taxes. Until recently we had a `lovely` girl living in one of the houses in the close (it`s part council, part private), who had about three kids by however many fathers and had her mother and boyfriend(s) living their illegally while claiming everything they could. They always seemed to have more than enough for food, judging by the size of them.

This item was edited on Thursday, 7th August 2008, 03:41