A discrepancy

 

Yesterday I received a letter from the Pension Service 1 in Wolverhampton, which ends with a statement: ‘At 16 July 2020, the amount you still owe will be £ 1755.00’. Today I received a letter from the Department for Work and Pensions, Debt Centre Nuneaton, which begins with the words: ‘Amount owed £ 6737.78’.

 

Both letters have the same date: 16 July 2020. Both are dealing with the same thing. The Pension Service wrote: ‘We have been asked to take money off your Pension Credit … Start date 3 August 2020, Total amount stopped £ 11.25’. The Debt Centre wrote: ‘We will take £ 11.25 from your benefit every week, starting from the payment you are due to receive on 03/08/2020’.

 

Interesting is the sequence in which I received the two letters: After having digested the debt of £ 1755.00, I am to swallow the ‘fact’ that my actual debt is considerably bigger. But the fact is that I have never accepted that I owe the Pension Service or the Department for Work and Pensions any money.

 

On November 22^nd 2014 I put on my blog the post entitled ‘The Citizens Advice Bureau intervenes’, from which I quote:

 

‘On 12^th November you sent me a letter from The Pension Service addressed to you, in which Glyn Caron wrote: “It must be remembered that Dr Tomin has been repaying this overpayment since approximately 2009 without complaint.”

 

This is not true, I was not repaying a penny. I never accepted that I was in any way indebted to Pension Service. The Pension Service has been taking money off my Pension Credit – now from my State Pension – since 2009. 

 

Your last question was “Can you recall why you did not choose to pursue this at this stage [i.e. at the initial stage]?” Prompted by your question, I have recalled that I did my best to do so, as my exchange of letters with David Drew, who was my MP in those days, indicates. David Drew wrote to me on 22^nd September 2009: “Thank you for your e-mail of 17 September. I am sorry to hear about your problems with Pension Credit. If you would kindly send me your National Insurance number and a few more details of the problem, I am happy to look into this on your behalf.”

 

The letter from the Pension Service of 6 October 2009 that stated “we will not be taking money for Overpayment from your Pension Credit” may have been sent to me in response to David Drew’s intervention.

 

These good intentions on the part of the Pension Service failed to come into effect; I wrote to David Drew on the 10^th of January 2010: “I am sorry to bother you again concerning the alleged debt which I am supposed to pay Debt Management of the Department for Work and Pensions. I know that you are very busy and work very hard on behalf of your constituents, and I, being a Czech citizen, cannot even give you my vote. Still, I should greatly appreciate it if you asked Debt Management of the Department for Work and Pensions and Paul Lewis at The Pension Service in Cardiff, on what basis was the decision originally made concerning my alleged debt, on what basis it was then cancelled, and on what basis it was made again.”

 

It is good to see that the Citizens Advice Bureau in Stroud is prepared to intercede in a case, which even a well-meaning MP ultimately set aside as hopeless.’