DWP Persecution Of People In ESA Support Group
Mike Sivier at Vox Political recounts an experience his wife, Mrs Mike, had last week with the DWP:
Insane as it may seem, the Department for Work and Pensions is actively pursuing people with long-term illnesses, apparently in order to make them increasingly anxious and thereby worsen their health.
This will not be news to anybody who is familiar with the benefit system for the sick and disabled. All you others, take note.
On Monday, Mrs Mike received a letter from the DWP. It said:
“Notification of Customer Compliance Visit
“We will be calling at your home.
“A customer compliance officer … will be visiting you at your home on Thursday 3rd December 2015… It is essential that you are available for this visit and provide the documents requested in this letter. This interview has been arranged because your circumstances may have changed and we need to ensure your payments are correct.
“When you claimed benefit you agreed to tell us immediately if the circumstances relating to your benefit entitlement changed.
“What will happen if we do not hear from you?
“If you fail to be available for this visit and do not contact me, your entitlement to benefit may be in doubt and your payments will be stopped.
“If there has been an unreported change in your circumstances then any overpayment will have to be paid back. Further, you may be liable for financial penalties.”
In this case, Mr and Mrs Mike were lucky. They found helpful resources at DPAC, another site Same Difference deeply respects. You can find these resources through the link above, if you are in a similar situation to Mrs Mike.
Same Difference 
Are you sure this isn’t personal? The DWP have no reason to like you much (that’s a compliment!) and may have invoked something they rarely apply to people in the Support Group.
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There are unfortunately several similar stories on Same Difference- so we believe this is happening everywhere and should be highlighted.
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These visits are quite common. Although the section of the DWP dealing with ‘compliance’ can make the visits based on someone phoning them to report fraud, they also, apparently, choose people at random. That was what they told me a couple of years ago in any case. I’d already had the same thing happen with regard to housing benefit on many occasions, so I was used to these sorts of visits.
That said, I wouldn’t put it past the DWP targeting Mike Sivier considering his work as an activist!
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