Hello all

Whenever I get a pension credit letter from any of my clients nowadays, that informs the client that they will be making a deductions for an overpayment, they never specify what benefit the overpayment deduction is for, whenever I get a income support or ESA letter about intended direct deductions they always say which benefit overpayment the deduction is for, whilst pension credit just say Overpayment and leave it at that. Surely people have the right to be informed what the deductions from their pension credit are for, surley pension credit have an obligation to tell people what they are making deductions for, all the other benefits agencies departments seem be able to put this simple information on their letters. Even if they have no obligation, surley it would be good practice. Any one know what the best course of action would be,as this is really beginning to bug me. Recentlty it took 13 weeks and numerous phone calls and letters to pension credits before they were able to tell me what benefit overpayment they were making deductions for. They did apologise for the delay, which is something, but would have been much easier if they had just put what benefit it was in their notification letter.

Clients should get a letter advising them of an overpayment from one of the DWP Debt Managment Centre's.
The client is also advised what the rate of recovery will be and from which benefit it will be recovered.The letter also offers them the chance to negotiate on the level of repayment if the sum asked for will cause them financial difficulties.
The problem is they can take years to recover. We had a client who thought after several years of repayment he must be clear of the debt. He managed to find the letter and on phoning the Debt Centre we established how much he originally owed,how long deductions had been in place and worked out he still had 3.7 years of repayments.
I have have always been a tad concerned that repayment may never stop because noone in PC puts an end date on the computer.But that may be paranoia on my part...

You are not paranoid. It happens. We had a client who continued to have deductions made from his PC for nine months after he had cleared his debt. The whole matter was, eventually, sorted out, but it was quite a hassle.