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Forum Home  →  Discussion  →  Decision making and appeals  →  Thread

HMCTS Web chat?

Tracey D
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Welfare benefits advisor - Peterborough City Council

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Total Posts: 127

Joined: 18 June 2010

Hi

I keep listening to the recorded message on the HMCTS phone line telling me I can use web chat to contact them via gov.uk.  Out of curiosity (still on hold 20 minutes in), I have tried searching for this facility .... without any joy
Has anyone located it or ever used it?
Or is the recorded message out of step with C-19 and perhaps it’s been pulled due to staff shortages?

I have used the email address quoted in the recorded message to varying degrees of success, but am currently still waiting on a response to an email I sent on 3 March. I got the automated response straight away, stating I would get a response within 10 working days, 7 weeks on and no response yet.

Va1der
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Welfare Rights Officer with SWAMP Glasgow

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Joined: 7 May 2019

https://www.appeal-benefit-decision.service.gov.uk/benefit-type

Click the ‘contact us for help’ button. Web-chat is closed at the moment, and I have never used it myself, so no idea if it will actually work if you try it during working hours.

Mike Hughes
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Senior welfare rights officer - Salford City Council Welfare Rights Service

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Joined: 17 June 2010

Tracey D
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Welfare benefits advisor - Peterborough City Council

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Total Posts: 127

Joined: 18 June 2010

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction! So, today, instead of sitting on hold for 25+ minutes to speak to HMCTS, I did a web chat.

The initial connection states that the web chat will begin in 5 minutes ...  34 minutes later an officer joined me to chat.

She did manage to deal effectively with my particular enquiry abut some missing Directions but clearly it was no quicker than phoning them. However,  I did find that while waiting for the web chat to start, it was easier to get on with other work than it would have been if on hold on the phone. There was an option to save the chat conversation as well, so I could upload it to my client’s file.