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Hi everyone my name is R i currently claim ESA with my partner S and our child of 9 years.
i was wondering if i could get any advice over the past 6 weeks i have had 3 sanctions placed on me 2 of which are overlapping right nowfirst i will explain what happened.
i had been issued with 2 appointments to attend at ingeus for a work focused interview one on the 9th of Jan and another on the 29th of Jan however i did not even know these appointments had been made. the reason i did not know about the appointments was because of a situation i have been having with the post office which i have offered proof to JSA & Ingeus and they have both said they do not need it.
after i found out about the missed appointments through calling and asking when i was next in i arranged to go in and see my advisor on the 10th at 11:00 am in an office 15 miles from my home. now my partner had to go to Manchester a few days prior regarding a family situation which left me and my little one at home, normally my step dad picks her up in the morning while he is doing the school run but my little sister who suffers from asperger's syndrome was having a bad morning so he could not pick her up which meant i had to take her to school.
at half 8 in the morning i called my advisor and explained the situation and that the only bus that could get me there on time leaves at 9am and i would not be able to make it. and she said ok but could i try and get in a little later i expressed the fact that there was only 3 busses that run through here per day one at 9am , 1pm, and 3:30pm and the last bus back from my appointment was at 4pm meaning i would have to get the 1pm bus but that meant i would not of been back in time to pick the little one up from school. but i did express that i would try and get a lift and call back later.
after calling around trying to get a lift which was not successful i tried to call her back after not being able to get through i decided to go online and see if there was another number and i came across a mobile so i called that and went straight through to answer phone i hung up and then called her head office and explained and they said they would connect me to my advisor i ended up back at the answering machine and decided to leave a message.
here is the bad part, on my message after explaining that i tried to get a lift but was not able to i asked her to make all further appointments at their other office which was far easier for me to get to, two days later i received a letter through the post with 5 appointments all made for the office which i had asked for so i assumed great she got the message but a few days later i got a call telling me she had made an error on the appointments and she had put the wrong office down. so it turned out it was an unfortunate mistake. she went on to tell me that she never got any message ant that it had been put down that i just didn't attend.
lucky for me i have online billing on my phone and i was able to get a copy of my bill and prove the calls i made that day, she explained that they have not used mobiles since 2012 and i should of never been put through to it in the first place and she agreed to wipe all sanctions and so did her manager which she showed me on the screen.
but 1 day later in came one sanction which lasted one week with no back pay our next payment was fine but then straight after another sanction was applied after going to see my advisor she was shocked to hear this was going on and she went to show me the proof that they have removed them from the system but then noticed that some lady from the head office had reapplied them and not notified anyone and i heard the words she is not allowed to sanction people and at the very least should have notified my advisor that she had applied them. my advisor gave me some paper work which i hand delivered to the job center along with my phone bill as proof of what happened on the 10th and was told it would be dealt with and to call up mid week.
so i call up as told to find out not only has it not been dealt with but they have applied another one and thats all the information they can give me, every time i call jsa or the jobcentre they just keep pushing me from one place to another.
my advisor feels so sorry for what has happened she has even offered to help us get some shopping to help us out.
I just don't no what to do, i feel lost and they will not help |
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Posted on: March 28, 2014 - 8:18pm
Hello there, we are a site funded to help single parents but I can give you some brief guidance.
The way you have been treated sounds absolutely ridiculous. There should be details of the appeals procedure on the ESA sanction notification but if you have tried this and got nowhere then make an official general complaint. Here is how (click). Make sure you do it in writing and keep a copy of what you have sent.
It's good that you still have a decent relationship with your advisor but you cannot allow this to cloud the matter of the complaint.
In the circumstances I would also involve your MP.
In the short-term, contact your local food bank (click here) for stuff to keep you going.
Good luck, and I would encourage you to keep fighting and don't let the system grind you down.