heres another gripe at the Inland Revenue regarding the Child Tax credit system


To whom it may concern,

Our initial contact with you was through the online service; we completed the form and followed the instructions to the best of our ability. At some point we must have missed or else it wasn’t there, the part that let us tell you about my disability living allowance. Therefore the tax credit notice that we received was very different from the one we were expecting. I repeatedly tried to contact you, at first we kept getting the engaged tone, however over the days this attempt to contact you took, things changed, we started to be able to connect (great) only to be told we still hadn’t got through and to call back later. Am I paying to be told this? I sincerely hope not, as this means you are making a lot money from this service. What about the people who have to use payphones, this connection that tells you, you still haven’t got through is costing them 20p a time. How can you justify this?
Eventually after a lot of serious frustration, I got through, spoke to someone who changed the information on my claim, they gave me an indication as to what we should expect and that we would receive confirmation in the post. During our conversation it became apparent to me that whom ever I was speaking to had no in depth knowledge of the tax credit and was therefore unable to answer all of my questions, they did admit that all they were doing was entering information into the computer and reading back to me what ever was on the screen. How does this level of service really constitute the name ‘helpline’.
So I waited for a few weeks. When I still hadn’t received the updated award I started to worry. Mainly because I had no faith in the system you have implemented and I did question whether my information really had been updated. Then I tried to ring again, this time I rang on a Saturday, thinking that this day possibly might be quieter, how wrong I was, the rest of the country obviously has the same idea, maybe after trying and failing to get through to you in the week. I connected so many times I lost count, only to be told the call volume was too high and to call back later. I would say up to that point you made a few pounds out of me. Eventually I got through and was asked to select a number to be put through to, I think I selected 3. I spoke to a man who took my details but could not answer my questions as he said he had not got access to the award information, and that I would have to call back and select 5. How absolutely stupid is this that only one selectable number (5) has access to award information. It’s beyond me to put into words how frustrated I was. I dutifully hung up and tried again, I rang and rang sometimes getting BT (for free) and sometimes having to pay you to tell me I still couldn’t speak to anyone. Eventually I got through to select the number 5, the department I wanted to speak to, so I pressed 5, and then I was told the caller volume was too high and to try again later. I could not believe it. I refused to give up. I felt so angry I was determined to speak to someone. So I tried again several times making you more money. I eventually got through I selected 5 and held my breath but I had finally succeeded and I was through. I waited and I waited all the time thinking what a total fiasco it had been trying to get the information I wanted. Then I decided to write to you to complain. I am sure you will receive lots of complaints and you really should take them seriously because if you have managed to upset me so much that I will write to you, then you really are upsetting a lot of people. On a ‘likes to complain’ scale of 1 to 10 I would normally score a 2 but I tell you today I scored an 11. Anyway I waited 25 minutes for you to answer my call and I got to ‘helpline’ in my letter before I spoke to someone. I don’t know if you recorded it or not but please listen to it if you did. Anyway she answered my queries concerning my tax credit award. Due to my extreme frustration I did ask her if she knew if we were getting charged for all these so called connections that tell you to try again later and very diplomatically she said she didn’t know. I’m glad she didn’t know because I don’t think I really wanted her to confirm my worst fears about the money someone is making on all these calls.
Well if your in the least bit interested, you should know that when you are kept on hold waiting to speak to a department the automated voice cuts in too many times, to explain the high caller volume and that maybe you should try again later (so we can make some more money out of you) and it should in my opinion tell you, you are in a queue where you are in that queue and that your call will be answered shortly or as soon as possible. At the very least you need to invest in more people to answer the calls.
I would appreciate a letter confirming receipt of this complaint at the very least, but please feel free to write to ask for more information or to tell me you have addressed the issues raised. I sincerely hope I never have to ring the helpline again. As you can tell from this letter I am able to speak up for myself and can communicate with others at an appropriate level, I feel for the many people who cannot and are not able to get their questions answered or are cut off because they could not cope with the level of frustration they felt when they actually get to speak to someone. This all seems like a lot of hard work to be able to receive money we used to get automatically, and I just don’t see how it is fairer. To me it seems to discriminate against those people who do have difficulties communicating on whatever level. I am absolutely certain there will be many who do not receive the award they are entitled to because of this bureaucracy gone mad.

Copy of letter sent today after hanging on and wasting money on BT.