Unpleasant Memories

[davidgillon]

FB reminders say it's 10 years since someone claimed to DWP that I was working full time while claiming benefits. Back then it was a good week if I got out of the house for 4 hours total.

Fortunately the DWP investigator took one look at me and said "this is clearly ridiculous," even before she got across the doorstep.

But the DWP system is so biased that even an accusation as ridiculous as the one against me is treated as a formal warning.

And even something that quickly resolved threw me into a three month flare up that in pain terms is still the worst I've ever had. I think I went a solid month with no more an 1 hour's sleep at a time.

Back then the calls to DWP's benefit fraud hotline ran, IIRC, 96% false or malicious (and if was pretty obvious why DWP wouldn't want to give a breakdown of people falsely accused by minority).

It's improved since, last I heard the false or malicious caller rate was down to 'only' 85%.

And even once you're done with the accusation, there's still knowing that someone made that call, and wondering who it was.

Comments

[el_staplador]

Ugh. I'm sorry.