Letter of complaint in OD

Remember the situation in this entry?

Well, I had the interview this week and brought up what happened. The guy who interviewed me was as pissed off as I was about the whole thing and suggested I file a complaint.

He did give me a form but I decided not to go that route. The reason? Middlesbrough jobcentre has the same affliction as Middlesbrough Council. They have issues with loosing stuff. I decided to email them instead and, after spending about ten minutes looking for the fucking page, finally did. Here’s what I wrote:

NI Number: XX XX XX XX X

Dear Sir/Madam,

I recently returned to signing on at the jobcentre after being sent to Pertemps for six months. It was this that was the start of my troubles.

When I was first signing on I was paid every second Thursday. When I was at Pertemps, I got paid every second Tuesday. All of this was fine. On being sent back to the jobcentre I was dealt with as a new claim and told that my pay date would go back to being the Thursday, which is as I expected. What I didn’t expect was the kerfuffle that this caused.

The week after my appointment to go back to the jobcentre was supposedly the week I got paid. Sure enough, as expected half my money (the last week from Pertemps) went into my account on the Tuesday. On the Thursday, however, the rest of my money hadn’t appeared. When I went to the jobcentre about this, I was informed that it was because the person who had signed me had forgotten to put a note on the system saying that I had signed on the Monday. They put through a same day payment and I got my money that afternoon. Two weeks later, I was having the strangest sensation of déjà vu as 9:30 saw me back in the jobcentre, back on the phone to yet again complain that I had not been paid. The feeling grew when I was told that the reason was…

Exactly the same as the week before.

I’m sorry. My feeling is that if it happens once it can be excused. If it happens more than that it is either gross negligence or gross stupidity on the part of the staff. I’ll leave it to you to decide which is the case. So, after this happened I decided that for the next two months I was refusing to leave the jobcentre after signing on until I had personally seen them leave the note on the system to say that I had signed on. This being because, obviously, I could not trust them to leave the note unsupervised. As I am currently a weekly signer, I believed that this was going to annoy the staff but I really didn’t care. The first week I did this, there were no problems. I even got a week’s money, which made me think that while this was going on I would be paid weekly. If only I knew the truth…

The following Monday I again asked to see them log on the system that I had indeed signed on. Only to be told that they didn’t need to make any such note as I wasn’t due to get paid that week. I argued that simply wasn’t true and that week was indeed the week I got paid. It was then, and only then, after over a month, that someone finally decided to inform me that my payment date had been moved back a week.
Now, I’m not bothered about that. You can pay me on a Monday, a Thursday or even every Sunday as long as I spot a heffalump if that is your desire. As long as I get paid, I really don’t mind. What does bother me is the following:

1) Why was I not told, or even warned, when I had the appointment that this was going to happen or even that there was a chance that it might?

2) If I hadn’t done what I had done regarding putting the note on the system, how long would I have been left going into the jobcentre every other Thursday to ask for a late payment? Let’s not forget, there were still two pay weeks where this note was not left.

My annoyance is on several levels. The first is that fact that it happened at all. As I said above, I’m not bothered about it getting moved, I’m annoyed that I wasn’t warned that it would happen. This is furthered by the fact that I could have been told both when I signed AND when I phoned about my “missing” money but never was. This is vital information, it might be an idea to let me know. At the moment, as with most people on benefits, I live payday to payday. I take the amount I’m going to get, work out what I need to spend on essential items and then budget the rest over the fortnight. This gets harder when I’m not told when I’m actually due to get money. It gets harder still when I discover about halfway through the week that I have to somehow make one weeks JSA last me for two weeks.

It’s hard enough making two weeks money last, one weeks money for double that time is impossible. As a result, I had to get a crisis loan of £20 for food for the week and I also had to borrow money from a friend, which I have to pay back next time I get paid, for general living expenses. So, not only has this whole experience been irritating (and easily avoided) but has also left me out of pocket.

What I would like is an apology and an explanation as to why this happened, whether it should have happened and what steps will being taken to ensure it will not happen again. I would also like, but am not expecting, something towards the money that I am due to my friend.

Yours faithfully,

William Forbes