DWP Demanding Repayment of UC, I've never claimed it

[Robberto]

I got a letter today from DWP telling me I owe them a smidge over £1600 after receiving an advanced payment in April 2020 and an overpayment in June/July 2020

I've never claimed Universal Credit and have been in continuous employment since graduating in 2006 and I've only ever been on PAYE. One arm of the government can see that I've always paid my tax and NI while the another appear to have made payments to someone claiming to be me and also claiming to be unemployed

I've had a look online and this appears to be a semi-regular scam.

I will call them tomorrow and ask them to suspend their claim and to prove they paid me etc. and I'm not overly concerned on that front as I can provide any evidence they can ask for that it wasn't me who made the claim (tax records/payslips, bank statements)

What I am concerned about is I am due to complete a house purchase by the end of the month. Mortgage is all approved and in place and nothing came up in that process around this false debt. But if they decide to not suspend this claim could this be problematic? I have been an Experian subscriber since around 2019 and nothing relating to this has ever appeared and checking my credit report today it's still all clear

Obviously the other concern is that someone has claimed UC in my name, anything I need to worry about on that?

Thanks in advance for any advice or info

Edited by Robberto on Thursday 10th March 19:03

[Simpo Two]

Robberto said:

What I am concerned about is I am due to complete a house purchase by the end of the month. Mortgage is all approved and in place and nothing came up in that process around this false debt. But if they decide to not suspend this claim could this be problematic? I have been an Experian subscriber since around 2019 and nothing relating to this has ever appeared and checking my credit report today it's still all clear

I can't think you'll be going from a letter today to a bad debtor in 21 days.

Robberto said:

Obviously the other concern is that someone has claimed UC in my name, anything I need to worry about on that?

Or it may be some admin error. Can you ring them up and talk it over?

[Robberto]

Simpo Two said:

Robberto said:

What I am concerned about is I am due to complete a house purchase by the end of the month. Mortgage is all approved and in place and nothing came up in that process around this false debt. But if they decide to not suspend this claim could this be problematic? I have been an Experian subscriber since around 2019 and nothing relating to this has ever appeared and checking my credit report today it's still all clear

I can't think you'll be going from a letter today to a bad debtor in 21 days.

Robberto said:

Obviously the other concern is that someone has claimed UC in my name, anything I need to worry about on that?

Or it may be some admin error. Can you ring them up and talk it over?

Thank you. I was worried that the letter coming out meant my debt had gone bad. It does say that if I do nothing by beginning of April they’ll seek to recover so it appears to be a first demand

Admin error is what I’m hoping for but I could also be one of the 6000+ fraudulent cases estimated to have been signed off during the same time period from what I’ve been reading online

[Carbon Sasquatch]

If you call them - look up the number independently & don't rely on the one on the letter. If it's a hard decent scam, you'll be calling the scammer

[Pixelpeep 135]

they have VERY large fraud teams up and down the country - CFCD (counter fraud, compliance and debt)

You'll be fine and they will be able to very quickly put it right.

Assuming the letter itself was genuine

as advised - get the number off the gov website rather than using any details on the letter/email.

[Ean218]

Pixelpeep 135 said:

they have VERY large fraud teams up and down the country - CFCD (counter fraud, compliance and debt)

You'll be fine and they will be able to very quickly put it right.

Assuming the letter itself was genuine

as advised - get the number off the gov website rather than using any details on the letter/email.

I wouldn't count on it. BBC Moneybox has stories nearly every week of people being hounded and having the money taken from them through PAYE by HMRC.