BEFORE THE WIND BLOWS

Well I had my ... interview.

That dreaded interview with the Universal credit people.

I am sure they are going to try and kill me? It went a lot smoother than I imagined but I was somewhat shocked by some of the ... rules.

That is that you have to spend 35 hours a week actively searching for a job?! My bloody god I probably spend that amount of time, or at least I have, bringing back shopping! I would have to give up sleep! Oh yeah. I do not sleep brilliant any way!

There was something that I wanted to divulge here and that was that I explained everything that had happened and I explained, at least in part, about my disability.

As to the first one and the fact that I have now handed in not one but TWO Employment Support forms I told them I did not know what the feck was going on and I did not want to be accused of fraud by the DWP later on! As I may have mentioned I recently asked the ESA in an email what the feck happened to my second application. I received no reply.

It gets weirder as just to make sure the nice lady I spoke to checked on her system using my national insurance number to see if there was anything there and what did it say?

I AM RECEIVING NOTHING!

Umm ... but wait a moment. Technically I am still receiving PIPs and I have not had any letter stating that it is going to cease and of course they need to tell me ... 'WHEN?!

It gets weirder still...

It turns out that your housing is not paid via the council but via Universal Credit. What?!

So I not long ago sorted out my rent payments and now ... umm ... something may happen? Again?!

What a god awful mess the DWP is and in all honesty I find it impossible to believe that this much incompetence is going on.

Three benefits stopped, two applications go missing, the Citizen's Advice make stupid cock-ups so I have no representation, no General Practitioner present at the hearing, the Employment Support Allowance treated by the judge as if it was PIPs and demanding my phone off me?!

All that happening in one go to one person and I am supposed to believe it is all mere coincidence?!

Pull the other one, it has bells on it!

What was the most interesting is that when I stated to my interviewer that I had a disability he did not bat an eyelid. This could only mean one of two things ...

They already knew I had a disability, despite having medical documents I was not asked to show them anything at all.

Or they already knew to expect, or already have some, get a lot of disabled people through their doors?

Also the rules to Universal Credit seem unfair and ... if I am honest nowhere near realistic and yet the paperwork is riddled with reasons to take over £10 per day off your benefits. When I saw the amount I thought ... umm do you even PAY people £10 per day?! It looked like you might end up owing THEM money if you did not play by the rules.

What was laughable was when I stated that eight years beforehand and registered disabled at the time I came in to ask about help for starting my own business and he says, "Oh we do that now"?! Bloody marvellous. He photocopies the leaflet as he only has one and tonight I get to read it ...

Umm ... caled the New Enterprise Allowance and you get ... umm ... a weekly amount of £65 from the commencement of trading for weeks 1 through 13.

Hang on ... didn't the other documentations state that if you do something wrong they can take £10.70 each day off your money? That is £74.90 over a week. I think someone needs to go out and purchase an abacus? They obviously do not know where the Calculator app is on Windows!

Weeks 14 through 26 that drops to £33 per week!

Oh and you can get a low-cost loan. well, that's nice!

There was me thinking that you could get full support for a year and a grant. But no. They give limited support in an age where they have fucked up the economy and no one has the first clue as to when it will end and it has been like this for well over 6 or 7 years!

Did this people ever go to school? If they did they certainly had no classes on maths nor economy!

Yeah so my new business idea ends up not working because they fecked the economy and cannot even tell us when it will end and I end up with some bank or other chasing me for money again for the next ten years?! Yeah you can shove that where the sun does not shine!

So their idea to improve the economy is to stand behind the poor, unemployed (yeah like there are any jobs) and the disabled with their proverbial whips while conning them out of their money?

Was funny when I was told that if and when I got a job part time, as that is all I can do, they only taje 65p back for every £1.00 you earn. So I am going to earn 35 pence an hour, lol.

It used to be that you could earn a certain amount before they start taking percentages from you now you get slave labour.

The interviewer was a bit shocked when I explained I had a BSc Degree in Computing ... come to think of it I do not know if he was shocked that I had one or shocked that I forgot to mention it until 30 minutes into the interview? Maybe both?

I have had no answer from the Citizen's Advice either so I have emailed them again and the fact that the JobCentre have confirmed that there is no application for ESA for me going on and asked them to explain themselves.

They told me to put the claim in and they refused to take it, oh did I forget about that bit? Then they told me to post it and the ESA lost it. They sent me another application and that one has gone missing. That is three attempts to put in an application.

1. Refused
2. Lost
3. SILENCE!

Stunning.

I told two friends that I feel like I am being set up to be convicted of fraud.

I have been driven to apply for Universal Credit while everyone has gone silent. I said that I bet that a month into Universal Credit I get told I am being prosecuted for fraud as my ESA has gone through?!

Well they will get a wee bit of a surprise of they try to do that.

If I thought there was any chance I was being set up I would prepare for it so that it can NEVER possibly happen. I would have to be a complete moron not to have thought I was being set up, even before the third attempt to apply for ESA went awry.

I could span the last 14 years and not have these many errors and things going on as have done in the last couple of months. FOURTEEN YEARS!