[Cherie]

How useless are they?

45 minutes minimum holding on the line if you want to speak to a human while they try to divert you off to find your answer somewhere else,

they have been sorting a tax refund for Mr C for 2 years now and we have finally got some money paid back but the amount is incorrect, not by 100s but by thousands....

They have such great systems in place that whip your money away from you if you dare go one day over the 31st January deadline but otherwise incompetence seems to be their middle name, and there is no one to complain to, according the the Accountant the complaints line needs a complain lodged against it, and I can't seem to find an Ombudsman????

Anyone know of any higher being I can contact

[Livia]

They were supposed to send me a refund but it never arrived. I tired of waiting on the bloody line for them, I wrote to them, then I forgot all about it. They took A YEAR to respond. A YEAR. If they weren't a government department but a private firm the lot of them would be sacked.

[Livia]

Oh, and I don't know of a higher being that could help. I don't think God herself could sort them.

[Benjamin]

Before you go further you need to have had a complaint resolved by HMRC usually before you can take it to the Adjudicator's Office if you disagree with their decision.

If you then disagree with the adjudicators decision you can raise it with your local MP and the Parliamentary Ombudsman.

Like the Financial Ombudsman, most of the time you need to do it in that order or they’ll not consider it until you have done so.

[MTVN]

There's probably a few reasons behind the poor service. It's a badly paid role with high turnover so difficult to retain well trained staff. Plus there's not actually many of them because of the push to digitise everything and because the civil service is apparently far too bloated as it is...

As for them being sacked if it was privately run well more likely it would be fully outsourced instead and the customer experience isn't exactly great for services which do that either. It's just symptomatic of a general trend where customer service is not a role which is well resourced anymore or characterised by actual human interaction. Appreciate it is very frustrating though

I never actually worked in tax but I did work for HMRC for a while. Sadly no longer though so I can't even pull any strings on your behalf

[Cherie]

Thanks all, will just let the accountant muddle along with it, its annoying though as he has to be paid, and we should have been done and dusted with this by now

[Ammi]

Originally Posted by Cherie

Thanks all, will just let the accountant muddle along with it, its annoying though as he has to be paid, and we should have been done and dusted with this by now

…ahhhhh, its hugely frustrating…I feel for you/for Mr C…Mr Ammi had something similar-ish a few years back…not exactly the same but that also went on for a few years and then they agreed to disagree……and found a compromise amount to both agree to…at that time, there didn’t seem to be any ombudsman but I don’t know if that’s changed…all I can say is good luck and I wish you both the correct outcome soon…

[Cherie]

Originally Posted by Ammi

…ahhhhh, its hugely frustrating…I fell for you/for Mr C…Mr Ammi had something similar-ish a few years back…not exactly the same but that also went on for a few years and then they agreed to disagree……and found a compromise amount to both agree to…at that time, there didn’t seem to be any ombudsman but I don’t know if that’s changed…all I can say is good luck and I wish you both the correct outcome soon…

Its hard to understand, its not like figures have been plucked out of thin air, the income and receipts are all there, and have been sent and resent....it wouldn't be so annoying if they weren't as quick to take money off you, no delay with that, I am waiting for a small refund and looking at the government gateway it can take up to 4 weeks to refund....like why..

[Oliver_W]

The government can't run anything efficiently. But nationalisation is still a good idea.

[thesheriff443]

The government and companies now give you less of a service while charging more money
Self service tills , you are basically working in the supermarket and paying more while doing it
And the staff look at you like sh1t because the tills fcuk up

The other side of it you have people working from home and not doing their job
Logging into work while sat watching tv

Was paying an electric bill over the phone the other day got put through to a woman and you could hear her toddler in the background

The world is a joke

[Gusto Brunt]

I am checking my state pension NI contributions - even though I'll be about 80 when I retire. That's what it'll be 80 the state retirement age.

Anyway, they've had the year 2020-21 as year not full even though I never ever missed a payment and have the proof.

I must have rang HMRC about 20 times in the last 3 years and they say they will put it right but they haven't yet. So annoying.