Back in 2006 tax credits lost our claim and we had to wait 4 months for them to sort it out... So after lots of phone calls and letters we got it back dated for the whole 4 months... Now they just sent a load giros which amounted to around £3000... Before we cashed them we rang to make sure they were the right amounts and they were ok to cash... They confirmed that yes it was the missed payments and under payments.. Fast forward to now... Letter from Tax credits claiming a overpayment on WTC for £450... After much head serching i pinned the amount to the giros.... Also got a letter from Advantis DCA... So I sent the standard over 6 years old statue barred letter. They rang the Mrs this morning telling her it can't be barred and she needs to get a loan or credit card to pay the amount in full... She explained that I deal with the money side and was in bed due to working late... He tried to find out how much we earn/ do we have savings etc.... The guy is ringing back at 11am to speak to me... I never deal with DCA's on the phone but after what he has said this morning I'm fuming.. Any advice/facts that I can throw at him when he rings back would be useful... In the meantime I'm going to appeal against the amount as I now understand you can't statue bar tax credits... Thanks in advance for any help.

Hey lovely Caggers Just after some advice on how to help my daughter, if you don't mind. She was in a private rented flat but cut the tenancy short, we agreed with her landlord (I was the lead tenant although I didn't live there because she's under 18) Housing benefit was paid up until the date her tenancy officially ended, a month after she'd physically moved out. She stayed with her ex's family until ending up in a hostel with her young baby when her ex headbutted her. Nice eh? there was some overlap between the housing benefit on her flat and the housing benefit she got while in the hostel. She accepts she should have told the original council that she'd moved but at the time assumed her landlord would do it. there's been an overpayment & we're happy to pay it for her. My issue is the council have already passed it to debt collectors (the overpayment was only in July) She's now in a house of her own with her little one and is doing a fab job a as a mummy, but... Question is, seeing that she's only 17, living on her own with a baby and being treated for anxiety and depression, do you think the council would take the debt back from Jacobs and allow us to pay it in full for her direct to the council? I don't trust jacobs not to have whacked charges on top but the last thing she needs is the threat of 'bailiffs' knocking on her door, as they've called themselves. There's no court order that we know of. She lives 4 hours away so it's not like I can just go with her to the council to sort it. I wish she lived nearer but it's her choice and she wants to stay where she is TIA!

Hello, I only discovered today that I've received four payment from the DWA I was not entitled to. I was on the sick earlier this year as I suffered with anxiety but I managed to alleviate the illness and I returned to university in late September to start and finish the third year. When I did return, I informed the DWA that my sicknote ran out at the end of September and I did what else was necessary on my part. However, I didn't realise for six weeks but they had continued to pay the ESA benefit. I don't understand how they have done this because my sicknote ran out at the end of September. The final payment I received today and I want to return it immediately. Also, I wish the pay the remaining money off as soon as possible. I could probably pay around 2/3 off next month. I genuinely didn't mean to claim this and I feel anxious that they could take serious action against me. Currently, I owe £1,160 approx. I have £225.50 I want to return straight away and I can make, hopefully, around a £400 contribution in the middle of December. I'd like some advice on how to approach this. What sort of letter do I write to them and when it comes to offering payment, would it be a good idea to say I can make a lump sum payment? Would they think I have loads of money and make them determined to pursue me or make threats to pursue? Thank you for reading, Lee.

After obtaining probate to deal with my late mother’s estate I was contacted by the DWP in one of their standard fishing exercises re: benefit overpayments. This initial letter included the line “We will let you know whether or not we need to make further enquiries within 20 working days”. If only. Despite returning the form the next day I was chased for a response a month later. 2 days after that they confirmed receipt of my original response! Based on this my expectations of response time from DWP are poor. That was 2 months ago and I have heard nothing further. I have no desire to wake these sleeping dogs but as executor I would like to finalise and distribute the estate and would like to know if there is any legal limit to how long I can be forced to wait. I know that a Trustee Act notice in the London Gazette provides a time limit for creditors to come forward but in this case a letter notifying a potential debt has already been received prior to publication of a Notice. If this case got lost in the cracks would I be expected to hold the funds permanently in limbo awaiting a response or is there a limit? I haven’t been able to Google an answer so I thought I’d ask the experts! DR

Hi Looking for advice regarding a housing benefit overpayment. I started fulltime work back in June, and moved cities. I informed the council of my work and cancelled my claim. However, I then received an additional payment. I queried this and it was told it was a 4 week run off. Now whilst I informed them I had stated full time work and would like to completely cancel my claim I didn't inform them i had moved, simply because I thought cancelling my claim based on my job should be simple enough, and I didn't know I would be receiving any other payments. However, I have just received a letter stating this was amount was an overpayment which I need to pay back. Do I have any leg to stand on in way of an appeal because I did query this payment and was basically told I was entitled. Or am I completely in the wrong with no chance of winning an appeal because I didn't inform them I had moved? If I don't have a chance of an appeal is there any way to pay this amount over a longer period of time? Both me and my partner are out of work and have decided not to claim anything as he starts a new job next month. Thankyou, looking forward to any advice.

Quick version - i did not renew our tax credits for 2014/2015 as our circumstance has now changed and we wouldnt need nor qualify for them. Got a letter few weeks ago saying we had been overpaid, for the entire 2013/2014 claim, so 4.5 K In addition apparently an extra fine of over £1 k because i did not renew the claim to inform them i did not intend to claim any longer. I wrote back to them right away and asked them to explain how they worked all this out and also to dispute their decision. no reply to my letter, but got a new letter today basiaclly ramping up the debt collection side, saying they will pass me on to a debt collection agency unless i work out a paymnent plan I called them up, and they said yes they received my letter on Oct 23rd, but all enforcement action against me carries on regardless of any appeal or dispute. Apparently they wrote to me in the spring asking for more in depth details of my work, but i never received this letter, and thus when i did not give this extra info they decided my whole claim was thrown out .. and then also decided i owe an extra £1100 for not renewing. I spoke to a very obnoxious young man on the phone today who basically spoke down to me like i was a naughty school child. I told him i had written to them to dispute it, and he basically said " how can you dispute it if you dont know what your disputing " ... it was like banging my head against a brick wall with this kid. horrible little thing ! anyways, i have had to agree a payment plan with them... after reading the forums here i have sent an SAR to them but they just e mailed me and said they have 40 days to get back to me, in the meantime im guilty until proven innocent apparently. surely all this can not be right at all ?? guilty until proven innocent and even in that case not given a timeframe to prove my innocence

The council are charging us £4000 overpayment for housing benefit. We contacted them the other month after checking our on line Housing benefit on line for first time and we saw that they had our son was still on there as living with us when he moved out in August 2013 as we live in a very small two bedroom house and have a 2 and 4 year old so need the room and mine and my partners bedroom is very small so we asked our son if he move out.which he did. We contacted housing to ask why they still had him on there and not our two year old daughter when they had seen her birth certificate and letter from child benefit and child tax credit. They then sent us a bill for this amount saying this is the highest amount rent for our son because he stopped signing in in September and started work. We explain that he moved out and we sent a letter informing them off this plus my partner had been into see someone about our housing benefit and went over who was living in our home which was me my partner and our young children. Our son was never mentioned so we assumed they had received our letter. We had also filled in forms and never put him down as living with us. Now they are charging this high amount as we explained we are no longer on speaking terms with my son because family issues so no nothing where he working living or how much he is earring. We are very worried about this and sent letter off on 15th September to appeal against it, we still not heard nothing from them apart from letter saying they taking £15 a week off the £25 housing benefit they are giving us

Council has overpaid me for the last year and now I have been to ask to pay it back £1460. They claim I didn't update them that I had moved. They ask for previous address and give them a copy of utilities bills and bank statements which I did. I had someone ring me (I should call MR A) that I still owe them £1460 and I explained that you ask the copy of the bills etc. MR a response 'I can't be bother' and 'I don't know' he didn't even give a official reason why my complaint was dismissed. I made another complaint to the complaints department. Which they apologize for Mr A behavior etc etc. and they did found out I did call them and I had UPDATED the council that I had moved but they fail to act on that information, and I had email them on my current address, which was still in the same Brough. They claim they never received such email even though I have their acknowledge email. They claim if I moved out why I continue to accept HB. I explained to them I had emailed them 3 occasion and I had received acknowledge email from. I expect it was done, and even phoned that I had move out of the property. Well even though the council was informed and it is not my fault, I still have to pay back £1460. Well I complaint to LGO they claim it maladministration but they said I could appeal which I am planned to do. But now MR A says I got till next week Wednesday to make some kind of payment arrangement. But if I was privately renting which I have no rent agreement...How do I prove I was renting off a friend??

A few years ago I was self employed but not earning much so I was receiving housing benefits top-up. I decided to improve my prospects & enrolled in university for a degree. I applied for the full whack of student loans. As I was finishing my final year at uni I was interviewed for benefit fraud. My view at the time was, I was self employed if I want to go to uni and get a degree in my spare time that is my business, as I was paying the student loan back it is no different to me getting any other type of loan - apparently the law doesnt agree and a payment arrangement was set-up for me to repay the overpayment. I have been happily repaying the overpayment for well over a year now. So I was surprised when I received a court summons today about this very matter. I think I need legal advice now,can anyone help?

I have just had a Council Tax Bill of over £1000. I am a single parent on minimum wage working between 16 and 20 hours per week. Some weeks I work 12 hours others I can work 20 or more depending on the needs of the business. Phoned the council only to be told that their systems are linked to HMRC and they calculate my council tax liability on my earnings. They say my Council Tax Support has been overpaid and now I have to pay it back. So from being ahead with no debt I am now in huge debt with the Council Tax and I cannot see a way of being able to afford to pay it back. As well as this I have been overpaid on Housing Benefit too. Council now want me to pay £83 per week in rent for my 2 bedroom council house. They told me this is backdated from 1st April 2013 until 19th October 2014. I have no idea how I am going to afford all this as I earn less than £500 per month in wages. I get £139 a week in Tax Credits, £20 a week Child Benefit and £30 a week from CSA. This only just covers the bills. I would be better off not working!! According to the council I have to phone them every week if my hours change. I did phone them earlier in the year telling them I am working more than 16 hours but they told me just to wait for them to get in touch.

Just a quick question on appealing an HB overpayment. If the Tribunals decision on an HB overpayment goes against you, can you be prosecuted further? Or just ordered to pay the money back?

Hi there, I have not used Littlewoods in a long while, I did however pay them off and seeing as I haven't used my account for a considerable amount of time, 2 years+, the account was closed. I have since logged in, obviously without any credit to find £557.73 sitting in my account as 'available to spend' and a £0.00 'credit limit'. I contacted Littlewoods to question what exactly was this £557.73 and was informed that I had overpaid and that a refund would be actioned. I contacted them earlier today to verify that this was correct and to see what was actually going on. I have been told that they are making the relevant adjustments for a cheque refund to be sent out. They are telling me that this will need to be security review and due to it being so long ago, and that they supposedly do not have any transactions of this on my account to show this although it is there. The security review could require evidence of payments i.e. bank statements etc. but since I've moved bank in that time, I am unable to provide this. Could anyone suggest what else I could do to ensure that this £557.73 is correctly refunded back to me? Best regards, Nathan Williams.

hi, back in 2010 we qualified for and claimed housing benefit. In October of the same year we had to move from one borough to another because we needed to be close to a relative who required care. At the same time we received a renewal form for HB and due to us leaving I did not renew, thinking we wouldnt require it and it would be cancelled. Within a couple of months the council had sent a letter saying we now owed over £4500 in HB (because the renewal form had not been returned). i tried to explain the situation (ie thinking the claim would be cancelled - something i planned to do but they would not listen.) how do i go about rectifying this? thanks in advance for any help offered!

Help needed CAggers! I've got a situation on my hand that I need some advice with - I'm a tenant and have been for a few years under a periodic tenancy or month to month. I receive housing allowance and have paid that to the landlord in excess for the years that I've been in residency. The landlord is saying that I owe arrears however, based on the lease we signed when I moved in, the rent I pay the landlord is far in excess to the lease. The landlord wants to serve me notice to say that I am arrears (a section 8) but he claims he wants my employers to pay the arrears as my housing allowance is given to me by them. I find this proposed action a bit of a threat, considering my lease is not signed by my employers but by me! I have already written a LBA but he just keeps harping onthat my housing allowance increase is a rent increase! What do I do now? Serve a claim for my money? All attempts at negotiating has failed.

In 2007 I sent back all of my forms to claim tax credits as I always did. After a few weeks I got a letter saying that I still had not returned my forms. I rang them that day. The guy on the phone told me they were having difficulties with the computers and he would help me as much as we could. He asked me where there any changes in income and I said no, I said my daughter had gone back into full time education and that was all ok. For the previous years I had received around about £550 worth of tax credits and for the years that followed I received the same amount of money. The payments went in the bank in 2007 and I thought nothing more of it. Then in 2008 I got a letter saying that I had not been entitled to the payments as I had not completed the forms. I told them I had spoken to a man on the phone but they refused to believe me. Since 2008 we have been arguing with them about £550. I contacted my MP who spoke to them and they have told him I have to pay the money back. I have argued that I did nothing wrong and I was entitled to the money. Since 2012 I had heard nothing from them and thought that they must have written it of. Then last week we got a letter from Equita a debt collecting company who have said they will be calling to collect the money from us or seize goods. Do I have tpo pay this or continue fighting for money that was mine anyway and a mistake by them for continuing paying it if the paper work wasn't in place. Thanx

Hope this is in the right place! I'm having trouble with my current employer, I worked for them temporarily earlier in the year and after leaving was sent an overpayment. I notified several people from the company and heard nothing back. As the next month I didn't receive any more payments I assumed it was fixed. (With them not sending me any pay slips, it was hard to tell!) In August they invited me back to work there permanently and since then haven't paid me anything. I was first told lots of different stories, wasn't put back on payroll, missed the cut off date, etc and then they said they wouldn't be paying me anything because of the overpayment issue, despite having earned more than the debt. I have no problem with paying them back but as it's come down to the point where I cannot afford to go to work (or even buy a pack of biscuits!) and they keep promising to pay me a percentage but won't agree on an affordable amount for a payment plan, I feel a bit stuck. Having asked for payrolls number and being told it was for 'managers only' I feel quite neglected by my company especially after originally being told I owed four times the amount I did and having to produce all my bank statements. I also didn't sign a contract commencing employment and still haven't been given once since I came back. I know it's a long winded one but if anyone has any advice on any parts said, it would be hugely appreciated. Thanks!

Got letter stating over payment to us of working families child tax credit ...have 3 months to question it or pay by Oct 6th 2014. Are there any letters / forms that can help with this on the site please.

Dear All, I have another small query for you regarding housing benefit overpayments due to rent free weeks! I received a call from my Mother saying that she had been contacted by her landlord, or rather a member of staff (a national social housing group). My Mother tried to explain that they (landlord) informed her that she owed them just over £500 due to Housing Benefit overpayment! Before going into detail regarding the above, I should let you know that my Mother receives, and has done for a number of years, pension credit entitling her to full HB and CT. The HB has always been paid direct to her social housing landlord. I will also add that my Mother was also paying off a HB overpayment at £xx per month. In fact, almost a year ago, I had noticed on my Mothers bank statement, that a DD was being paid out but she could not recall what this was for. After some digging I found out that this DD related to this HB overpayment, which had not only been paid in full but was still being taken from my Mothers account. This resulted in a credit to the amount of around £900, being held in my Mothers landlords account. I spoke with a member of staff who confirmed that my Mother had indeed overpaid this HB overpayment to the tune of £900 and that they would arrange for this sum to be paid back into my Mothers account. This has now taken place and as I say, some months ago. Now, arises the present predicament. My Mother has received a call from her landlord, in which they explained that her HB has been overpaid due to the fact that HB had been paying rent for the 2 rent free weeks per year since my Mother moved into her current address. I have been told that this is in the tune of around £500 and had mistakenly been included in the above £900 that my Mother had overpaid to her landlord. I was also informed that there were a large number of tenants renting property from this social housing group who have been caught in the same trap and face having to pay differing amounts back. Now, although I have not had a chance to discuss this face to face with my Mothers landlord, or a member of their staff, a few queries arise! The 1st and most important being, is my Mother liable to repay the HB that had been paid direct to the landlord due to a problem with notification of rent free weeks? This takes me back to when my Mother moved into the current property and that it is more than likely that it may well have been a member of staff of her current landlord who would have completed any such HB application form. If, as suspected, this is the case, surely it would have been down to member of staff who completed HB application form to include the correct number of weeks for which HB is being applied? I cannot fathom how my Mothers landlord has the ability to request that my Mother repay any amount of HB when this is no fault of my Mothers, as far as I can make out. Since my Mother took tenancy she has always been entitled to Pension Credit and as such, to full HB and CT. The only matter where My Mothers circumstances have changed was at the beginning of this year when she was diagnosed with Alzheimers. At that point I made contact with AgeUK who completed and submitted a application for Attendance Allowance which was ultimately granted. This then entitled my Mother to a higher figure of PC due to the Severe Disability Premium being added. However, this would have no bearing on my Mothers entitlement to HB. Bearing all of the above in mind, until I am told/shown anything to the contrary, am I correct in thinking that this or any amount of HB overpayment paid on the above basis, is/should be classed as unrecoverable due to the fact that it has been caused by official error? In a nutshell, once my Mother signed tenancy agreement, her rent has been paid in full by HB direct to her social housing landlord. My Mothers repayment of previous overpayment of HB (relating to different property/landlord) which had caused a credit of some £900 to Mothers current landlord, as explained in paragraphs 3, 4 and 5 above, should have no bearing on current matter. Indeed, I would go as far as to say that my Mothers landlord should have notified my Mother once that previous HB had been repaid and not have kept collecting this once it had been paid off. All responses and replies gratefully received.

Good evening all, some advice would be appreciated. I received a letter today stating my council tax benefit has been reassessed. They have gone back to tax year 2012/2013. The letter states:- "Your claim for Council Tax Benefit has been reassessed because child benefit ended for ******** from September 2012." They state that I owe 2012/2013 - £279.37 2013/2014 - £845.76 They have also changed my benefit for this year and my monthly payments have risen from £5.22 per month to £124.00 per month. There is no way I can pay this and pay arrears on top. I rang them and apparently when my daughters child benefit finished she no longer became my dependent. They also said I could appeal but there would be no point because it wasn't council rules, it was Government rules. Some advice would be greatly appreciated.

Hi All DWP said I was overpaid income support for a period of 6 years and want £4500. I panicked and signed off and have been off benefits/unemployed for 2 years but DWP have sent annika and now fredricksons letters threatening legal action etc. My question is that the debt is from 2006-2012 and would like to know if this claim is partly statue barred as I am in Scotland and was told that the statue barred limit in Scotland is 5 years not 6. Can these debt collection agencies or DWP still take legal action as claim goes back 6 years. I believe the amount the DWP wants is incorrect and want to try to get the debt down to something more managable? Thanks Hopefully!

Hi all had a letter from HMRC dated 31.07 stating I had an overpayment of £573.37 on my award 2013/2014 All it says it that they will seek to recover it from me but no further information. I won't be able to repay that in one lot, does anybody know if they accept part payments or instalments ? The overpayment I think was due to my income. I was made redundant last year and had a redundancy pay out. It was taxable by the looks of it and was added to my P60 hence my income was £3000.- higher than thought. I didn't realize a redundancy payment would in part be added as a taxable income. So my fault I suppose. I have since moved in with my partner and found a new job, so not claiming tax credits anymore, but the final award for the 2013/14 period shows this overpayment . Has anybody got any experience how I can repay that if i can't pay it in one lot ? I.e. what options I have ?

After a long drawn out battle with HMRC claiming we were over payed by 3.5k, we discovered that we have lost our appeal and would have to pay in full or the "debt" would be handed over, we have just had a letter from Advantis who are demanding the money. I refuse on principle to pay the money as we done nothing wrong and declared everything we earned however it seems HMRC are both Judge and Jury and we really do not know where to go from here, any advice would be most welcome. Thanks in advance

A familiar story from the threads I've been reading, but ours has a twist that I hope someone can advise on. Over several years we claimed Working Tax Credits because my wife's full-time salary is low and for many years I was working on limited part time contracts or as a volunteer. Each year we submitted the forms to HMRC and they agreed we should receive WTC. At no point have we tried to withhold information or cheat the system and there had been no suggestion from them that we did - but they still claim to have overpaid us! In June/July 2013 we had two letters from 'Debt Management and Banking' at HMRC to advise that we had been paid too much tax credits. This was for period ended 2006, 2007 and 2009. We don't have any record of what we submitted in those years now. I called HMRC and the lady I spoke to agreed to put the matter on hold as I explained that I was chronically sick, on ESA and DLA, and that we were still receiving WTC due to our low joint income. The man I spoke to at HMRC today agreed that those notes were on the system but that they had carried out a review in June this year and passed the matter to debt collection. He says we should have had a letter, we've not had one. We would always respond to anything like that and get in touch to sort it out. I remember that I had made some notes last year, based on reading about WTC debt, where HMRC would write off such debt if a person was never going to work again through illness. I've no idea where those notes are now, possibly discarded after being on my desk for months. I've seen other threads where the advice is not to ring the DCA (I already knew that) and not to give them I&E information (I knew that too). What I can't do with is the stress of endless phone calls and letters, possibly callers to the door, while they attempt to make me pay. Yes, I know about sending them the 'do not call me' letter, but I'm already quite frantic about this and do not want to end up in hospital, or worse, through their activities. The many at HMRC refused to do anything other than insist I speak to the debt collectors. He seems to think that their one letter in June was the end of it, and as we didn't receive it we were blissfully unaware until Rossendales sent their letter. That's dated 24th July and gave us 7 days to pay in full, it only arrived on August 7th ! I have sent my MP the same information as above, to keep her informed of what's going on. In our situation we cannot afford to pay. We have told HMRC that previously and they accepted that, deferring the debt and saying I should contact them if I return to work. I explained last year that that was not going to be happening but she said she could not revoke it at that time. I was given the impression that they would contact me after 6 months to look at my circumstances again, but that didn't happen. We are still in receipt of WTC after sending in the annual claim form for 2014-5. That in itself should tell HMRC we cannot afford to repay ? Any suggestions ? My own thoughts would be to write to HMRC and go over the info above, the guy on the phone accepted what I said but told me that he could do nothing now it was in the hands of external debt collectors. I think that's rubbish.

Good afternoon, We are hoping someone may be able to give us some advice on an extremely stressful situation. Up to the end of January 2014 my partner and I have been receiving assistance from housing benefit as our employment/business situation has been far from standard over the past few years. We have endeavoured to notify the council of anything which would affect our claim and have been working extremely hard to get ourselves out of the position where we need this assistance. We were invited to an interview under caution in February 2014 as there had been a discrepancy in our capital. This came as a surprise initially but after attending the interview it was clear why it had occurred. In January 2013 we lost a close relative and I was executor to the Will. This meant that over the following few months, some large sums of money passed through my account as they were being dispersed from the banks to the beneficiaries as well as paying the estate expenses. In hindsight it would have made sense for us to have notified the council that the funds were passing through our accounts but because only a small amount would end up being legally ours, we knew it wouldn't take us over the threshold and therefore didn't want to complicate matters any further (there had already been several complications relating to my employment which led to suspension and re-instatement several times plus countless hours of letter writing to explain everything over and over again). Anyway, during the interview under caution I had prepared a full breakdown of the amounts passing through our accounts (down to the penny) and could show that after everything was paid and transferred to the beneficiaries, we were left with less than £16,000 and the amount which was left was used to pay off a debt relating to my employment. Following the interview, several more pieces of information were requested by the council and everything was provided in a timely manner. Last month we received a series of decision notices dated 4th April (standard computer generated notices) saying that we had been overpaid by just over £3,500 in housing benefit and £500 in council tax benefit. Their calculation made no sense as the figures didn't relate to any that had been provided throughout the investigation but they seemed to have taken the first lump sum paid in and then suspended our entitlement from that day forward. We spent a considerable amount of time looking over the overpayment periods and then wrote back to them (within the 1 month window on the 24th April) to say that we intended to appeal the decision as none of the information had been taken into account and their figures did not make sense. We also requested a breakdown of their calculations and a statement of reasons. We didn't receive a reply until 8th May which is just outside the 1 month appeal window stating that they would like us to attend an interview to agree to pay an administrative penalty of 50% of the overpayments which totals over £2000 on top of the overpayment. They appear to have ignored the letter requesting a breakdown of their calculations and our appeal intentions. I have written to them again requesting the breakdown and advising that if it isn't provided then we will have no choice but to make a formal complaint and involve the local government ombudsman. We are concerned that they have only given us around 2 weeks before we need to sign and agree to the administrative penalty or court proceedings will begin. Has anyone experienced a situation where the money in their account isn't legally theirs and therefore cannot be of benefit to them? The council had a copy of the Will during the interview and it was referred to several times so they were aware that the money wasn't ours. Any advice would be appreciated as the situation has caused us a huge amount of stress over the past few months. Kind regards R & G

Hi Guys, long time reader and first-time poster. I got into a lot of trouble with pay-day loans and have almost paid off all of them. This, as you know, has ruined my credit rating making my chances of a mortgage etc in the future nearly impossible (i'm 25 so have little chance of getting on the property ladder until i'm into my 30s) - this all despite me being in a well-paid(ish) job etc. I had a payment plan set-up with lending stream - after taking advice from this site i set it as a standing order - this was to end in April. However, RL got in the way of a few things and i forgot to cancel it - i noticed in early June and they refunded the first overpayment. Unfortunately, a further payment was sent in June too. When i called them, they said they couldn't find any overpayment on my records and said they'd give me the benefit of the doubt and refund based on a copy of my bank statement being sent showing the payment. I obliged and i got some BS back saying they only had payments until April and that i should send a picture that hasn't been edited (it wasn't). The amount isn't massive, but its more the principle than anything else having paid them well over the odds already. Any advice? TL:DR - paid LS too much, now they won't give it back