I'm definitely in my grumpy old woman mode. Yesterday I went to the DSS office to find out about my state pension entitlement. There emblazoned in the foyer was the fact that this was where all enquiries regarding all benefits could be made. I joined the queue and stood patiently in line watching numerous people wandering round carrying anonymous folders, eventually two assistants walked up to the counter.They had obviously decided now the queue was long enough to deal with! When it was my turn I was politely informed they were not 'geared up' to deal with enquires and handed a leaflet with a phone number on it and told to make an appointment with someone. This HAD to be during a three hour slot on a Tuesday morning! I duly went home and rang the number then faced an interrogation as to how I had got the number and how did I know that there would be someone at that location on a Tuesday morning! I was then told someone would ring me back to make said appointment - Guess what - yep you've got it still waiting!!!
I really needed to know if I had made enough national insurance contribution to qualify for a pension because if not I would ‘make up’ my contributions as the dear old Inland Revenue keep trying to persuade I must do before 2008. So I rang yet another number I had found on the pensions advisory service web site and BINGO I was speaking to a lovely lady who obviously knew her stuff and admitted that no they couldn’t give me a pension forecast at present as ‘the rules’ had changed last week and they were playing catch up. But she could ‘tot’ up my qualifying years and YES I do qualify for a full pension! HALLELULAH. Plus I will be able to get a forecast in 12 – 18 months time!!! But WHY couldn’t someone admit to this months ago? Someone must have known the changes were coming yet I’d made two previous requests which had been totally ignored. I’m now off to work out how to spend my pension!
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