Truly, the Department for Work and Pensions moves in mysterious ways, its debt-gathering duties to perform. Damien Dove from Sunderland recently received a missive from the department over an overpayment on his housing benefit.
Cue some classic civil servant speak: “This was a debt owing to Mr Dove’s local authority; regulations require us to recover such debts when requested to and due to the automated nature of our systems the notification was generated without agent input. We supported Mr Dove, whose chosen payment method would’ve incurred a charge, by suggesting a free alternative.” What an outpouring of guff. And the debt? 2p.
