Firstly having defaulted on my mobile phone contract, I have written three letters to Virgin Mobile seeking a resolution but all to no avail. All I've had in return are two letters, exactly the same informing me they've had a problem collecting the direct debit and that I should phone them. My second letter included the fact that as they have disconnected me and I have no home phone, then telephoning them is not an option.Secondly I have written two more letters to my landlords solicitor, that's four in total, informing him that whilst I do not dispute my legal obligations with regard my lease, the reality of the situation is that I have no money to pay any further rent, I have mounting unmanageable debt with a variety of institutions and that I am not able to market the property myself as I'm "SKINT". I am now in default with my rent and still I hear nothing.
Thirdly it has been twenty two days since we made our claim for jobseekers allowance and they seem more than happy to ignore me. On three occasions now I have had to walk on crutches to the local benefits office to use their telephones to contact the 'benefits helpline' as their 0845 number is prohibitively expensive when you've only got a PAYG mobile. On all three occasions I've been promised a call back, you can guess the rest. During one conversation I was asked, for security reasons, to give a previous address where we had claimed benefits. I informed them that my wife and I have worked continuously for the past thirty two years and have never claimed a single penny in benefits and as such I was unable to give them the required information. This answer was clearly not catered for in their system. I had a sense of the 'customer services' representative having a mild break down. I could hear the sweat dripping off his brow onto his keyboard. He began to stumble over his words and babble incoherently. Clearly we had gone off script and he was panciking, his computer was working over time and clearly overheating as I could just get the faintest whiff of smoke drifting through the phone ear piece. In desperation he told me someone would phone me back and put the phone down.
As a slightly amusing addition to the benefits debacle, I decided after my third unsuccessful phone call to ask someone in the benefits office I was stood in, if they might be able to help find out what had happened to my claim. Of course the answer to that particularly difficult question was that I had to phone the 'benefits helpline'. I explained that I had just got off the phone with the 'benefits helpline' for the third time and was still none the wiser. They suggested I might wish to make an official complaint as the situation in their view appeared completely unacceptable. I said I would like to take them up on their suggestion and did they have the relevant complaint forms? Yep you guessed it, I have to telephone the 'benefits helpline' if I wished to make a complaint and that I was welcome to use the phone in the benefits office to save on my own phone bill. For the sake of my own sanity, I chose to leave at this point and take a slow wander home in the sunshine avoiding any potential suicide opportunities.
To add to this weeks woes, we have just received a late filing penalty from Companies House. Basically because we had no money to pay our accountant this year, we were unable to get our accounts into Companies House on time and have been stung to the tune of £1500. Of course this will simply be added to the ever growing mountain of debt and dealt with in the same way. I will attempt to appeal to their better nature by explaining the reasons for the 'late filing' but I don't hold out much hope.
So is there any good news to bring you this week. Well actually there is... Nothing earth shattering but good news none the less.
My wife started work a couple of days ago at a local mini market. It's only twelve hours per week and we don't know if or how it will affect our benefits, but she was determined to get straight back into work and who am I to stop her.
Also this week, we made an inquiry with regard to applying to become professional foster carers. Aside from the last seven years, most of my working life has involved working with children in the care system so it's something I'm comfortable with and something I always felt I was good at. It will be alien to my wife, but after several long discussions we agreed to at least look at the idea in more detail.
My knee injury is healing fairly well, though unnecessary walks to the benefits office haven't helped the situation. I'm off the crutches for the most part and awaiting a physiotherapist appointment. I won't hold my breath on that one either.
Through brute force and ignorance, we managed to gain access to the shop through the broken shutter and with the exception of a few personal items, it is now empty. We intend returning the keys to my landlords solicitor on Friday, so it should be interesting to see if that provokes any kind of response.
All in all then a mixed kind of week. Some good, some bad, some indifferent. We are both strangely 'up' at the moment. I don't know why as not much has changed and my debts just got worse, but we've found time and reason to have a bit of a laugh, particularly at the ridiculousness of the benefits system.
That's all for now and I look forward to updating you all in due course...
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