Hello Everyone. This is my letter to HMRC Tax Credit Office. Please can you help and support me to make sure Deaf get access. Thanks. 12th September 2014 HMRC Revenue and Customs Tax Credit Office Preston PR1 4AT HM Revenue and Customs Tax credits Comben House Farriers Way Netherton L75 1WB United Kingdom NI Number: XXXXXXXX On the 28th July, you sent me an eight page letter to tell me that my child tax credit had stopped. When I received the letter I was very upset. It took me until the 12th September to find one hearing person that understood sign language to help me phone you to find out why my payments stopped. My beautiful daughter Maura is 16 years old. She is severely disabled. She cannot read, write or walk but we love her dearly and want the best for her. It is not easy find people to care for her the way she understands. Maura is in full time education until she is 19 years old. She cannot undertake mainstream educational qualifications. I am writing this letter because I am still upset. The HMRC is not accessible to Deaf people who use sign language. I cannot call you directly because you do not have a video relay system I can use to call you. When I found one hearing person who understood sign language she said the HMRC will not accept third party phone calls. This does not make sense. The HMRC do not provide an email address for Deaf people like me to contact you directly. The hearing person called HMRC on Wednesday and Thursday this week. She said it was difficult to get through because lots of options are given, but cannot get through to an Advisor to explain my situation because one of the questions asked on the phone is “is your name on the letter” she had to say no. No further options were given. This does not make sense. The hearing person agreed to meet me at the HMRC Tax Office in Leicester City on Friday morning. It was her day off. The last time I was in Leicester City was a few years ago. The City is too busy and scary for a person like me. I do not like it but I made the journey because my daughter welfare is very important to me. I got to the Tax Office first. It was closed down. I had checked on the internet to find out where is the office. The hearing person did the same. There was nothing on the internet to say the Tax Office had closed down since last June. What a waste of a journey. On the Tax Office window, there was only telephone numbers given to call. So, here we go again, the TELEPHONE barrier again. No other options were given. This time we sat outside the Tax Office opposite Remploy. Thankfully the weather was not too bad. The hearing person had to answer the questions as if she was me. This was the only way to get through the complicated telephone question and answer system. Why can’t people get straight through an Advisor? We had to wait almost 25 minutes before anyone picked up the phone. This is crazy. Why? When we finally got through to an Advisor, the hearing person explained all the problems I had been having. The male Advisor who took the call said I had to use my voice to answer their security questions because they do not accept third party phone calls. I had to tell them this done not make any sense because the only way to make contact is by telephone. This is discrimination BIG TIME. I was very embarrassed but I had to use my voice in the street to answer the security questions. If I did not use my voice, the phone call would not be accepted. I had no choice. No video relay system. No email. No office to visit. I do not like using my voice because I cannot hear what I sound like. I only use my voice with people that know me and understand me. In total, it took 50 minutes to deal with my query. Oh one thing I forgot to say when I said I was Deaf, the male Advisor put me through the Special Enhancement Team because they are responsible for giving people with disabilities more time to deal with their queries. Maybe the Team is good for hearing people with disabilities but not Deaf people because they do not understand the barriers I faced. I cannot remember the woman’s name in the Special Enhancement Team. But that is not important because she can only follow the rules she is given. When I explained my daughter’s situation about her education, I nearly had a very bad fright. Because my daughter cannot do mainstream qualification education they almost said no to my application. But she agreed to talk to her Manager. She said she would call me back because we had been on the phone for 50 minutes on the mobile phone. When she called me back, I had to answer all the security questions again. Really. Seriously? Why? This is silly and made me feel embarrassed AGAIN. Finally, finally, finally after an hour, HMRC agreed to backdate the credits to the date it was stopped and said they will not ask me to go through this again until my daughter is 19 years old. When I said if I needed to contact them again, they said I could ask a friend, family, neighbor or CAB to make the phone call on my behalf. How stupid is this after I spent an hour trying to explain about someone needing to understand sign language, HMRC not accepting third party phone calls. I wanted to SCREAM but had to keep my mouth shut because I was afraid they would stop my daughter’s payments. HMRC please wake up. This is 2014. You should not be discriminating people like me. You are embarrassing me. I am trying my best as a mother to take care of my daughter. Instead you make me feel small and I hate having to beg hearing people who know sign language to do something I could do myself if you had a Tax Office with Advisors so people like me can visit or an email address or a video relay system. I had to go through the same when the Disability Living Allowance was changed to PIP. PIP stopped the DLA payments. Really? Why? My daughter disability will never ever change. This took nearly a year to sort out. It causes a lot of tears and fears for me, my partner because our daughter relies on us. This phone call was the last straw. I am not dealing with this on my own anymore. I am sending this letter to the Leicester Mercury, Citizen Eye, BBC Leicester and Deaf Opinions. I am sure I am not the only Deaf person to experience this kind of embarrassing frustration. Finally, after the phone call on Friday, the hearing person agreed to write this letter before she went home. I signed what I wanted to say and she typed it into written English for me. Please remember, this hearing person was off duty. Her full time job is a freelance registered qualified BSL/English Interpreter. She did not ask for payment to do this job. I think she should send an invoice to you HMRC for doing your job for you. So, this letter is a BIG HUGE COMPLAINT. Please, please, please STOP. STOP asking Deaf people to use their voice. STOP, sending complicated letters. STOP and think about how you treat DEAF customers badly. STOP AND THINK NOW. Please use modern technology so Deaf people can contact you directly. But, one thing, thank you for being sensible and continuing the tax credits. Out of all this frustration, it was a HUGE RELIEF to know I can continue to provide for my daughter. I want to thank you for being willing to accept my daughter’s education situation. Regards. Melanie Morris PROUD MOTHER EMBARRASSED DEAF USER OF HMRC SERVICES
Posted on: Sun, 14 Sep 2014 19:15:43 +0000
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