Bureaucracy with a tinge of Madness

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

The only reason I can suggest for the NI Driving Licence being accepted is the Irish DVA requires stronger proof of identity before issuing a licence than mainland DVLA does. But looking at the DVLA and DVA websites suggests the opposite is true. Maybe it's because the NI system has been completely tightened to current standards whereas many mainland licences are blind renewals of old ones issued back when a driving licence wasn't proof of identity.

As money and personal data is involved, HMRC should certainly demand solid proof of identity before opening accounts. I'd go ballistic if it was easy for someone to open a PTA in my name!

My guess is it's a cock-up. Probably best to avoid a government website that's emitting the same signals as a spammer.

Never a good idea to launch beta websites too early, but thorough testing is expensive. Most government departments have been subjected to a decade plus of cuts. In pursuit of savings, HRMC lost about 40% of their staff following replacement of 150 local offices by 13 regional centres. The National Audit Office was critical of this project, saying the original reorganisation plan was unrealistic due to moving or replacing too many staff too quickly while delivering 14 other major change programmes, and that the scale of disruption involved was underestimated. Not sure what the current position is, but the 13 Regional Centres turned out to be more expensive than the 150 Local Offices they replaced, which probably means the Business Case was wrong. So a few years of turmoil and annoyed customers for little benefit, at least so far.

Dave

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

I think the key here may be that they are forcing you to give them permission to run a credit check on you – for life. Lots of lovely data about you to process and sell.
Even if your passsprot is expired it should be valid for some things as the number remains unique to you for traceability. However I'm not sure of the cost of renewing it which might eat up a substantial part of your £100 anyway.

[SamsarandaParticipant @samsaranda]

Many thanks for all your responses which illustrate a varied spectrum of experiences with HMRC and other government departments. Dave W

[egaParticipant @ega]

I have just seen a reference to an HMRC web page about tax scams:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/phishing-and-bogus-emails-hm-revenue-and-customs-examples/phishing-emails-and-bogus-contact-hm-revenue-and-customs-examples#tax-refund-and-rebate-scams

It's rather general but does not suggest that scammers are writing letters as opposed to emailing, phoning or texting.

I don't think this particular page has been mentioned above and, in any event, it may be worth repeating.

Thanks to SOD for his factual post.

[SamsarandaParticipant @samsaranda]

Thanks for that ega, The letter that I referred to as having received was definitely from HRMC it had a breakdown of all my tax liabilities with my pensions so definitely not a scammer, and my access on line was definitely through the gov.UK portal, I can only assume the problems that I encountered trying to verify my identity are down to stupidity in the setting up of the access criteria, unfortunately not that unusual nowadays when dealing with government departments. Dave W

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

There is a variant (yes, like a pathogen) on the pretent-HMRC trick. This happened to me recently when the message did not try to clain to be from the department, but from an agent.

It promised me about £1100 in underpaid Marriage Allowance (I have never been married and girl-friends don't count) in return for my wife's and my NI numbers and level of earnings.

The site looked impressive: two big blue link buttons, and a photo of a couple at the altar… dead give-aways apart from being so unlikely and not pretending to be HMRC, were the sender's peculiar open and "bounce" addresses.

Block sender, block domain, delete….

Only that will not stop them because the criminals have adopted an anti-blocking, anti-tracing technique using multiple but temporary, random name.domain paths for each message, and I have received several in the last few days.

Yesterday they sent three copies of the same message headed "Costumer [sic] Notice" or similar by this method, with individual open and "bounce" addresses, within minutes of each other; and this morning I received another, pretending to be an very unlikely voucher offer from the Morrisons supermarket.

The only defence would seem to be to make all e-mails text and photos only by default, blocking all links and operating-files unless by specific permission. A web-site could be cited, but its name would be inactive, but its user would need only type the name in the search tool as usual.

[Frances IoMParticipant @francesiom58905]

do people seriously allow html and javascript to be interpreted by a browser in the emails – if so they deserve all they get.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Frances –

I for one find that rather offensive.

Falling for a scam out of naivety, or momentary lapse of concentration, is one thing; but not all of us deeply understand computer languages and operating-systems, nor should we need to.

HTMLl? Javascript? Allowing their interpretation? How many people who spend their evenings watching their television, know how a TV works?

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

I found out that payouts form the DWP do not exceed £5000, so they will if the payout is more than £5000 they split the payments.

If you are looking for a set figure that is above £5000 in your Bank acct. payed by DWP then look for two figures that add up to the figure you are looking for. Payments will list your Nat Ins. number as the source.

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

Haha, I‘ve just had a phone message that informed me I was about to lose my NI number and be arrested for dodgy monetary transactions if I did not press a number key on my phone. Different – and the first ever on my mobile phone (it’s often not turned on). I’m waiting to be arrested.🙂

[Colin HeseltineParticipant @colinheseltine48622]

Noel,

You obviously had a cheap doctor to go to. It cost me £120. Luckily I was able to persuade the optician to do the eye test bit FOC.

I may not have used the C1 D1 entitlement for some length of time, but I do not see why I should lose it automatically.

Colin

[egaParticipant @ega]

Posted by Frances IoM on 25/06/2021 12:52:58:
do people seriously allow html and javascript to be interpreted by a browser in the emails – if so they deserve all they get.

Why not save them from themselves by offering a few tips on avoiding this folly?

[noel shelleyParticipant @noelshelley55608]

Colin, My own doctor would also have charged £120 and a date about 3 months hence, I could not wait that long and it was obvious he didn't want to do it ! His receptionist gave me the number for Dfor Drivers, within days it was done for £50 and my eye test was free. Best wishes Noel.

Frances Iom, My field of Knowledge is engineering NOT computers so HTML and javascript mean nothing to me ! Are you suggesting that since I know little of computers I should not use one ? In this day and age it will soon be impossible to conduct life without some computer use ! Noel.

[Frances IoMParticipant @francesiom58905]

it’s interesting that we recommend that a new user get some training in using machine tools yet happily trust our savings (assuming you use eBanking) to the software suppliers to protect us from malfunctions due to errors in design of such software. In practice these suppliers have done well enough, assuming we update systems, to provide generally adequate protection.
For those who have done no reading whatsoever re the tool they make heavy use of HTML is the code that organises the displayed text etc – most web pages make use of Javascript which is a programming language that provides the many fancy features – this programming language is fully capable of any task though modern browsers severely restrict its capabilities outside of a range of activities that should not cause problems for users (eg unwanted access of personal data) – email using HTML and Javascript merely to provide fancy fonts etc opens the door to certain malware – eg in the past with certain older routers that did not have their default password changed, a rogue bit of Javascript could switch your internet stream to malicious destinations.

Edited By Frances IoM on 25/06/2021 18:44:27

[Douglas JohnstonParticipant @douglasjohnston98463]

I tried to get my personal tax account access a year ago when I got the same letter about a refund. I also got blocked at the proof of identity stage and gave up in disgust, waited a number of weeks, then received a cheque in the post. A little later in the year I got another letter from them saying I had underpaid tax and they were going to reclaim it by adjusting the next tax code. I do wish they could do their sums properly and stop annoying us.

Doug

[SamsarandaParticipant @samsaranda]

I have grave doubts that those who collect our taxes can grasp simple mathematics, every year I get a refund of overpaid tax, sometimes £100 as has happened this year, sometimes as much as £400 or £500, surely as they know every penny of my pensions then they can work out how much tax needs to be collected, perhaps their calculators are programmed differently to everyone else’s. Dave W

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

The problem is that successive governments have made the tax system more and more complicated, and have at the same time cut down the number of tax inspectors massively. Do we wonder that mistakes are made? If you think PAYE is difficult try doing the various returns for a small (one man) limited company.

I think it's all a plot to keep accountants in work at the expense of people who actually create wealth.

[Pete.Participant @pete-2]

Posted by duncan webster on 26/06/2021 00:46:57:

The problem is that successive governments have made the tax system more and more complicated, and have at the same time cut down the number of tax inspectors massively. Do we wonder that mistakes are made? If you think PAYE is difficult try doing the various returns for a small (one man) limited company.

I think it's all a plot to keep accountants in work at the expense of people who actually create wealth.

👍 +1

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

Posted by duncan webster on 26/06/2021 00:46:57:

The problem is that successive governments have made the tax system more and more complicated, and have at the same time cut down the number of tax inspectors massively. Do we wonder that mistakes are made? If you think PAYE is difficult try doing the various returns for a small (one man) limited company.

I think it's all a plot to keep accountants in work at the expense of people who actually create wealth.

+2

With the loss of our wealth creation industries they needed a system which supports non wealth creators or there will be political ramifications (excluded persons give us events like Brexit)

It's hard to find a services system that's genuinely useful and "adds real value" to society

By pure luck the most effective jobs creation welfare system ever is the NHS

Government money creating a valued asset which covers the entire country with educated useful people

[CirclipParticipant @circlip]

Not all are educated or useful.

Regards Ian.

[Tony Pratt 1Participant @tonypratt1]

Posted by Circlip on 26/06/2021 09:08:37:

Not all are educated or useful.

Regards Ian.

From my personal experience you are correct, as in all walks of life the NHS has very good, good, lazy & dire people in it's ranks. It's the best we have got but not perfect.

Tony

[Stuart Munro 1Participant @stuartmunro1]

My bank and a credit card company now use voice recognition for any telephone help, Paypal and HMRC use two stage verification – unless the device is 'known' in Paypal's case.

This does alas make the initial verification more rigorous – aka painful. But I share the common observation the mention of needing a NI driving licence smells a lot like a con. Perhaps my smell is off due to covid.

Turning the the NHS – there is no one who can question the value they have given during the pandemic but it is simplistic to believe that all NHS workers add value, I find that there are many 'jobsworths' in non clinical roles. Some are outstanding, others are awful. when there are 1000's of people in a particular role, we will always get a range of ability and usefulness.

Which brings me neatly to the defence of accountants – as an ex accountant I feel that I should but to be honest, who cares! My friends tell me that in retirement I'm trying at last to add real value, but toying at engineering!

Stuart

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Frances –

I am afraid you are missing the point. You seem to mean that if you want to use a computer or indeed 'phone on-line, you need a deep knowledge of programming, well beyond the basics of simply using the thing.

The technical parts of your posts are way above my knowledge. I would not know what Javascript even looks like, but why should I need know such details? I can drive my car and look after it reasonably well, and even have a lay knowledge of how it works; but I don't know how it is designed.

The problem is not that many of us barely know a cookie from a biscuit or Javascript from an Asian island; but that of the risk of being tripped up by ever more skilled criminals who do know and understand computer systems and languages to degree level and beyond. (North Korea even trains hackers formally, such as those who nearly succeeded in deliberately bankrupting Bangladesh.)

The only defence we have against such attackers is careful use and installing reputable anti-virus software; not trying to learn computer langauges we may have no opportunity to be taught, or would find too difficult. Some, including me, would be faced by both obstacles.

[peak4Participant @peak4]

I've just scan read this thread a couple of times, and wonder if I'm missing something.
Passport and Credit reference I understand.
Does the paperwork actually ask for a Northern Ireland driving licence number or does it say NI driving licence number?
NI as in National Insurance, rather then Northern Ireland?

i.e. they need two out of passport, Credit ref, National Insurance No. or Driving Licence No.

Bill

[J HancockParticipant @jhancock95746]

Well, I'm going out to celebrate.

After a monster investigation by my pension provider comparing HMRC records with our pensions , the result.

An error in my favour of 0.008% annually .

That will be £1.60 , after tax.

What to buy……………….?

[Author]

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