Phoning HMRC/Tax Credits is a flaming joke

[tintinthegingertomcat]

Tried to phone HMRC tax credits on Friday. Made two phone calls of 20 mins duration each time and each time was on hold for the whole of the 20 mins without getting a human being. Total bill for 40 mins of holding £10. It is a joke. Who has that kind of money to just throw away. They dont even have proper addresses or emails to contact them. I got so frustrated I just wanted to cry. Anybody else find these phone calls frustrating and a waste of money.

[bitsnknots]

I can certainly sympathise tintin.  Trying to ring the DWP is the same.  It is a joke and it's certainly not a funny joke either.  When you ring the DWP, you can speak to someone in a differen call centre every time.  If you do manage to get through, you never speak to the same person twice.  In fact, you could ask three different members of staff at the DWP the same question and get three different answers.  

[right-then-petal]

http://www.google.co.uk/#q=email+hmrc+tax+credits

[right-then-petal]

http://www.google.co.uk/#q=dwp+contact

[guardpig]

Can sympathise.  Had to make 2 phone calls for my son this week.  One to the local council, who to be honest are usually good at answering it's just this one department.  Took me repeated attempts to speak to a real person and who knows how much of my money(on a local call fortunately) listening to adverts for museums, how to complain, what is available on line(and no this service isn't) etc etc etc.

Then son wanted to know why I hadn't made the other phone call yet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  He is still breathing!

The one show did an article this week about call lines.  Their experiment came up with an average of 5 minutes - way under I would say.  They may be interesyed.#

[ed_blackadder_1]

Tintin do you have a Tax office anywhere near you,  We have lost ours now but when we had one it was brilliant, face to face you could show all your docs and they were usually very knowlegable. It was worth the bus fair. Most of the government phone lines are awful to get through to, I tried with the family allowance one on several occasions and gave up in the end a few years back now.

Maybe you could combine it with a day out a bit extreme I know but it might get the job done.  Maybe take Katie Ka with you