The DWP has mistakenly been sending out letters to PIP claimants telling them their PIP has been stopped because they failed to return a review form, the Disability News Service (DNS) is reporting.
Back in March, when the pandemic first began, many PIP claimants were told that they did not need to return their PIP review form and that their claims would be automatically extended.
However, it appears that last month an official at the DWP did a check for late return of forms and sent out letters to an unknown number of claimants telling them that their PIP had been stopped and, in some cases, that they had to return their Motability vehicles and might have to repay some of the money they had received.
One claimant who received a letter told DNS that she had originally been told by the DWP that she did not need to return her renewal form and that her PIP would renew until September and then again until March 2021.
“I felt sick, I felt absolutely sick.
“Losing that extra money – I wouldn’t have coped. It would have sent me into a major depressive episode and potentially my self-harming and self-injuring behaviour would have peaked.
“I would lose my car, I would lose my independence.
“They cannot be trusted with anything. They really and truly cannot.”
The DWP is refusing to answer questions about how many claimants have wrongly been told that they failed to return a review form.
