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This broke my brain
Me : We need to find out if they need a court order to evict you
Customer (interupting) : But I don't live in a court. I live in a shop.
This will break the customer's brain when I gain powers of psychokinesis
On Monday :
Customer : I made a [very simple immigration claim] application a year ago. I didn't hear anything at all. They didn't even acknowledge my claim. I don't have a solicitor and I don't know what to do.
Me : OK. That does need looking into. Come back on Wednesday with [piece of paper with a reference number which may be asked for].
Today :
I call the immigration people.
Me : Customer states that he applied a year ago and doesn't know what happened. He didn't even receive an acknowledgement.
Immigration department : Let me just have a look. We have screens of notes because there has been so much contact on this account.
Me :
....
Immigration department runs through some of these many contacts and things they've already told him over and over again
Me :
.....
Immigration department : aAnd then we started to get calls from his solicitor as well. We told his representative ...
Me :
I went through this with the customer who (a) didn't seem to feel anything was wrong when I listed the lies he had told me, and (b) obviously can't tell when someone hates him with a burning passion.
The thing is that if he had told the truth I would have told him I couldn't help him. And guess what, there's a reason for that. It's because...I can't help !
That....doesn't help.
We asked someone to come back with some evidence that would allow us to book him a free appointment with a solicitor. He has no money, we wanted bank statements to show this. The solicitor may also ask for a statement from the friend who is giving the man some food etc.
A sensible person would have explained to us he didn't have a bank account. We can work round that.
This man went and opened one.
Unfortunately he needed to have some money to open the account.
This man asked his friend to lend him money so he could open an account. The friend gave him £7000 (?!) to clear into the account, which was then withdrawn and giving back to the friend. Apparently.
You know what is much worse than having no bank account - having a bank account with £7000 randomly going in and out.
Really not funny
Customer was given an offer of emergency housing by the authorities. Customer didn't like the housing. Customer may actually have had a point (the accomodation had a quality that is amazingly unusual in these offers as well as not being desirable). There is a right to challenge the offer - though accomodation has to have a real problem, ideally you'd have legal representation to make the challenge. Customer did it themselves. Customer lost the review. Customer was given another chance to accept the housing, they refused.
Customer says "they said we could challenge it through the courts".
Unfortunately to win the challenge you have to show that the housing is "not suitable". This is a tough test, much more fore example than being undesirable. However the only way to take it to court is if it is "Wednesbury unreasonable" which is to say that "no reasonable person or authority acting reasonably could have made it" - basically a test of high stupidity. All kinds of decisions are wrong or foolish, unhelpful or counterproductive etc. but not "unreasonable" under this definition.
Customer is, basically, screwed.
Their temporary housing will be ended. Their offer is no more. No new offer has to be made.
They have 2 children.
Not stupid
I saw another customer. Every single thing he said was wrong and I had to correct. It was immigration advice. The visa didn't mean what he thought. The application he needed to make was different. The new visa gave different rights. His solicitor was an idiot (told him he couldn't claim in work benefits and made him withdraw claims he was perfectly entitled to and would have no effect at all).
Customer listened. He answered questions I asked him. He made sure he had the right information at the end. He double checked a couple of things.
I don't mind if people don't know anything when they walk in the door, that's what we're hear for. Just :
Tell the truth
Answer questions
Use a basic amount of common sense - if only to ask someone like us at an early stage
And don't accuse me of thinking you live in a court !
(The last one's kind of specific).
Victoria J
Me : We need to find out if they need a court order to evict you
Customer (interupting) : But I don't live in a court. I live in a shop.
This will break the customer's brain when I gain powers of psychokinesis
On Monday :
Customer : I made a [very simple immigration claim] application a year ago. I didn't hear anything at all. They didn't even acknowledge my claim. I don't have a solicitor and I don't know what to do.
Me : OK. That does need looking into. Come back on Wednesday with [piece of paper with a reference number which may be asked for].
Today :
I call the immigration people.
Me : Customer states that he applied a year ago and doesn't know what happened. He didn't even receive an acknowledgement.
Immigration department : Let me just have a look. We have screens of notes because there has been so much contact on this account.
Me :
....
Immigration department runs through some of these many contacts and things they've already told him over and over again
Me :
.....
Immigration department : aAnd then we started to get calls from his solicitor as well. We told his representative ...
Me :
I went through this with the customer who (a) didn't seem to feel anything was wrong when I listed the lies he had told me, and (b) obviously can't tell when someone hates him with a burning passion.
The thing is that if he had told the truth I would have told him I couldn't help him. And guess what, there's a reason for that. It's because...I can't help !
That....doesn't help.
We asked someone to come back with some evidence that would allow us to book him a free appointment with a solicitor. He has no money, we wanted bank statements to show this. The solicitor may also ask for a statement from the friend who is giving the man some food etc.
A sensible person would have explained to us he didn't have a bank account. We can work round that.
This man went and opened one.
Unfortunately he needed to have some money to open the account.
This man asked his friend to lend him money so he could open an account. The friend gave him £7000 (?!) to clear into the account, which was then withdrawn and giving back to the friend. Apparently.
You know what is much worse than having no bank account - having a bank account with £7000 randomly going in and out.
Really not funny
Customer was given an offer of emergency housing by the authorities. Customer didn't like the housing. Customer may actually have had a point (the accomodation had a quality that is amazingly unusual in these offers as well as not being desirable). There is a right to challenge the offer - though accomodation has to have a real problem, ideally you'd have legal representation to make the challenge. Customer did it themselves. Customer lost the review. Customer was given another chance to accept the housing, they refused.
Customer says "they said we could challenge it through the courts".
Unfortunately to win the challenge you have to show that the housing is "not suitable". This is a tough test, much more fore example than being undesirable. However the only way to take it to court is if it is "Wednesbury unreasonable" which is to say that "no reasonable person or authority acting reasonably could have made it" - basically a test of high stupidity. All kinds of decisions are wrong or foolish, unhelpful or counterproductive etc. but not "unreasonable" under this definition.
Customer is, basically, screwed.
Their temporary housing will be ended. Their offer is no more. No new offer has to be made.
They have 2 children.
Not stupid
I saw another customer. Every single thing he said was wrong and I had to correct. It was immigration advice. The visa didn't mean what he thought. The application he needed to make was different. The new visa gave different rights. His solicitor was an idiot (told him he couldn't claim in work benefits and made him withdraw claims he was perfectly entitled to and would have no effect at all).
Customer listened. He answered questions I asked him. He made sure he had the right information at the end. He double checked a couple of things.
I don't mind if people don't know anything when they walk in the door, that's what we're hear for. Just :
Tell the truth
Answer questions
Use a basic amount of common sense - if only to ask someone like us at an early stage
And don't accuse me of thinking you live in a court !
(The last one's kind of specific).
Victoria J
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