Suspicious Mind

I received an odd letter this morning, from the government Department for Work and Pensions, specifically their ‘The Pension Service 3, Post Handling Site A in Wolverhampton.’ Odd address, thought I, but since the postal service has been bought up and taken over by some Czech bod it’s all been a bit peculiar on the postal front. Bring back galloping horses, bugles and shouts of ‘Post Haste!’ that’s what I say. 

Anyway, this letter informed me that my state pension age was 67. This I knew. And that I shall reach state pension age in 2032 (they’re good with Maths, this lot) and that I did not need to contact them (I wasn’t going to) because they would send me a letter 4 months before my state pension date telling me how to claim.

What? I have to CLAIM it?? I assumed it would just appear without question. Botheration. And then the final bit of the letter said if I was acting on behalf of myself then the information in the letter was…about me. (Scratched head in a confused ‘doh’ kind of way.)

This inanity wasn’t what bothered me. What bothered me was the letter was addressed to me at ‘Unit 1’ followed by the road name of my address, the nearest town and then a post code that was wrong by one letter, a W instead of a X. I assumed it arrived with me at my address because the post people know who lives where and that I do not, in fact, live in an industrial unit. 

Regardless, I thought I’d better raise the incorrect address with the DWP. I called their number and listened to a terminally boring set of options before arriving at a real human being who said she couldn’t do anything in her department but she gave me the phone number of the department who could. I called them. Another droning on of options 1,2 and 3 before being told by the automated voice I could find what I needed online before it cut me off.

I went online and tried to log into my Government Gateway account, but apparently it has been deleted to protect me from fraud, but it was okay, I could set up a new one. Reader, I did a bit of mewling and eye rolling at this point, but I persevered. 

And this is when things started to become a bit dystopian. The first few steps were easy. Well, easyish. There was a bit of back and forth with various sending and receiving of access codes but I filled in my details, and received a new account number and password. And then, after I put in my National Insurance number I was met with, ‘We need to identify who you are,’ which involved two options. I chose Option 2 which was to manually enter details from my photo i.d, also known as my driver’s licence, which I’ve had for 43 years. 

Apparently, Option 2 was not currently available. Sorry and all that but I’d have to continue with Option 1. I was feeling a bit Lady Macbeth at this point, too far steeped in blood and all that malarkey, so I decided to carry on. However, Option 1 required me to download the government app and take a photo of myself to compare with my driver’s licence. There was talk of scanning QR codes, questions about whether I had a smart phone and…hang on a minute…

I suddenly thought, this is all about the government collecting digital i.d data because they want everyone to have a digital i.d card. Outrageous and devious bastards! I stopped the process and tried to log in to the gateway with the new account number and password they had given me. But no - I could not do anything without completing the online digital i.d (Option 1) process. 

The last time I set up a gateway account there wasn’t all this malarkey, and it was only about three years or so ago, too. The more I roamed around the government portal, the more I thought, yup, this is implementation of the digital i.d card by the back door stuff. I was fuming and I was digging my heels in like a stubborn donkey. All I wanted to do was check that the DWP had my correct address on their records. That’s all. It was beginning to feel a bit like a data phishing trap. 

And then I thought, whoa up a bit, lady. You’re not getting your state pension for another 6 years, 5 months and 1 week yet. ANYTHING could happen in that time. Literally anything. I could move house (unlikely, but it could happen). I might win a lottery jackpot so claiming a state pension would be unnecessary (unlikely because I don’t do any lotteries but it COULD happen). I might be DEAD! The urge to live in the moment and let the future worry about itself swept over me like a warm and comforting wave.

So I decided not to fret about the address inaccuracies on this wildly preemptive letter, which has been consigned to wood burner lighting duties. And then part of my Dunelm order arrived so I was immediately distracted by shiny new things! Hurrah!!

Here is a picture of the late, great Flora Bijou Mybug from 2014, sitting behind Andy and looking very, very suspicious…