Received a letter this morning from Department for Work and Pensions. Please pay us £54, we have contacted you about this previously.

Called them up, apparently its for over payment of job-seekers allowance in 1997!

Now they gave me the dates, which were before I got my current job, Sept 1997, but I have no recollection of weather I was temping or on the dole?

Can I tell them to shove it?

14 years sound slike they’re trying it on, tbh but, frankly, for the price of 2/3rds of a tank of fuel I might be tempted to just pay up and avoid the hassle.

i would be surprised if they can enforce that, i am under the impression that no one need hold more than 7 years tax records.

Can I tell them to shove it?

You can tell them.

Thanks Don! I’ll let them know you said so

but I have no recollection of weather

Cloudy, brightened up later – IIRC.

You’d have thought DWP had bigger fish to fry!

7 years is the most for debts as far as I am aware. It may be longer if they consider it to be fraud.

I’d dash them off a quick response, along lines of “I’ve no issue with paying if you can show me I was paid in error so please show me the evidence”

Thanks Don! I’ll let them know you said so

No worries, hope it helps. If not you could try Googling “dwp overpayments time limits” and see what the first article throws up, you might have to do some reading but it’s a start, no?