Meet Shazia
Shazia was facing debt pressures, benefit issues and significant financial challenges around pensions and tax when she started her advice journey with one of our caseworkers.
Several debts were disclosed and Shazia didn’t agree with all of them. With the adviser’s help we contacted her creditors and explained her situation and disputes.
One creditor agreed to remove some of the charges and accept a low amount in settlement of the debt, writing off the remaining balance. We helped her put payment arrangements in place for priority debts and apply for ways to bring the debts down.
She had a problem with her utility supplier as her smart meter was faulty which had resulted in incorrect bills. We helped her challenge this and stabilise her utility costs but also gave advice on changing tariffs and suppliers. We gave her a foodbank voucher and applied a £50 credit on her water bill to ease some immediate hardship.
When Shazia accessed some of her private pension we helped her remain compliant with Universal Credit reporting this avoiding any overpayment or sanction. We then found that she needed help with a tax issue too and supported her to create a Government Gateway account. Her pension provider had issued an incorrect P45 which was blocking a tax refund so we helped call the provider to rectify the error then complete the necessary forms to result in a refund of over £1000.