HM Revenue and Customs allocated my national insurance (NI) number to a stranger who has since died. It therefore now insists that I am dead and so will not process my pension top-up request.
I’ve had this number since 1991 when I moved to the UK for six years to work.
In 2015 I again took a job in the UK. At that point HMRC told me it couldn’t find my NI number on its system and insisted on issuing me with a temporary one.
I’ve been trying on and off since 2015 to get my original number back and have spent hours on hold to HMRC. I’ve sent letters and visited the HMRC offices, to no avail. I was recently told I might have to wait 86 weeks for a response.
The urgency now is that I need to submit my state pension forecast application, and it is distressing to be told that I am “deceased”.
JH County Clare, Ireland
An NI number is supposed to be for life. It’s a crucial part of modern identity and the consequences, if it goes astray, could include identity fraud or compromised tax and pensions status. I’m therefore astounded by HMRC’s insouciance.
I asked it how this came to be, and how you can be brought back to life. HMRC’s response was shocking in that it managed within five days to do what it had seemingly failed to achieve in 10 years – it gave you a call, an explanation and a solution.
It transpires that in 1991 it issued you with a number that already belonged to someone else. How you managed to double up for those six working years without the mistake being detected, I can’t fathom and HMRC will not say. It claims that too much time has elapsed for it to investigate how the error occurred. A decade of that time was wasted by its own inexcusable delays.
Only now, with the threat of a headline prodding its behind, does it tell you to apply for a new NI number from the Department for Work and Pensions. Once you have this, HMRC will retrieve and merge the personal information relating to your previous two numbers.
Given its current service record and the complexity of disentangling your employment records from the deceased stranger, I have low confidence that this will happen seamlessly and soon.
HMRC has offered you a pitiful £250 in compensation. I’ve advised you to seek professional advice because, with soon-to-be three NI numbers to your name, you could have missed out on entitlements or been saddled with liabilities.
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