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A man has described the stress of feeling "in debt" to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) after he was overpaid thousands of pounds in Universal Credit despite repeatedly reporting the mistake.
Frederick Day, from Ipswich, was paid an extra £2,169 between February 2025 and January by the DWP due to a system error.
The 68-year-old then succeeded in stopping the DWP crediting his account with a further £1,400 he was not entitled to in May, only for the payment to land in his bank account in July.
DWP said it looked to arrange affordable repayment plans when overpayments occur, but Day said the overpayment should be waived due the stress the ordeal had caused him.
According to the government, overpayments of Universal Credit can be written off at the discretion of the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions.
Day, who is retired due to health issues, said: "I'm a genuine bloke and if I have to, I'll repay it, but I want the overpay from July to be waived, which I'm entitled to.
"It's not right us customers have to pay for their mistakes and I would be disappointed if they asked for the money back.
"I did the right thing but millions of people wouldn't bother - they would just keep the money."
If he was allowed to keep the cash, Day said he would put a few hundred pounds to one side and use the rest to pay off bills and "have a good Saturday down the pub".
DWP said it had a duty to the taxpayer to protect public funds and to ask for any money given out in error to be paid back.
Day, whose Universal Credit claim also involved his wife Tracy, has not spent any of the overpaid money and said they were in the process of paying back the initial £2,160 overpayment.
Despite this, Day said he still felt in debt to the DWP.
"You struggle every week to keep your head above water and then all of a sudden you find yourself £3,500 in debt through no fault of your own," he added.
"I find that incredibly stressful and it doesn't help you sleep at night - it is extremely frustrating.
"I could quite easily go out and spend that money, I could treat myself to a new wardrobe, but at the moment it is not my money, it's theirs," he added.
According to the DWP's annual statistics for the financial year ending 2026, overpayments of Universal Credit have dropped to 8.5% from 9.7% in 2025.
The overall rate of benefit overpayments had gone down from 3.3% - or £9.4bn – in 2025, to 3.2% this year.
Yet Day said that was still too much, adding: "If the system is broken there's no good sweeping the problem under the carpet at the expense of your customer.
"You need to get a maintenance man in there to fix it."
A DWP spokesperson said: "Where overpayments occur we are committed to working with customers to agree affordable repayment arrangements, taking into account their individual circumstances.
"Through our Targeted Case Review, improved reporting and verification and better use of real-time data, Universal Credit overpayments are now at their lowest level since the pandemic."
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