General Chat

Is this a load of tosh!

My son wanted to check on his Employer Pension Scheme. Went online, input name, d.o.b. and NI number. Request denied because d.o.b. and NI number did not match.

Rang Pension scheme up. Was told he had to send in Birth Cert but to make sure it was a full one. No problem. He has his original full cert from when his Dad registered his birth.

Apparently, it is physically the wrong size and he has to have it confirmed as genuine by either someone from the Post Office, Doctor or Police Officer etc :-S :-|

Could it be the difference between fullscape & A4? Although I'm happy to be corrected, aren't they now issued as A4?
Sometimes 'the system' forgets that a genuine original is different to what is now issued.

This is interesting, and may be relevant - particularly the phrase:" Certificates issued prior to 2000 remain valid"
But obviously don't order a certificate from them - grossly overpriced! :-|

https://www.bmd-certificates.co.uk/articles/Birth-Certificates-England.html

Thanks for the link Maggie. This makes it make more sense now.

I had argued the toss with my son re his cert not being the correct size so i will have to eat humble pie :-| , not a dish I enjoy lol.

That phrase about certs issued before 2000 still being valid is a bit ambiguous though because apparently he has experienced this problem before, when he had to apply for a duplicate driving license when he had his wallet stolen.

Perhaps the pre 2000 versions are too easy to forge?

We have the original of hubbies grandparents marriage in 1903 it's big and you can't photo copy it as it's too big to put in current domestic photo copiers

When hubby passed away I wasn't going to part with both our original births certs and our marriage cert, I didn't want them lost or damaged as a starter

They are bigger than the ones you get from the gro

I bought copies from them to deal with hubbies estate and and his pension etc

Thank goodness for my hobby. !! :-D

Yeah my mums 1934 original marr. cert is too big to copy properly...

for years I had only the short birth cert...

so are GRO certs still basically a tenner?

£9.25 direct from GRO.

:-)

Edit - it's the same price wherever you are in the world.

thanks fer that, Pat

:-D

It seems ridiculous that pre 2000 birth certificate won't be accepted.
Strikes me there are a load of ignorant 'jobsworths' about!

Det, as for pre 2000 certificates maybe being easy to forge - anyone can buy a copy certificate - looks like many of us will HAVE to! :-S :-D

I agree it seems ridiculous that a pre 2000 birth cert won't be accepted. The site Maggie put up says they remain valid, as were the older, larger certs that used to be issued in the distant past. I can't imagine DWP are asking for people retiring to get new certificates or it would be all over the press. They said he needed a full cert and that is what he has. There could be a problem however if he sent in a photocopy of his full birth cert and in that case it would need to be 'certified as a true copy of the original' by the persons suggested. The reason photocopies won't be accepted by everyone is that there may be official amendments on the back which may not be on a photocopy. Are they asking for this because they have already confirmed his NINO on their records is correct?

Hi Annx

I claimed by State Pension this year after deferring it for just over twelve months. It was all done over the phone and Internet, did not have to send off any documents.

To be honest, we had a bit of a palaver when he was sixteen getting his NI number, he had to use a temporary number based on his date of birth for nearly two years. Sorted out eventually.

The NI number is correct, every Government Department has it including Tax Credits.

He is going to leave it until Monday morning when he checks in at the office because apparently it was the Company Accountant who sorted the Pension Scheme out last year.

I have certificates in three different sizes.

The old sized certificates were printed on foolscap paper. Following on from going metric, some are A4.

The short version of the full certificates are, I believe, octavo - near enough from memory. No doubt the octavo-sized ones will have changed to a metric measure too by now.

Some bodies will accept the short version, some will not.

Libby, having worked in State Pensions years ago, I expect DWP most likely had seen your cert in the past so didn't need it to process your State Pension which saves all the rigmarole! Things do change as time goes by though and nowadays birth certs are seen with Child Benefit claims so the department records are noted then.

It sounds like the best idea for him to speak to the Company Accountant who arranged things. I would check both what date of birth the scheme holds and also what date of birth his employer has for him. Mistakes in noting it may have been made by either. It would be interesting to hear what the outcome is.

It looks like a lot of money being made?

Hi Ann,

I know the company he works for has his correct dob because he has the same employer he had when he was sixteen when we had the rigmarole with his temporary the temporary NI number based on his dob.

The Pension Scheme will not disclose the dob they hold because that would enable my son to access the Pension info online .... this is what he was trying to do in the first place lol.

Therefore by the process of elimination ..... the Accountant is guilty!! Hang 'em high :)

But if your hobby isn't genealogy you would be stumped to know where to get a copy of your birth cert especially if you don't now live in the same area of your birth

We were both born in SE London and married in about the same area but in they came under diffrent register offices because of area boundaries .My hubby would have no idea how to get a copy cert if he had to do it

I live in Kent now .

The only reason I didn't want to part with my birth cert is because it has a penny stamp on it of Edward V111, he had abdicated but the stamps were still in circulation .
I could imagine someone thinking "I will have that" .
Plus so many agencies wanted the certs that to speed things up I bought several copies so I could deal with them all at the same time

Years ago my husband tried to get an assessment of his pension from Newcastle. He was made redundant and was checking out all he could and found they didn't have any reference for our marriage. Now they had that I was married to him but he wasn't married to him. :-S

He was told to go to sign on and take our marriage cert so it could be photocopied. He then confused them by taking our marriage certificate and our certificate of marriage as we had married overseas when in the RAF. The tax people knew we were married but somehow something had gone wrong re pensions, may have been wrong box ticked when computerised.

We had only been married 33 years by then - better late than never. ;-)

:-)