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March 28, 2024, 08:26:42 PM

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Refused a home Covid test after credit check

Started by Buelligan, November 08, 2020, 09:15:29 PM

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Buelligan

I don't really use this forum, so apologies if this has already been flagged.  I also apologise in advance, I know some find it irritating when people start new threads with just a quote and a link - all the same I thought this story pretty outrageous - not just because the apparent decision to use credit checks as a way of verifying identities excludes so many people, the kind of people that often need support most, but because the government would even go there in a time of national crisis and presumably pay, for such a shitty useless system - so I thought I should mention it.  I bloody hate the government, what the fuck is wrong with these people?

QuoteWe really couldn't understand why we weren't able to have our identities verified, " says Laura McCormack about the moment she and her partner, who both had the three main symptoms of coronavirus, were refused a home test kit.

They had logged on to the government website to request one, but were told that because their names and addresses could not be checked, they would have to go to a physical test site instead.

With no car and needing to avoid public transport because of their symptoms, it took them five days to get a test site close enough to walk to - one that was 90 minutes away.

"We started Googling and digging around," she says. "We thought it [failing to get their identities verified] might be the fact we are migrant workers."

Because Laura has been in the UK less than a year, she has not built up much of a credit history.

"In the end, it became clear that people with no credit history were having very similar problems. People who haven't taken out loans or don't have phone contracts or credit cards here in the UK," she says.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-54841185

bgmnts

As a working class poor man with an absolutely abysmal credit score, I'm never going to be able to get a house of my own. I'm okay with it really.

Buelligan

Throw yourself into the road, darling, you haven't got a chance!

BlodwynPig

I wasnt allowed either and don't drive. Fuck it i said. Got my DBS though for over the asking price

flotemysost

I mentioned it in one of the other testing threads on here, but I was also refused a home test back in (I think) June/July after trying to order online, because right at the end of all the questions, the website "couldn't verify my identity".

I suspect this is because I wasn't registered to vote there at that point (admittedly my own fault - I just never got round to it, moved to that address not that long before lockdown happened then forgot about it) but there must be loads of people in this situation (off the top of my head, like my friend whose twat live-in landlord won't allow her to register to vote so that he won't lose his single occupant council tax discount).

And I don't drive either. Luckily my flatmate was able to order tests for us both (both negz) but it does seem like very flawed system.