Hi Isaac - I appreciate based on your standard replies that you are a Comms assistant, but if you could pass this on to your manager please, we might actually get somewhere. This feedback from all of us is valuable and will make your life easier too.
I'm having the same issue as others here and I agree it's beyond ridiculous. On the phone line when I do get through, the options menu SPECIFICALLY includes an option of "If you are having trouble accessing your online account, please press 5". As Alice mentions above, this then asks for a secret answer. Telling Alice she's incorrect is rude; she is correct. If nothing else, this is misleading. Don't include an option if it's not viable.
If you want to be specific, it should say on the HMRC/SLC login page "If you do not know your secret answer, please dial 0300 100 0607 and press option 1 then option 2 to get straight through to an advisor".
We are told we have been "sent" a secret answer - I don't know when or how this was apparently sent to me. 16yrs ago when I went to uni? By post, email or text? Is it an answer to a question about myself or something random sent to me by SLC?
I could tell you all the personal details about myself and yet you're withholding access to details of my own financial situation, at an unprecedented time when finance is more stressful than it's ever been in my life, due to an answer that is apparently so secretive that even I don't know it. Phone lines are busy (I'm not surprised given this amount of faff we are all having to go through), there's no online chat options...and I thought Virgin Media was bad.