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Post by Deleted on Aug 9, 2019 16:12:54 GMT 7
I'm interested in how this works. How can they determine whether you need help while your on hold for.up to fifteen minutes? Or assuming they decide you need help after you get through; "Please hold the line, we're putting you through to the help line." Doesn't make sense to me, fake news; it is channel 9 after all. Cheers bear
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Post by latindancer on Aug 10, 2019 14:59:33 GMT 7
This last revelation about Robodebt is very revealing and it's great to see staff blowing the whistle.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 12, 2019 15:29:34 GMT 7
Homeless woman says Centrelink took entire $3,500 tax return for disputed robodebt
Couch surfing 50-year-old says welfare agency told her she wasn’t in financial hardship. The Melbourne woman battling homelessness says her entire $3,500 tax return was swiped by Centrelink last month, despite the fact she disputes the alleged robodebt.But when Sue Prgic, 50, complained to the agency that the money had been taken without her knowledge, she said staff had asked to know what she would do with the cash if it were returned. “I really didn’t think that’s any of their business,” she told Guardian Australia. “I was like, ‘Well, I’m homeless, I gather I’d use it to find a home to live in.’” Townsville flood victims hit by Centrelink robodebt program Prgic has been couch surfing since she lost the unit she shared with her 18-year-old daughter in regional Victoria this year after falling into rental arrears. She is the latest to tell her story as Labor and the Greens ramp up their efforts to have the government abolish the robodebt scheme, which is to be examined by a Senate inquiry and a federal court challenge. In total, Prgic is facing about $30,000 in alleged debts – including about $20,000 likely to have been raised through the robodebt scheme. Those debts, for parenting payment and Newstart, were accrued because Centrelink claims she did not report her earnings correctly. She disputed owing the money and she said she had been given no evidence for how the debts were calculated. But she was most frustrated that the agency had taken her tax return without telling her. She had planned to use the money to get into a new home. “They’ve taken $3,500 of my tax return ... They’ve taken $560 from my family tax benefit,” she said. “They’ve taken $4,000 in the last few weeks. If you have $3,500 that’s pretty much a bond and your month’s rent to get into a place.” At first, they had told her she couldn’t get the money back as she was not in “not in financial hardship”, Prgic added. “I said … ‘I’ve had to relocate back to Melbourne and I’m couch surfing and I’m homeless at the moment. You can’t get more financial hardship than that, can you?’ [They said] ‘Oh, well, what would you use the money for if [we] gave you back the tax return?’ “And they basically told me they are going to reassess it to see if I get that back … Now I’ve heard nothing from them.” Prgic’s tax return was taken because she was cut off income support in May after a dispute with her job service provider. She said she had been forced to reapply for Newstart, which helps supplement the income she earns from casual work at a local rubbish tip. Centrelink says it does not issue garnishee notices against people now receiving payments but, according to the agency, Prgic’s Newstart claim was accepted one day after her tax return was garnisheed. “It’s basically, you are asking me to prove that I don’t owe it,” she said. “I’d like some proof that I actually do. Hank Jongen, a spokesman for the Department of Human Services, said the department was reviewing the case. “We take the wellbeing of our customers very seriously,” he said. “Our expectation is any person who identifies as homeless is treated sensitively and receives appropriate support. We are reviewing this case to ensure any special circumstances are taken into account.” Jongen said the agency only took action to garnish tax returns when “other attempts to recover money owed have failed”. “We notify the person with a letter prior to any action occurring,” he said. But Prgic is among a number of welfare debt recipients who have told Guardian Australia they were not notified before their tax return was taken. “If they only returned part of my tax return, I wouldn’t be going through this,” she said. Last week the opposition launched a website for people to tell their robodebt stories. An existing website, Not My Debt, was set up by grassroots campaigners when the debt recovery scandal broke. amp.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/aug/12/homeless-woman-says-centrelink-took-her-entire-3500-tax-return
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Post by nomadic on Aug 12, 2019 19:08:06 GMT 7
Hank Jongen, a spokesman for the Department of Human Services, said the department was reviewing the case. “We take the wellbeing of our customers very seriously,” he said.
“Our expectation is any person who identifies as homeless is treated sensitively and receives appropriate support. We are reviewing this case to ensure any special circumstances are taken into account.”
Jongen said the agency only took action to garnish tax returns when “other attempts to recover money owed have failed”. “We notify the person with a letter prior to any action occurring,” he said.
No Growl this time. Hand me a pineapple. CHEERS HANK. (refer earlier post).
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Post by nomadic on Aug 12, 2019 19:11:07 GMT 7
P.S. I would have told them the truth on how I would use it. Straight to the TAB. They cannot be serious if they asked that question. More pineapples needed if so. And the large 60 baht ones rather than the 15 baht tiddlers.
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Post by latindancer on Aug 13, 2019 12:36:49 GMT 7
If anyone here has had a robodebt drama, there is a website on which you can report it : Over 100,000 debt notices from the Liberals’ robodebt program have already been challenged and found to be inaccurate. But the Liberals are refusing to fix their harsh and inaccurate system, so we need your help. Will you help us to expose the reality of the Liberals’ robodebt system so that we can build pressure on them to fix it? To help us just submit your story below. yourrobodebtstory.org.au/?fbclid=IwAR1qDY9GJp26-i4EcVwJEBpgULedOiqfV-BlxaS0FH3Igjrr38gdAATr7bM
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Post by cripple on Aug 13, 2019 19:01:39 GMT 7
This soon sent is some real strange stuff , often I'm having to constraint my self on the actual words I use when typing this
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Post by cripple on Aug 13, 2019 19:02:32 GMT 7
Dam keyboard, this robo dept is some strange stuff , I wish we could edit our posts , F
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Post by Deleted on Aug 14, 2019 18:40:39 GMT 7
Centrelink returns fire after latest robodebt claims: ‘there is no questioning’ the algorithm The Department of Human Services is defending the robodebt system once again, this time from damning claims made by anonymous contractors who say they worked in teams whose managers treated the collection of funds by government much like sales revenue to be maximised.The department says the well researched investigative report by Nine reporter Emily McPherson, which has echoes of the claims made by former Tax Office staffer Richard Boyle, contained “errors and misrepresentations” in a response posted on Tuesday. Partly, it seems DHS is again running what could be seen as a semantic argument about when and how a compliance-checking exercise becomes debt collection, and how much human control is really involved. The department says the work described in the article is not part of what it calls debt-recovery operations, which are handled by separate teams after the compliance reviews are finished. “The latest coverage continues to wrongly refer to online compliance as automated debt-raising,” says the department. “While data matching is facilitated by automation, the oversight, review and debt raising process is undertaken by our staff.” But the contractors reviewing potential overpayments — and being openly ranked according to how quickly they finalised income reviews — certainly have a clear view about what their role in the system was. “The department is just a debt-raising machine, and that’s all they care about. They say that they care about the customer, but they don’t,” said one. According to the department, what we should take from the bitter reflections of the contractors on their role in the controversial system is that they demonstrate there is “human involvement” in the process. “Our compliance review teams work closely with customers — through a dedicated phone line — to explain, check and review income reporting discrepancies,” says DHS. “Finalising a review does not always result in a debt. After about 20% of these income reviews, which seem a lot like an effort to find as many debts as possible, the person is able to prove they were not overpaid and no actual debt is raised. This is “the system functioning as it should” according to DHS, and it is about the same rate that this occurred under the previous system for searching out potential overpayments, which robodebt enhanced through a data-matching algorithm. One of the anonymous contractors told Nine this computer system that combines Tax Office income data with Centrelink welfare payment records and calculates a maximum possible overpayment could get different results from the same numbers on different days, sometimes varying by hundreds of dollars. “The team leader would say, I don’t know why, just put it through. There is no questioning what algorithm is behind the system.” The department did not address this claim directly but says the article unfairly portrays management practices in the teams finalising income reviews, which are guided by a system called BOOST. The article showed a whiteboard reportedly used as a leaderboard, something like a high-pressure commercial sales team ranking the number of deals closed by each member. “How the department and the teams use the information contained on the whiteboards has been entirely misrepresented,” DHS says. “The numbers do not refer to debt targets. As we advised the relevant journalist, our staff working on income reviews are not required to finalise a prescribed number of reviews each week.” If any of these teams are being managed something like how the article describes, the department’s response suggests their managers do not understand how to do their jobs properly. It says BOOST is “a common methodology used in many industries” that “works by creating visual links between data and people” and team members like those who spoke to Nine’s reporter are simply being encouraged to share lessons with each other, seek help from colleagues and raise any concerns in daily huddles. The department’s rebuttal statement describes a very different style of management to the damning anonymous claims. “The focus is on improving the overall quality of decision-making, ‘Naming and shaming’ has nothing to do with our process. Staff names are only displayed on the whiteboard where individual team members choose to have their name displayed. BOOST is a staff led process. Staff are included in the implementation of BOOST in every compliance site from the ground up. This includes the development of the team vision, through to the whiteboard content and daily stand ups.” DHS adds a few other counter-claims. It says it does not refer current welfare recipients to external debt collectors and nor does it dock their tax returns; that is for former recipients only. It describes a process that is supposed to be followed all the time but, according to Nine’s report, is not. “We only take this action when other attempts to recover money owed have failed and we notify the person with a letter prior to any action occurring. We make at least three attempts to contact people via letter. An initial letter is followed by two reminders. “After the three letters, a compliance officer is required to check the first one was received and make at least two genuine contact attempts by phone, before they finalise the review.” A lot of people ignore calls from the department and debt collectors alike as they come from private numbers. The article suggests a text message service that is supposed to warn people of an impending call from the department is rarely used and the pressure to quickly finalise reviews leads many compliance staff to do the bare minimum. Some would “just let the phone ring one or two times and hang up” and others do not call at all but say they did, one source claims. www.themandarin.com.au/113811-centrelink-returns-fire-after-latest-robodebt-claims-there-is-no-questioning-the-algorithm/
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Post by latindancer on Aug 15, 2019 10:15:04 GMT 7
Anthony Albanese demands urgent scrap of Centrelink's 'robo-debt' scheme. Aug 14, 2019 Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese is pushing the government to scrap its controversial robo-debt scheme after a Queensland mum said she believes her son Jarrad's death was triggered by the pressure of a $2000 debt notice. "The facts show that the system is failing," Mr Albanese told A Current Affair. Minister for Government Services Stuart Robert confirmed there had been 850,000 compliance reviews finalised since July 2015 and admitted of those reviews, 20 per cent of the recipients could prove that they didn't owe a debt. Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese is pushing the government to scrap its controversial robo-debt scheme after a Queensland mum said she believes her son Jarrad's death was triggered by the pressure of a $2000 debt notice. "The facts show that the system is failing," Mr Albanese told A Current Affair. Minister for Government Services Stuart Robert confirmed there had been 850,000 compliance reviews finalised since July 2015 and admitted of those reviews, 20 per cent of the recipients could prove that they didn't owe a debt. So, that raises the question, what happens to the people who don't deserve the debt but can't prove it? "Many people who are vulnerable in these circumstances would just pay the debt even though it mightn't even be owed. And that's the concern here, is that there's no human-to-human contact or interaction in this process," Mr Albanese said. Grieving mother Kath Madgwick said her son Jarrad was in a vulnerable state when notified about his Centrelink debt. Jarrad had recently moved back home after he quit his job because of workplace bullying, he was struggling to find work and had also recently broken up with his girlfriend. "He was already disappointed in himself - but that was the, the straw that broke the camel's back," Kath said. It's situations like the Madgwick family's that's pushed Mr Albanese to fight against the 'robo-debt' scheme in parliament and call for an immediate overhaul. "They need to engage people in this process and not simply do it through a computerised system that pretends that it's not dealing with real people who are vulnerable at a difficult time in their lives and treat them essentially just like numbers," he said. www.9news.com.au/national/a-current-affair-centrelink-robo-debt-anthony-albanese-demands-end/3e678048-94e5-49e8-be4f-ed175138b701?fbclid=IwAR1OCmJJsaLoo0DcSZD_boS4QCBGTkrUt6S64WPUdXOPTqredu8_TGj8IJ4
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Post by Deleted on Aug 15, 2019 11:22:00 GMT 7
Albo needs to step up, lobby Morrison's backbenchers and welfare supporters and do his job. Let's hope he's got the necessaries to achieve change over a sitting government. Cheers bear
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Post by rainyday on Aug 15, 2019 15:23:42 GMT 7
I'm interested in how this works. How can they determine whether you need help while your on hold for.up to fifteen minutes? Or assuming they decide you need help after you get through; "Please hold the line, we're putting you through to the help line." Doesn't make sense to me, fake news; it is channel 9 after all. Cheers bear bear it reminds me of a joke. Ringing up incontinence Help line...…. Good morning, Incontinence Help line, can you hold please?
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Post by rainyday on Aug 15, 2019 15:31:39 GMT 7
bear, regarding the internal priority line, they did ring me after got very upset on the phone after they rejected my application. The social worker was told to ring and check on me, I ended up laughing hysterically on the phone to him as he kept saying , can we put you in touch with community that can help you. What a joke, because Clink reduce us to not being able to cope then tell us we are defective and could benefit from help in our local community, let's just pass the buck, hey ?
Another social worker from Clink suggested I got someone in to board with me, and to look for lost superannuation.. lol I spent the next week with my head in a spin looking up lost superannuation online, and also looking on flatmates.com for someone suitable to share my house with. I still may do that in the future, but I also can't rely on getting someone that is suitable long term. Besides that I should be getting the dsp as well, because of my disabilities.
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Post by rainyday on Aug 15, 2019 15:46:39 GMT 7
latindancer, what an awful situation for that young man, it can be just enough to push someone over the edge, I truly believe that. They make out that people are criminals that haven't paid an outstanding debt that they had received many reminders for in the past. This really has to stop. Perhaps they could send a letter out if they need to clarify earnings that have been reported, but to tell people they have a "debt" they haven't paid is totally wrong. Can't they send out a nice letter just to state they want to go over some details of earning etc. Why the harsh letters, when most people have never been involved in criminal activity, yet getting treated like they are a criminal, which by the way it should always be innocent until proven guilty, something Clink and the GM need to learn.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 15, 2019 16:00:35 GMT 7
I'm interested in how this works. How can they determine whether you need help while your on hold for.up to fifteen minutes? Or assuming they decide you need help after you get through; "Please hold the line, we're putting you through to the help line." Doesn't make sense to me, fake news; it is channel 9 after all. Cheers bear bear it reminds me of a joke. Ringing up incontinence Help line...…. Good morning, Incontinence Help line, can you hold please? That's funny as! Least your sense of humour's intact. Cheers bear
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