Tuesday, 3 January 2017

Centrelink debt notice rip off - can't do basic maths (video)

Despite having payslips for each pay period showing correctly, and reported correctly his earnings for the period, Michael Griffin was sent a debt notice by Centrelink. As he'd earned more later in the year when he wasn't even getting the dole, Centrelink included that money and simply averaged out his yearly income and assumed he was getting that income every week of the year.

Unfortunately life isn't like that. People often earn different amounts, even nothing at times. As the screenshot snip above shows. Some weeks when getting the dole Michael earned nothing, yet the Centrelink computer assumed he earned over $1,000.

This is grossly unfair and a failure of basic maths. One could even call it a sleight of hand. How many of us unfortunate enough to have to live off welfare would understand the intricacies of what they've done here? 

It's criminal. One could suggest Centrelink is using mathmatical sleight of hand in a lie to clients, extorting money out of them falsely.
It wrongly assumed he had consistently earned $1,021 every fortnight across the year, including between February and May, instead of different amounts in different fortnightly reporting periods. 

That wrong assumption made him ineligible to claim welfare for that period, and he was told he must repay almost all of the dole he claimed, a total of $3,197. The Guardian


  


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