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Dealing with a government welfare system for the first time in a while. (hachyderm.io)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Dealing with a government welfare system for the first time in a while.

Last time there were still people you’d talk to who’d smooth over the process.

Now it’s all online and automated.

And holy fucking hellscape Batman.

They’ve just shipped the whole bureaucracy along with their own software bugs.

And as the welfare seeker you have to navigate all of the details and jargon (and bugs/broken links) without any assurance that anything is ok, hoping the money comes.

#welfare

@australia

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/oct/25/centrelink-issues-28m-busy-messages-to-callers-in-only-two-months-as-wait-times-blow-out

I had an issue getting through on the phone and the app wouldn’t let me get past a certain point so I went into the local office…who after giving me a series of wrong and misleading information which I repeatedly pointed out was wrong and showed them their own website to prove it…then told me I HAD to call because they weren’t trained enough to deal with it.

The worker told me that the trick to get through, start dialling the minute before they open and finish dialling at exactly opening time. Well that kind of worked because it reduced my time on hold to….1hr 25mins. But I did speak to someone. Who couldn’t help me either. Or tell me what was wrong. Or how to fix it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

@pmarksen

So so sorry to hear.

Otherwise, yea this doesn't sound surprising. From my recent limited experience it seems like a system held together with duck tape.

Which is funny, because if the fear from govt is to prevent people from becoming professional "dole-bludgers", making the system so hard to use that it requires special skills and experience is the wrong thing to do.

I'm sure there are all sorts of silly loop holes and bugs that plenty of people have learnt to exploit.