(no subject)
I am sure Australian Government Agencies go out of their way to be as irritating as possible sometimes. Eli turned 16 and so is eligable for Youth Allowance, so we applied for it. The day I handed in his application form I forgot to bring his birth certificate, "no problem", the lady said "Just bring it in tomorrow and we'll copy it. So I did, but the woman at the desk (different woman) argued he didn't need it. I insisted she copy it anyway, which she reluctantly did while making sure I knew she was just humoring me *sigh*.
A week later I get a letter demanding the see his birth cert. I explain I brought it in. Anyways I end up taking it in again and having them copy it again.
Another week goes by and another demand for the birth certificate arrives. I explain that I have indeed taken the cert in twice and, no, I do not want them to cancel the application due to lack of filling the identification requirments. This time I take the reference number and c-link officers name. But I was still required to take the birth certificate in again to show them.
Glad I took that reference number down because I just received yet another letter threatening to cancel the application if I don't show them the birth cert. Reference number lead me to the lady I spoke to last week who promised to sort it all out.
And then there's the Tax office....
Eli needed to apply for his Tax File number. Filled the forms and sent them in registered mail along with the original Identiofication they required. The sent it back saying we need to get the bank statment certified by a JP. We went to the JP who said they would not certify it unless the bank certified it was 'correct'. So we went to the bank and had it stamped and signed and, then we returned to the JP, who insisted he still couldn't sign it because now it was a certified it was considered an 'original copy' and he could only certify a copy of the stamped copy of the copy of the bank statement..HUH???... So we photo copied it and he signed it. Then I called the Tax Office to explain and make sure the certified copy was okay. They then tell me that they only accept original bank statements and not copies, so..um...
But to compound matters they required the medicare card be sent to them, when we first applied, as part of the ID required..and they lost it. Now we have to wait 28 days to get a new medicare card before we can resend the application all again....*sigh* Why couldn't they have taken copies of the ID we already sent rather then insist on having it all sent back to them again?
Here's hoping they don't loose the next one as well.