Financial Bureaucracy

insolvent

Last updated: 2024-05-19

2024-05-17 Phoning UK Work and Pension

After another talk to my service provider it looks like they have enabled my international dialing. They explained I had to dial 00 rather than + before the country code and that it would cost me 69¢ per minute. They gave no explanation why it wasn't enabled by default and I didn't want to waste time asking. This time phoning at 3:30am, I did manage to get thru to the UK!

As expected, it was a waste of time as they were unable to access my data, but they did promiss to phone me back on Friday at 9:00am. Well I sat by my phone at the designated time (8pm here) and no call eventuated. I gave it an hour or two and then phoned them back. Went thru the same rigmarole, with the only difference that my call recorder was blocked and gave me some kind of message about recording this call being "illegal". Thus there is no record of the conversation, but basically I gave them as much information as I could. "Beverley" then said she would discuss it with her "supervisor" and would ring me back at an unspecified future date.

query

Given their ominous letter about access to my details being blocked due to them "containing sensitive information", I was not surprised their agents can't access them. I'm not aware of anything "sensitive" that might be on record, so I suspect those records are contaminated with disinformation, probably consequent to false accusations based on mistaken identity. Already some months ago I e-mailed and also wrote to them asking for disclosure, but to date no reply. Not even acknowledgement that my request has been revieved.

They've had all my details by e-mail, by letter and by phone now from me personally as well as from New Zealand WINZ. In my opinion their pig-headed refusal to communicate, acknowledge or respond makes them responsible for any funds that have gone missing and I also will claim compensation for the costs of phonecalls as well as the cost of sending letters. I don't doubt it will achieve nothing because these corporations are just machines, while the people they employ are behaving like mindless automata following undisclosed procedures.

2024-05-17 Getting Thru to the Dutch

Dutch authorities have sent me a variety of forms to complete. One just needed a tick in the box declaring that I live on my own, but I have no e-mail address for them, so had to send it airmail.

To communicate my "levens bewijs" (proof of being alive), I spent many hours trying to set up a "digidentity" but eventually floundered as it failed to read the NFC chip in my UK passport (video above). I don't have any of the other documents they suggest, so I had to get the form witnessed by a local Justice of the Peace and sent that by air mail too. Once again several hours and another $4 postage. No acknowledgement of anything being recieved, of course and still no superannuation money either. All the while WINZ deducting my "entitlement" from what I get here and taxing me on it too!

To keep tabs on progress I'm posting about this shit on X (Twitter), as events unfold. This time I asked financial assistance in dealing with their bureaucracy.

Overseas Superanuation

When I moved to NZ I asked a professional company, NZBritannia, to move my UK pension to New Zealand as I had (and still have) no intention of going back to the UK. I didn't want to have to go through international bureaucracy and at the time New Zealand had a reciprocal agreement with the UK. Thus I assumed I would have no entitlement from there anymore. However New Zealand government recently decided not to carry on with the existing agreements. They demanded I make application both to the UK (where I worked for about 25 years) and to the Netherlands, where I was just a foreign student.

MSD

It was hard to find all the details from so long ago, but eventually it transpired that was eligible for something from both of those countries. Now they are deducting that from my NZ superannualation. Until I actually get payments from abroad it doesn't leave me with enough to feed myself and my dogs let alone pay any bills. I wrote to WINZ but might as well be talking to a brick wall. (click the thumbnail to read the e-mail sequence).

no e-mail

For starters the UK authorities won't accept communication by e-mail while the Dutch website requires me to use a digital ID ap that is not even available for my non-Google android phone. I doubt I could satisfiy said app of my real identity anyway.

MSD agree that writing to foreign pension authorities can take months, but I did send one letter to the UK already. I have now taken MSD up on their offer to do so on my behalf, but probably will need to fill in some more autority forms.

The naive assumption seems to be that I can just ring these foreign administrators and sort it all out over the phone, but it's not that trivial.

Beligerent trolls on Twitter don't seem to comprehend what the issue is here. It's about bureaucracy sucking up all my energy every single day. When i sold my old plave and bought a new one, there was no justification for ANZ making all those "due diligence" demands for answers that I didn't know. I will discuss their "due dilligence" momentarily, but this just bureaucrats on a power trip.

It's also about MSD changing the rules and expecting me to cope with it regardless, so let's first have a look at what is involved!

International Dialing

Here i try to get an international dialing package from my cell phone provider, but they don't seem to know what they are talking about.

The music carries on for 10 minutes and then you can hear me say "this is just useless, completely usless" as I hang up. Note: I was imagining listening to similar music from the UK or the Netherlands, but at a premium call rate.

Alternatively I can try setting up Skype or some other VOIP calling but I've had problems making it work on my Linux system so set it up on my cell phone. I get so far and then it just gives me no clues what to do.