What cheeses me off

I think covid had something to do with postie not knocking or doing anymore than the bear/bare minimum.
Now they don't even ask people to put a virtual signature with their stylus on a touch pad anymore.
Just confirm name and thats it.
Not knocking and just putting a card into post box, is the bear/bare minimum in my view.
No unnecessarily touching surfaces, no passing of bugs with the handling over or back of stylus or keypad.
===
AI/ChatGPT to do with charities, their work must be easier now, in relation to donor data.
Looking at google, there is no law that bars/bans the trade of donor data.
In fact quite a large number of companies blatantly advertise it.
Grrr, not happy poochie.
No wonder we get pleas and gifts from charities that we never donate to!
 
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When ATO and Medicare don't have any means to send them a message.

ATO put me onto some sort of a weird plan where I need to pay quarterly instead of doing all taxes all in one go at the end of the year. Got a letter in MyGov "Welcome to this plan, happy days!" with no explanation for why. And there's absolutely zero way to reply and ask for more information.

I'd also need to change a detail in Medicare but there's no info how exactly to request for it. And no way to send them a secure message asking about it.

Both organisations rely on their call centres. Conversely, I try to desperately avoid call centres as most of them are hopeless and you get a run-around or a "system says no". I'd prefer a message, an internal 1st tier team directs it to the right place, a competent person takes a look and replies or calls with the right info. Case closed in minimum time & effort.
At least Medicare has a service centre a few suburbs up the road, open between 11:58 - 12:01 if the barometric pressure is 1030 and it's a day of super moon. I might be pity enough to put a podcast on and go & queue up there...
 
tdimdad said:
When ATO and Medicare don't have any means to send them a message.

ATO put me onto some sort of a weird plan where I need to pay quarterly instead of doing all taxes all in one go at the end of the year. Got a letter in MyGov "Welcome to this plan, happy days!" with no explanation for why. And there's absolutely zero way to reply and ask for more information.

I'd also need to change a detail in Medicare but there's no info how exactly to request for it. And no way to send them a secure message asking about it.

Both organisations rely on their call centres. Conversely, I try to desperately avoid call centres as most of them are hopeless and you get a run-around or a "system says no". I'd prefer a message, an internal 1st tier team directs it to the right place, a competent person takes a look and replies or calls with the right info. Case closed in minimum time & effort.
At least Medicare has a service centre a few suburbs up the road, open between 11:58 - 12:01 if the barometric pressure is 1030 and it's a day of super moon. I might be pity enough to put a podcast on and go & queue up there...
Click to expand...
Contact your local member. They have direct access to high level people and can resolve quickly. I have done so twice now when nothing else worked and after all the available channels failed; both times fixed in 48 hrs.
 
AustraliaPoochie said:
Not knocking and just putting a card into post box, is the bear/bare minimum in my view.
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I think thats awful and this practice needs to stop.

I pay to have something delivered. If postie just leaves a card that means I have to find time to go to post office and find parking to collect a parcel that should have been delivered.
 
MARTINE said:
Contact your local member. They have direct access to high level people and can resolve quickly. I have done so twice now when nothing else worked and after all the available channels failed; both times fixed in 48 hrs.
Click to expand...
I will pen a letter to the MP but it should never come to that. We ought to universally have alternate contact methods to authorities and public services than call centre raffles, especially an ability to send secure / authenticated messages to them.
 
AustraliaPoochie said:
I think covid had something to do with postie not knocking or doing anymore than the bear/bare minimum.
Now they don't even ask people to put a virtual signature with their stylus on a touch pad anymore.
Just confirm name and thats it.
Not knocking and just putting a card into post box, is the bear/bare minimum in my view.
Click to expand...
In my case the postie deliveries got better with COVID, we get red-carded way less often now; suspect it’s more to do with the postie than any official Aus Post behaviour. Earlyish on we went through a phase where some larger parcels were lost (all were found - eventually), but that was sorted after a few months.

I also now know to get small stuff delivered to home; used to think it was best to go to work ‘cos there was always something in the office, but if a parcel is small enough to be carried by the postie but too large to put in an office-block post-box you’ll get red-carded. No safe place for them to park the bike and bring it up to reception, but I live in a house so they can deliver small parcels to the doorstep.
 
Quickstatus said:
Been on to my industry super fund.
Immediate answer which is excellent
I earlier made an application for a contribution split of my YE2022 contributions to spouse. This was rejected so I had to ring up.

Phone call:

Agent said reason for rejection was I had no contributions for YE2022.
I said it was paid on 24/6/22 and recorded on the transaction history - visible online and also in the annual statement for YE2022
Agent said can I email them the annual statement.🤔
I said But the annual statement is sent from the superfund whose agent I'm speaking to now. Surely they can see it.
Agent said Ok need some time to look into this.
I said I can see it online - told date and amount.
Agent says need more time...
Now 35min in
Click to expand...
OMG this person has a PERFECT set of transferable skills for Qantas call centre work!
 
tdimdad said:
I will pen a letter to the MP but it should never come to that. We ought to universally have alternate contact methods to authorities and public services than call centre raffles, especially an ability to send secure / authenticated messages to them.
Click to expand...
My super scheme asked me to email them copies of my Driver‘s Licence, Medicare card and passport when I wanted to start my super pension. I understand they need to ID me, that’s for my protection, but to ask me to email copies of my whole life is wrong and a recipe for identity theft. I refused. They said no pension then. It’s my money! And my right to protect ID. Do they learn nothing from the hacks??
We agreed that I would attend their office and show my docs - lucky I live in Canberra
When the pension safely started I lodged an official complaint. They responded saying that my points were reasonable, but they had no plan to change their process and why was I so upset as I had attended the office and everything was good. They totally missed the point that not everyone in a scheme for military members is likely to be retired in Canberra, or that no One should be asked to send all that ID doco via insecure email. Arghhhhh.
 
tdimdad said:
ATO put me onto some sort of a weird plan where I need to pay quarterly instead of doing all taxes all in one go at the end of the year. Got a letter in MyGov "Welcome to this plan, happy days!" with no explanation for why. And there's absolutely zero way to reply and ask for more information.
Click to expand...
This happens when you hit a certain threshold of income not covered by PAYG deductions, for me it was triggered by the sale of RSUs. Anyway, you can get off it by changing your quarterly installment to 0 in mygov but you have to note all the warnings they give - this is only if the tax liability (ie. the income source responsible) no longer exists and you are still on the hook for instalments that have become due prior to changing this.

I agree it is poorly communicated. They treat the instalments the same way they do the end of year payment, so you can have settled your prior year income tax in October only to get hit with a warning about late payment in November because the first instalment of a payment you hardly knew existed outside of that mygov message is overdue. And the penalties are the same for income tax but apply to all 4 payments, so you can be at risk of significant fines if you ignore the message.
 
Pain in the bum having to do quarterly tax, via IAS.
And every 3 months, they amount they ask you to prepay, can change at their whim.
They use 8% of your last years investment income, as a base.
$30000 x 0.08 = $2400, is what they will ask for a year.
But its not as simple as $200 a month, o, no, one quarter, they might ask for $600, so you diligently pay $200 a month, but they take that, and it disappears from your 002, and then the next month, they can ask for more, they might ask for $800 for the 2nd quarter, so you have to pay $266 or they will charge you "interest"!
Its when you have a rental property, or shares income, that they will put you onto 002 instead of 551.
Every quarter, they send you this "nice" reminder.
Of course, at the end of the tax year, about Oct, you are usually "guaranteed" a smallish refund, from your hard work of prepaying your tax.
Even if you have a lot of tax witheld from work income, 002 is a separate kettle of fish, and they can't transfer your prepaid tax from work income 551 to 002 tax.
You have to pay the 002 tax as an extra to satisfy them, or you will get a "general interest charge".
You will never win in the IAS game of theirs, best to just pay what they ask.
Everything is on the mygov now, no longer will you get that purple form in the snail mail.
===
Edit: if you do succeed in stepping out of IAS/Activity Statement, kudos to you.
While I don't like it, I have no choice, but in the end, since they put me onto it, I have come out on top end of each tax year.
***
One thing I did not realise, is that rental property income, cannot be put in your tax return under the same column as work generated income, rental property income has to be listed under an extra, or appendix on the tax return.
===
If that is why they put you onto IAS, Tdimdad.
 
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# 1 - Im supposed to attend a concert tonight with two close friends, the tickets were purchased months ago. As an anti-scalping measure we were required to provide a name and DOB for each ticket; and you need to have photo ID which matches the ticket to be let in.

Due to my second rant item, friends cant go tonight but this stupid name/DOB thing means I cant offer tickets to other friend and there is no way to have them reissued in another name, so i can only go on my own.

Most other venues just dont send you the ticket until day of the event so that you cant scalp or at least let you transfer the tickets to someone else on line.

#2 inconsiderate man-child who borrowed his parents car without permission then wrote it off on the morning when their father needed that vehicle to pick their mother up from a conference in the middle of nowhere (i.e. no public transport) after work and then drive to a concert with their favourite friend.
 
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What cheeses me off.....

When you buy a large packet of chips at the supermarket and you open it and its 50% sealed air. I know its all about marketing etc etc but why don't they make the bag 10% larger than the contents and save a couple of $0.01 on every packet.

Same just happened with my box of muesli bars; box was only half full with the bars roaming free inside due to how much space they have.
 
Actually I think the airy chip-packet thing is a lot about most of them making it unbroken, it’s a sort-of single-bubble-wrap. No excuse when it comes to stuff like cereal where it doesn’t matter if the pieces are broken, though.
 
Coles "Dropped and Locked". Bollocks.
I like my Sakata rice crackers. Last year I was buying them for $1.50 - $1.80 a pkt. Occasionally even $1.00 on special.
Coles brand were normally $1.20
Coles proudly announce that they have dropped and locked the price of Sakata at $2.50.
Meanwhile their own brand rice crackers are now 90c.
 

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