TE office

[stadinslangi]

A friend of mine met a situation that KELA just sent her an email and saying that she had a full time study since 2015 and required her to give back all her social benefit, which is up to few thousands euro. In fact, the "study" is just totally not there at all! She visited KELA office to ask where such assumptions was come from. Guess what? KELA office told that it was from TE office. She complain at the spot (the service counter). But the answer was "once it is going through TE to KELA, you can not stop it any more. KELA will made decision, then you have to pay the money back. Then you can complain to a upper board (I still do not understand what is the "upper board" mean here) then to ask them to review the whole matter and deal this there". it seems a lot of social resource will be involved here but it was really just started from a irresponsible comment from TE.

I might be unfamiliar with the system so I asked her to deal with TE to stop the problem from source. She went to contact with TE office. TE acting as they do not care about it at all. The direct advice is "since letter is from KELA then complain to KELA"

Who can advice here how to deal with situation like such? Is there any quality observation board in TE or anywhere that actually take care of the TE comment that stop them not to wasting social resource, as well as personal resource of citizen (or even "immigrants") ???

any advice would be helpful!

[007]

A friend of mine met a situation that KELA just sent her an email and saying that she had a full time study since 2015 and required her to give back all her social benefit, which is up to few thousands euro. In fact, the "study" is just totally not there at all! She visited KELA office to ask where such assumptions was come from. Guess what? KELA office told that it was from TE office. She complain at the spot (the service counter). But the answer was "once it is going through TE to KELA, you can not stop it any more. KELA will made decision, then you have to pay the money back. Then you can complain to a upper board (I still do not understand what is the "upper board" mean here) then to ask them to review the whole matter and deal this there". it seems a lot of social resource will be involved here but it was really just started from a irresponsible comment from TE.

I might be unfamiliar with the system so I asked her to deal with TE to stop the problem from source. She went to contact with TE office. TE acting as they do not care about it at all. The direct advice is "since letter is from KELA then complain to KELA"

Who can advice here how to deal with situation like such? Is there any quality observation board in TE or anywhere that actually take care of the TE comment that stop them not to wasting social resource, as well as personal resource of citizen (or even "immigrants") ???

any advice would be helpful!

So according to TE toimisto, your friend was a student? In that case, she has to prove that she has not been a student. She has to go and talk again with TE toimisto people. She shouldn't bring Kela into the discussion, rather focus on how and why she was registered as a student at TE toimisto. I have dificulty believing that TE toimisto just ticked your friend as a student. So, my guess is that your friend first registered herself as a student at TE toimisto but later quit the school for reasons unclear* (might be a job) and failed to notice TE toimisto?

Kela will only act on the letters sent in by TE toimisto. She sure can appeal against Kela decision but it's not gonna solve her problem as long as she is registered as a student at TE toimisto.

*tell us on which ground, she was getting social benefits** from Kela? As a job-seeker?
**also, it might help if you can tell the posters here what types of benefits she was getting.

[betelgeuse]

Kela will only act on the letters sent in by TE toimisto. She sure can appeal against Kela decision but it's not gonna solve her problem as long as she is registered as a student at TE toimisto.

She does want to appeal if it doesn't get resolved before the appeal period is over. In administrative matters you can continue to submit further evidence until the matter is resolved.

[leisl]

I have dificulty believing that TE toimisto just ticked your friend as a student.

I do not, they are notorious for having incorrect records that they force YOU to disprove - rather than them having the burden of proof! I know a young person now battling for MORE THAN A YEAR with these complete fools and forced to rely on Sossu (considerably less than the unemployment benefit). In her case they marked her as self-employed, based on the fact she volunteered for one weekend at a convention. Yes you read that right - those conventions that cease to exist after two days - it took her a year to convince them that one weekend without being paid, does not make you self-employed. They took over a year to answer the appeal.

In another case it took them 8 months to correct the fact that no, the Finnish level isn't fluent, no, people are not still "students" five years after a short course in another country, and people do not "refuse to attend Finnish lessons" when they have provided you with the medical proof that they were sick. They are a clown troupe who treat their CUSTOMERS like irritating pests making their day unpleasant.

Otherwise yes... usually you can't get it corrected via Kela as they have made the "correct" decision based on what TE told them. You need to tackle TE, but you can actually appeal to Kela at the same time. It might well fail, but I have heard that you can actually make that appeal a second time once TE sort their rubbish out.

[betelgeuse]

I do not, they are notorious for having incorrect records that they force YOU to disprove - rather than them having the burden of proof! I know a young person now battling for MORE THAN A YEAR with these complete fools and forced to rely on Sossu (considerably less than the unemployment benefit).

Sossu is designed to carry you over until you get the appeal processed. If you end up winning the appeal, you are in the end in total better off. However, if you are eligible for regular sossu and renting, then you are likely to get both at the same time any way. It's unfortunate that income support has morphed in to long time support for many when the system was not designed for that.

[leisl]

Very much so. She's homeless now (apartment is undergoing renovation so the tenancy ended, and nobody wants a sossu recipient as a tenant) and while it's not TE that caused this alone, they sure as heck contributed. The thing is that it's only comfortably-off people who can easily shrug off a year of living on such low amounts of money while knowing that the appeal will backpay what's missing. You can't dip into savings that aren't there. When you don't have any safety net, you very quickly discover that "nobody" in government is responsible.