Workers That Lie

Has your worker ever lied to you?

What did you do about it if anything?


Have you ever had an Internal Review decision where the worker lied in it?.

What did you do about it if anything?


Has a Social Benefits Tribunal member ever lied in a decision that they gave when denying a claim?

What did you do about it if anything?


If you don't wish to answer on this board please feel free to email me directly at'

welfarelegal2004(at)gmail(dot)com welfarelegal2004@gmail.com

Ron Payne

Welfare Legal

Hamilton, Ontario

On Sat, Apr 14, 2012 at 5:34 AM, Maria wrote:

Greetings Ron;

Yes I am an early riser/insomniac and 5 am is actually good for me even on a Saturday. Ron, I am writing in response to your question about workers lying and what was done. While I would have welcomed responding for the benefit of other members I am finding that lately for reasons unknown to me, my posts are not being made public. So here it is then. I applied for benefits I believe early on in 2007 and like most I went before the social benefits tribunal sadly without legal representation however I did have one personal acquaintance with me. I am glad that I did. I wont detail that meeting but will say that after being very much verbally abused and tormented to the point of actually seeking medical aid following that meeting ( I am an abuse survivor and one of my diagnosis is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder; this member decided to try and needle me in the areas of abuse and without legal council I answered certain questions she should have never asked! The result having then been triggered). Once I'd been seen by medical personnel it was put in my ear that perhaps the Ontario Ombudsman should be briefed of what had happened. They were very helpful and reversed the SBT's denial in under 7 days.

So there is the background to my story. Once accepted came the waiting for arears calculations and initial payment. This is where things got really ugly. My first worker AB I shall call her, located in the city of Toronto ( I am no longer residing there) enjoyed stalling with that retroactive payment. Still when it finally did arrive some 90 days after the fact missing was a breakdown of the calculations. I had no idea how it had been calculated, whether or not OW payments had been taken into account. Would I owe any more money and was there any more that was coming because having some idea of what the payment should have been it was significantly lower. What did arrive was the standard letter outlining if I didnt agree I had 30 days to contact the SBT in writing, etc. Well how could I agree when I didnt know what had been done. So the next logical step was to contact my worker and try to have a reasonable discussion. Try, lol sure. By the time I tracked her down (3 days later), it became apparent that this worker wasnt going to be reasonable and silly me while i did not use abusive language or threaten in any way, as I grew upset my voice rose a bit in volume and in pitch and from there she got extremely rude and so began the pattern of harassment. Calling our family unit 4 times in less than one year. Asking for certain documents from us repeatedly and then claiming to not have received even those sent registered mail(yes signature receipt) , etc. Oh and that original arears? Errors had been made to the tune of $1100. That however was a long process in getting sorted. Still tensions rose and I followed up with her supervisor until one day I had a chance meeting with MPP Michael's Prue's office and met an aide of his. It was this lady that assisted myself and partner, worker and her supervisor by setting up a mediation. It was during this meeting that the worker got very indignant and screeched "no one yells at me..I take that very personally, no one yells at me and gets away with it." This mediation was agreed to following several complaints addressed to her supervisor and the Ontario Ombudsmen once again outlying that the worker for personal reasons was harassing and with holding funds, and unable to perform her job duties fairly and impartially. With that outburst, I had to consider what followed nothing shy of victorious. Her supervisor immediately brought the mediation to an end and less than 5 business days later we received confirmation that while highly irregular this worker would no longer handle our file. At that point things for our family unit improved significantly.

It takes a thick skin to take on ODSP and the SBT but it was worth it. Hope this information is useful. Maybe you might have better luck in sharing it on Fireside.

Regards,

Maria

Thank you for sharing Maria

I will send this email to fireside in its entirety.

Do workers lie when they say they didn't receive a document?

Yes they do and they do it often.

My research here in Hamilton showed that 50% of documents went missing or lost at the local Ontario Works office.

ODSP runs a close second.

One way for a worker not having to do any work on a case is to simply throw the document in the garbage.

It would be very hard to prove a worker did this but we must keep in mind it is a criminal offence and something must be done about it.

Ron Payne
Welfare Legal
Hamilton, Ontario