"One thing, it's just going to take a while. These old girls, they've got old software. OK? It's just because that's what the government buys, they go for the cheapest software, that's why everything's crap, and that's why the government's so inefficient. LOL.
Don't quote me on that."
Jeremy, 'Nobody WINZ', 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eH23qYXKo-s
#HatTip to @bigblen for the short film link. It's a bit surrealist, but it perfectly captures the Kafkaeque feeling of dealing with WINZ.
Further through the looking glass of WINZ in 2025. After failing to get anyone to answer the phone so I could book a phone appointment, I girded my loins and tried to book an in-person appointment using MyMSD.
It took me through the full rigmarole of choosing a day and time and showing a confirmation dialogue (no address for the office I'm supposed to go to I note). But when I clicked 'Confirm', it said;
"Sorry, MyMSD is experiencing a problem. Please try again later."
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This has gone beyond ridiculous. It's time to allow beneficiaries to select the social service agency we want to manage our case. Fully funded, independently of WINZ, and with the same access to MSD systems they have.
Or, as I've said before, wipe the steaming remains of WINZ from the face of the earth, hand over benefits payments to IRD ("reverse taxation"), and move work brokers etc back to an employment service with no responsibility for benefit payments.
I tried calling WINZ again later in the day, and then I tried again just now. Same answer as the first time;
We're experiencing very high call volumes right now, and we can't answer your call.
So ... automate a callback, and hire some more fecking call centre staff FFS!
Also maybe get rid of all the pointless hoop-jumping that wastes staff time. Like making people reapply every 6 months for a benefit we obviously need, or your data-matching with IRD would have flagged fulltime income.
Now I have to book an appointment, so I can waste my time and that of a WINZ staff member, by going over all the same answers I just gave on the MyMSD form. But MyMSD can only book me an in-person appointment, despite the fact that I'm on a medical exemption for mental health reasons.
To get a phone appointment, I'll need to call the 0800 number and sit on the phone for an hour or 2. Waiting for a call centre worker to book me an appointment. Which they could let MyMSD do.
Today I had an excellent experience with Work & Income NZ... old people's department.
A month ago I discovered that due to an input error at WINZ, they've been underpaying me for a year. While my fortnightly pension payments were updated promptly, the promised arrears haven't arrived.
This morning I received a call-back from a wonderful gentleman called David who found that my arrears had been calculated but had been "awaiting authorisation" for a month.
He emailed senior people and promised action within a couple of days. And we chatted. For 45 minutes.
It turns out he's the same age as me, give or take a month. We exchanged all manner of life stories, discussed mutual health problems and even agreed that Elon Musk is a Nazi.
I realise it would never be officially sanctioned but this level of personalised customer service is rare. It was more like having a conversation with an old friend. Speaking to David definitely made my day better.
And they're going to give me over $6k in arrears! Woo hoo!
Today was a very good day.
I'm so sick of the WINZ call centre putting me on hold, often for an hour or more. When they have the technology to automate a callback, when a staff member is ready to speak to me.
It's especially irritating when the reception bot asks me if I want a callback, and I say "yes" and it puts me on hold anyway. This has happened twice now. Why don't they just do this automatically whenever there isn't a human ready to answer the call FFS?
Pure AM Radio Nostalgia: Vintage Aircheck Recordings from the 1970s by Dan Greenall
#Aircheck #AMRadio #CFBC #DanGreenall #KFDI #KFYR #KKJO #KPCR #KRLD #KWAM #Recordings #VOA #WANN #WBT #WCPC #WDBO #WDXR #WGR #WHN #WIBC #WINZ #WIRK #WJR #WKAQ #WKBR #WLW #WMAQ #WNOE #WOKY #WPDX #WPOM #WPTR #WRKO #WSM #WSMB #WVMT #XEMO #XERF #ZBMFM #ZBM1 #ZBM2 #ZDK #ZFBFM #ZFB1 #ZNS3
If anybody sees this and they're on a NZ benefit or student allowance and wondering why they haven't been paid yet the issue is apparently on the #WINZ end and not the fault of your bank it at least according to co-op bank no word from any other bank or WINZ if we're lucky the payment should be there by 9, if we're unlucky it will be there sometime tomorrow evening, if we are supremely unlucky and the entire WINZ backend is fucked we can expect payments sometime this week
https://www.reddit.com/r/newzealand/comments/1jnwd8w/bollocks_anyone_else_found_msd_hasnt_paid_them_yet/
"Since we've opened we've had young people walking in the door who are experiencing homelessness, some of them are sleeping rough. A substantial group have gone to Work and Income for support, have told them their situation, and been told look, you're not entitled to access to emergency housing, or access to shelter."
#AaronHendry, 2025 founder of The Front Door
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/focusonpolitics?share=7c8e7bb1-9e5a-4999-9a84-4717114ae07f
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#housing #HousingCrisis #homelessness #WorkAndIncome #WINZ #TheFrontDoor
Does anyone have any tips for getting through to the #WINZ #MSD call centre for #JobSeeker #SoleParent benefit issues? It is so busy today that they won't let you stay on hold or give you a call back....
One of the most pernicious things about the NatACT First messaging around their new bene-bashing policy is how they say it's about "jobseekers. Implying healthy people taking a public-funded holiday from working.
A lot of kiwis probably don't know that in the WINZ system, "jobseekers" includes a lot of people with medical conditions (some lifelong). Which make it difficult or impossible for us to work fulltime, or even if we can, to fins anyone willing to employ us.
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If anyone needs to ring #WINZ now is a really great time, practically no queues :)
The old WINZ cruelty and stupidity is back. Staff in their New Plymouth office kept asking a blind man to produce his driving license as ID.
https://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/blind-man-asked-drivers-licence-msd
To the degree that people get trapped on welfare benefits, it's mainly because of the punitive mechanisms put into place - allegedly - to prevent "welfare dependence".
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Uh oh. In a moment of weakness,rage,frustration and despair, I've sent a formal complaint in to #WINZ . Mostly cos I've been a month waiting for forms in the post that I need for my doctor's appointment next week, and mostly because their website is a dystopian nightmare of gatekeeping and no search function. Why do I end up reduced to tears everytime I deal with these fuckers ?
consider, #WINZ, not just fucking suspending our benefit without fucking telling us, hey?
update on the rent situation: we are now being hung up on every time we call #WINZ, so are completely, utterly, unable to fix this
WINZ is using MailChimp to send email. Email. A public service agency is paying a private company in the US to send email for it. Seriously? WTF.
I've been saying for ages that NZ Post ought to be pivoting into hosting email. Handling large-scale mailouts like this is a classic example of a service they could actually be making money out of, doing the digital equivalent of their traditional business.
