Retired teacher's pension stopped as provider refuses to believe she is not dead • Hacker News Board

Re: Retired teacher's pension stopped as provider refuses to believe she is not dead

#61

Post by mlrtime » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 1:49 PM UTC

elashri wrote: post #49

This reminds me of one time I tried to get a birth certificate and I was asked a proof that I was born. Just to make it clear. Not to prove I was born for those particular parents. It is born in general.

It's more that it is proof that you are who you say you are. I just recently had to order birth certificates from my state. They ask for at least 1 of many different types of proof.

For newborns, hospitals release a 'statement of facts' that allow you to order the birth certificate. YMMV.

Re: Retired teacher's pension stopped as provider refuses to believe she is not dead

#62

Post by bachmeier » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 1:49 PM UTC

zimpenfish wrote: post #18

radiator wrote: post #14

> ... asked to confirm that they are not the same deceased stranger every 12 months since the system, administered by Capita, does not log a disproved link. This is a bug in their system. Rather than fixing it, they prefer repeatedly and unashamedly asking old people whether they are dead.

To be fair, there have been several stories (normally "world's oldest person!!!" type) where relatives have been claiming pensions and benefits for sometimes decades after the actual person died. Whether the number of those stories and the amount of money involved is worth the hassle to the people not defrauding governments is left as an exercise to the reader...

To be fair? That's like saying "To be fair, some people try to steal money from banks, so it's okay if the ATM sometimes doesn't work."

Re: Retired teacher's pension stopped as provider refuses to believe she is not dead

#63

Post by jazzyjackson » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 1:49 PM UTC

wslh wrote: post #56

gruez wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it easy? How do you make sure the old person in front of you is really the pensioner and not her 80 year old daughter?

Sorry, but we have not doing this for centuries if not milleniums for trillion of people before us?

bureauracratized welfare and government identification is relatively new

Re: Retired teacher's pension stopped as provider refuses to believe she is not dead

#64

Post by mlrtime » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 1:52 PM UTC

bythreads wrote: post #36

Just shows how generally unfathomable weird it is that most of the world does not have a uuid for a person assigned at birth - like the nordics do

Like a SSN in the US?

Registering at birth is somewhat trivial outside some edge cases. How do you resign the SSN at death predictably and accurately? Then, do you trust access to this database from 3rd parties? It's turtles all the way down.

Re: Retired teacher's pension stopped as provider refuses to believe she is not dead

#65

Post by Macha » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 1:54 PM UTC

wslh wrote: post #60

lazide wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We haven’t at this scale, no. For most of human existence, you would already know if Bob or Jane was dead, since you’d have gone to their funeral or knew someone who had.

Sorry, I am missing something. Are you saying that the people that are dying every day, in the developed world, is uncounted by a big margin? What is that margin?

Japan estimated 5% in 2006, for one data point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodokushi

Re: Retired teacher's pension stopped as provider refuses to believe she is not dead

#66

Post by derivative7 » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 1:56 PM UTC

methou wrote: post #50

Every year my grand parents have to take a photo of themselves holding a recent newspaper with date clearly visible to whoever is managing their pension. After the internet and apps plaged the world, now they have to download an app then tilt node and wink to the camera to prove that they are alive. ("If you cannot use a phone, ask your children") I have mixed feeling about this, it's hard to say this is not degenera…

Is it so terrible to do a very simple procedure once a year to avoid fraud?

Re: Retired teacher's pension stopped as provider refuses to believe she is not dead

#67

Post by pjmorris » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 1:57 PM UTC

m-p-3 wrote: post #58

wslh wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be more fair: it is easy to check if they are alive or not. This is not rocket science.

How do you reliably do it at a massive scale? Other than using some kind of biometrics, there's the possibility of impersonation.

They send pension checks out to specific addresses and accounts at exactly the same scale. Does it seem unreasonable to add 'attempt to call the pensioner' into the 'maybe they are deceased' part of the verification protocol?

Re: Retired teacher's pension stopped as provider refuses to believe she is not dead

#68

Post by acdha » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 1:58 PM UTC

m-p-3 wrote: post #58

wslh wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be more fair: it is easy to check if they are alive or not. This is not rocket science.

How do you reliably do it at a massive scale? Other than using some kind of biometrics, there's the possibility of impersonation.

“Massive scale” is a distraction because society is even more massive. For example, if you’re talking about school pensions you have a school system with employees and that means you could do things like have someone check ID in person, and perhaps require a non-relative witness if there’s any question. Doctors offices could similarly be enlisted to certify that person X is the patient they’ve been seeing.

The problem with this is simply that it’s not absolutely free, and the people promising savings through outsourcing need it to be free to make their promises happen. Cutting budgets everywhere removes the slack you need to deal with things like this.

Re: Retired teacher's pension stopped as provider refuses to believe she is not dead

#69

Post by gruez » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 1:58 PM UTC

wslh wrote: post #56

gruez wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it easy? How do you make sure the old person in front of you is really the pensioner and not her 80 year old daughter?

Sorry, but we have not doing this for centuries if not milleniums for trillion of people before us?

For most of human history pensions and social security did not exist, so there was little incentive lie.

Re: Retired teacher's pension stopped as provider refuses to believe she is not dead

#70

Post by jacquesm » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 2:08 PM UTC

m-p-3 wrote: post #58

wslh wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be more fair: it is easy to check if they are alive or not. This is not rocket science.

How do you reliably do it at a massive scale? Other than using some kind of biometrics, there's the possibility of impersonation.

You'd think if they are able to reliable set up a contribution scheme that works at scale that they could set up a system to ensure they only pay out to individuals that are still alive.

The possibility of impersonation isn't limited to pension pay-outs but many other things as well. A once-per-year on-site visit would work and would just be a cost-of-business item, and that cost could be lowered substantially by collaborating with other entities who take an interest in such information (banks, governments etc).