If Service NSW grant ‘audit’ was legit, then such notification would have been communicated via its dedicated secure website portal
In this grossly mishandled matter, the current Minns NSW Labor Government’s mega-department, Service NSW, if indeed its ongoing so-called grant ‘audit’ was legitimate, surely would have properly notified its approved grant applicants via direct notification on its own secure online portal.
That is the purpose of its secure portal isn’t it?
This is because, in order for business-owner applicants to have been able to apply for Service NSW 2021 COVID-19 Micro Business Grant funding (so back in 2021), each applicant first needed to register their unique details on the Service NSW website by creating an account (an “online portal”).
It’s called MyService NSW Account….https://account.service.nsw.gov.au/
Once a unique account was created, grant-approved applicants were then able to securely communicate with Service NSW via this website portal to report to its internal ‘Business Bureau’ to mandatorily report (1) monthly turnover and (2) staff numbers in order to continue to remain eligible to receive the grant payment instalments.
So of course, Nature Trail had duly created its account previously back in 2018. The registration process was quite involved and required the following to verify our identification:
- Our Full Name
- NSW Driver’s Licence details
- Car Registration number
- NSW Residential Address
- Email address
- Mobile Number
- Accepting Terms and Conditions
We lodged truthful and accurate information in our application as requested on the Service NSW dedicated webpage online form. That was completed with due evidentiary attachments and submitted on lodged on Sunday 1st August 2021. And we kept a copy of every single entry we made including all attachments, just in case. We created a file folder of all this on our computer, ready to received and store all communications by however means. In hindsight that was wise.
Our application was approved by Service NSW in writing by email reply on 11th August 2021. In the intervening week, we responded to email requests from Service NSW seeking additional supportive evidence, and we kept records of all that too. The approval was NOT automatic. It was manual and considered.
We then followed the prompts and reporting requirements. The grant payments ended up totalling $15,214 in our case and we understand from most other cases.
Payment was the forthcoming fortnightly to us over the following ten months. Much appreciated and grant done and dusted, or so we thought. We filed our records like old tax returns.
However, a year and eight months later out of the blue on 11th April 2023, notification to us of Service NSW subsequent ‘audit’ of our grant application was received via a phone call to our mobile phone and by email by anonymous callers using only their first name and claiming to be from Service NSW.
This woman calling herself just ‘Angela’ straight away accused us of fraud, claiming long after the fact that we were deemed ineligible and wanted the $15214 back’. But first she said she first needed to identify us. And she, this unknown woman, had called us. A classic scammer tactic.
We told the woman to “get a real job scammer” and we promptly hung up.
Then upon return t o our computer we went online to check our secure Service NSW login Account to see if there were any notifications about this so called ‘audit’.
None!
This Notifications webpage on our login to MyService NSW Account was unserviceable and has been so ever since. We check it from time to time – but never any notifications from Service NSW to us.
If Service NSW grant ‘audit’ was legit, then such notification would have been provided on its secure website portal.
That Service NSW, in its so-called grant ‘audit’, failed completely to notify its approved grant applicants in any way via direct notification on its own secure online portal, deems its ‘audit’ to be unofficial.
So the ‘audit’ call from Angela was invalid. May be Angela’s real name was Aditi, Inaya or Aarya from Calcutta and that she also claimed to work for Telstra every other day she wasn’t scamming approved grant applicants of Service NSW? This is the logical presumption.
So sack yourselves:
Service NSW Executive Director, Business Bureau, Cassandra Gibbens
Service NSW CEO, Greg Wells
Service NSW Minister, Jihad Dib MP