Since August, Thoral said he has submitted three written appeals and attended a hearing to try fight StudyLink’s demand for him to pay back $441.13.
Since August, Thoral said he has submitted three written appeals and attended a hearing to try fight StudyLink’s demand for him to pay back $441.13.
A Wellington university student has spent months fighting StudyLink’s demands for him to return a $441 overpayment, despite the agency accepting responsibility for the mistake.
Jean Thoral, 34, told the Herald StudyLink accidentally overpaid him because their contact centre staff member gave him incorrect advice.
Thoral said hedid everything right, including declaring his income, following StudyLink’s advice and acting in good faith.
He believed his debt should be written off because he was not at fault and “the system was broken”.
Meanwhile, StudyLink said Thoral should return the money because his situation did not meet the legal threshold for writing off debt.
StudyLink is a service provided by the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) that provides financial support to students.
Thoral was eligible for a student allowance during the weeks when his weekly personal income was less than $276.11 before tax and his weekly combined income with his partner was less than $1150 before tax.
Thoral submitted weekly payslips to prove his income.
For three weeks in August, Thoral’s income was higher than the threshold because his income fluctuates.
In early August, he spoke to a StudyLink call centre staff member who told him based on his recent income declarations his allowance would stop automatically.
Instead of recording down his income accurately for those three weeks, StudyLink recorded it as “nil” meaning Thoral continued to be paid an allowance even though he was ineligible.
In an appeal process, StudyLink accepted responsibility for the administrative error and said Thoral acted in good faith, but still wanted him to repay the $441.13 overpayment.
“MSD has a legal duty to recover debt, and we can only write it off under certain circumstances,” MSD centralised services general manager Paula Ratahi-O’Neill told the Herald.
Appeal documents shared with the Herald showed the agency had two reasons for being unable to write off the overpayment.
Student debt less than $5000 could be written off if the person in debt altered their “position in reliance on the validity of the payment” and if it would be “inequitable to recover the payment”.
In the appeal documents, StudyLink said Thoral did not regularly check his bank accounts so he was not aware he was overpaid by the agency.
It argued that because he was unaware of the payments, he could not have made any financial decisions on the basis of receiving that money.
The agency also said because Thoral was currently employed, it would not be inequitable to set up a payment plan to recover his debt from him.
“The decision to seek repayment has been reviewed, and upheld, because Jean advised that he still had the money and was able to repay it,” Ratahi-O’Neill told the Herald.
Thoral argued he was a contractor whose employment would end on April 4 so his current income should not be factored into the decision.
He said he could use his savings to pay back the money but doing so would put him in a “s***ty situation” because of the high cost of living.
Ratahi-O’Neill said MSD could negotiate a suitable repayment rate to avoid hardship, reiterating no interest was charged on debt.
The Ministry of Social Development, which runs StudyLink, said it was "tightly constrained by legislation".
Thoral has submitted three written appeals and attended a hearing to try fight StudyLink’s request for him to pay back $441.13.
He estimated participating in the entire process took about 40 hours of work on his part.
“I’ve got work to do, I’ve got a life to live, I’ve got s*** to do.”
He was motivated to spend time appealing because “the problem isn’t the debt, it’s the system.”
He said he felt lucky to be a confident 34-year-old who could try fight for himself but thought an 18-year-old student in his position might not “have the guts” to do the same.
He would feel “quite relieved” if he won his appeal, and “disappointed and helpless” if he lost.
He is currently appealing via the Student Allowance Appeal Authority, which is his final chance at making a submission.
The final decision about his appeal will be made in the coming weeks.
Janhavi Gosavi is a Wellington-based journalist for the New Zealand Herald who covers news in the capital.
