"A vulnerable person was concerned that the public authority managing their finances wasn’t depositing the allowance for daily living expenses into the account that they wanted and was pressuring them to close their only bank account. The person said that they had complained to the public authority, but that they were unhappy with the way it was managed and there were still some issues unresolved. The person then complained to the Ombudsman.
As part of our assessment process, we contacted the public authority to confirm that they had received the person’s complaint, and to ask what they had done to resolve the matter. In response to our involvement, the public authority called the person to discuss their concerns. The public authority explained that because they had previously fallen victim to scams resulting in thousands of dollars of lost funds, they had decided to provide an allowance, with both the person’s and their mother’s agreement at the time. The public authority also clarified that it had closed a few of his bank accounts which were not operating, and that it was not closing all of their bank accounts as they had initially believed. The public authority proposed an alternative solution, which the person was happy with, and the matter was resolved that day."