Empowered & Protected: Fraud, Scams, and Cyber Safety for NDIS Participants - Webinar Replay

Webinar Replay

11 Jul

Fraud and scams are all around us, but there are things you can do to empower yourself, be proactive, and reduce your risk.

This webinar aims to empower NDIS participants and their families with the knowledge and tools to protect themselves and their NDIS funding from scams and fraudulent activities. We look at practical tips to safeguard yourself, understanding the latest scam tactics, and different avenues for support.

Thank you to our special guest expert from My Plan Manager Group for joining us, Isis Murphy.

- No one should be stopping you from managing your own affairs, if anyone tries to take over doing things for you that is a red flag behaviour. Instead, they should be SUPPORTING you to do things for your self.
- If you are concerned about a service provider but do not feel ok talking to them or the NDIA about it, there are disability advocacy organisations that can help you through the process.
- Check every single invoice for your NDIS services and compare it to your own log of supports received.
- The more people that speak up and report fraudulent or otherwise non compliant behaviour, the safer it will be for everyone in the long run.
- Every six months or so, you should be checking that your contact details and consent information is all up to date with your plan manager, the NDIS, and other providers.
Hi everyone, and welcome to our webinar, Empowered and Protected. Thank you so much for taking the time to join us today as we're going to look at fraud, scams and cyber safety in the NDIS.

I'm Erin. I'm one of the Kinora community coaches and I'll be hosting today's session. We also got Yvette here with us from our team and she'll be managing the chat throughout the webinar. She might pop up and say hello. There she is. Hi there, If you're an remember, you might recognise us from the Community Forum.

We're so excited today to be joined by 1 member of the Brains Trust at my plan Manager group, Isis Murphy, who advocates for the safety of participants in her role every single day. Thanks so much for your time today, Isis.

We'll just go through some quick housekeeping before we properly jump into it. If you’ve been to one of our webinars. Before you would know that we record these sessions to send the video replay in any resources we mentioned within the Kinora community. If you’re not a member though, don't worry, we'll send you the replay and resources direct to your inbox as well. If you need closed captioning today, you can click more at the top of the screen with the three little dots

and then choose language and speech and select turn on live captions. And there's also a chat button at the top of your screen. So if you go ahead and click on that now this is where you can introduce yourself, share any comments as we go along and ask any questions. So if that will be keeping an eye on the chat and we'll address all the questions at the end of the webinar. If there's anything that we don't have time to get to today, we will answer them within the Kinora community and we'll get in touch with you directly as well.

Just a quick background on Kinora for those of you who might not be members yet. Kinora is a free, safe and supportive online community where you can get support for your NDIS questions from us coaches and our community of thousands of other NDIS participants, their families, support coordinators, and service providers who are experts in their fields.

We've got lots of endless information and free resources you can check out, so if you're not a member, I'd really encourage you to join us. We would love to have you as one of our members and in the spirit of community, I'd love you to share in the chat now if there's anything specific that you're hoping to get out of today's session or maybe if you feel comfortable, if there's something that prompted you to join today because we're all about sharing experiences here at Kinora.

6:22
Before we dive in, I'd just like to make an acknowledgement of country as well. In the spirit of reconciliation. Kinora acknowledges the traditional custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders, past, present and future. We acknowledge the culture, diversity and experiences of First Nations people and celebrate their contributions and specifically those living with disability, their families, carers and individuals dedicating themselves to a career in supporting people with disability.

So if you've turned on the news or opened a newspaper or website lately, you have probably seen a lot about NDIS fraud. It seems to be everywhere right now, especially with the recent NDIS Amendment bill being put up and the review recommendations coming out.

And while I don't agree with the scare tactics that we so often see online and in the media, fraud really is a huge issue right now and it can affect everyone in the NDIS from an individual level right up to the entire NDIS scheme moving forward. So it is something important to talk about. But if you're feeling anxious and like you can't trust anyone, I want you to know that you are not alone in that a lot of people are feeling the same way. It's a time of real uncertainty in the NDIS right now, and none of us want to be taken advantage of.

So it's totally normal to worry about the possibility of fraud. But that doesn't mean that you should live in fear because you deserve to feel secure, safe and able to trust those who are there supporting you every day.

So today, I hope that we can help you feel just a little bit more at ease. We're going to be talking about practical steps that you can take to protect yourself because there are many good and genuine providers out there and organisations working to keep you safe. And most importantly, there are things that you can do to empower yourself and be proactive, which will hopefully help reduce any anxiety. So let's jump into it. Isis, thank you so much for being here. Thank you. Erin,

Do you want to start just by introducing yourself, letting us know a little bit about what your team does that might form manager group? Sure. Thank you so much. Hi everybody and thanks for joining us. And my name is Isis Murphy and I'm employed by the My Plan Manager Group in the quality and risk team. My focus is particularly on fraud and serious non compliance. We do cover other areas in this team including sharp practises and participant vulnerability, safety and safeguarding. And we obviously have other areas of our team that deal with more general compliance and risk matters associated with the NDIS and operating a large business in these industry types. And we have an internal audit team as well that makes sure that we do what we say we do.

So that's what brings me here today. So thank you again so much for inviting me. Ohhhhh, no, we are so happy to have you, Isis. Like we said, it's such an important issue and you just have so much knowledge on it and you're such a great advocate for participants. I just really can't wait to hear everything that you've got to say to hopefully help protect people. So do you want to start just by defining exactly what fraud is in an NDIS context and what it might look like, what types of things that you've seen in your role or what the NDIS is? Sure. I think it's

important to remember that government programmes are always seen as a lucrative target for fraudsters. So it's important to not feel like this is just isolated to the NDIS and the NDIS. So as I said, government programmes always seen as a lucrative target. The interesting thing about the NDIS though is it's sort of a bit, it's not as capped as say your Centrelink or Social Security. So the amount of money that's available

then the NDIS is quite significant, hence why it is seen as such a target. What we've seen over the years. And just for a bit of further background, I do before coming to my plan manager, I spent probably 15 years within the disability sector and have seen that movement from under block funding under the NDIS. There's been some significant changes we've seen and particularly the players that have moved into that market. We've had NDIA sees people who are

just happy to take an opportunity, you know, as per normal crime, somebody sees a handbag lying on a bench, they'll take it. NDIS is not dissimilar. So there's opportunistic crime and then there's organised network crime, which is quite a significant threat to government programmes like the NDIS. How this broad occurs

might be through simple overcharging, you know, hiding little charges and falsifying invoices, which the agency does also see falsification of documents, so falsifying evidence either for application, increased funding, but also a lot from service providers, so falsifying support logs and rosters and things like that. Hence why what we're talking about today is getting participants in their families to recognise these risks and managing them themselves so that they can

problem themselves with evidence and things like that should anybody ever trying to pull the wool over their eyes. Yeah. So some other examples, we say that the agency itself, they often have people trying to access their information via unauthorised means, including internal threats, and the same happens via participants as well. So the theft of NDIS information or personal information can lead to identity theft as well and unauthorised access of NDIS funding.

Better to put what you're more more commonly come across as a participant is probably things like overcharging, excessive, excessive charges, you know, sneaky charges, things like that. Also need to be careful of providers wanting to make purchases on your behalf that then they'll submit the invoices to the plan manager and have reimbursed to themselves. We offer the NDS will often see inflated claims. So it's easy to go and say, hey, I'll purchase your wheelchair,

I'll purchase your consumables and then add some additional charges on top of that. So it's always best to be the to do the purchasing and review claims yourself. We often also see, as the NDIS does as well, deferred decision making. So narratives to participants and their families around, hey, the NDIS is really hard. It's really hard to manage your money and you can't really trust anybody. You should trust me. I'll manage it for you.

The whole purpose of the NDIS is to ensure that people are empowered as independent individuals managing their own lives in affairs. You know, we live in a wonderful modern society where you know, there are means available for everybody to be empowered to understand what choice and control properly looks like and be able to make their own decisions and manage their own risk. So

quite concerning his people making decisions on behalf of others and trying to stop them from engaging with others who are trying to help them, like the agency, their plan manager, support coordinator, etcetera, etcetera. We know that the NDIS and government programmes are hard to navigate, but somebody shouldn't try and be taking that away from you. They should be empowering you to navigate it yourself, supporting you along the way, not doing it for you, Right, Correct. Yeah, yeah. Now where does we hear a lot about scams

along with fraud as well? What is the difference between fraud and scams? And do we see scams in the NDIS space much as well? Absolutely. So just to answer your first part of the question, the key difference is probably a scam is some kind of

way of trying to trick you into providing information or money. And it could be a means for somebody to then commit fraud. But a scam tends to be a some kind of trick via text, email, social media that tries to play on your trust, your empathy, whatever it might be, to provide somebody with information or money.

Yeah, itself is typically dishonesty or deception directly conducted in order to derive the benefits of falsifying an invoice, falsifying evidence, that sort of thing. Yeah. Yeah. OK. And how big of an issue is all of this in the NDIS? Does it seem like it's getting worse from your perspective, or has it just always been there, it's just sort of now having a spotlight shone on it? Yeah, I think you look, it's always

been covered and given the economic climate that we live in and you know, everything that's going on internationally, you know, there's pressure on people too trying to take these opportunities and commit more fraud. So we are in a higher risk state at the moment. Yeah.

But that's, you know, part of modern society and the reason you're doing more. Yeah. Yes, that is absolutely not. No, that's right. And look, I know you said before you don't like the scare tactics, but as somebody with the focus on fraud and serious noncompliance, one of the first most effective things to do, which I'm glad to see the government do, is put out zero tolerance messaging. Ohe yes, yeah. So 100% we have been the agency and us here at my plan manager have been quite aware of some of this activity since the

since the inception of the NDIS. And don't forget that it came about because there was known exploitation and fraud occurring prior to the NDIS. That's why we made the commitment to the UN to stop the exploitation abuse of persons living with disability and looked at a different funding model that would empower people to, you know,

to live their best lives as individuals and carve that path out themselves. So I wouldn't the types are changing, the types of fraud we see, you know, that get they are getting sophisticated and they'll always move around. But the awareness is so important and that messaging of, you know, there will be repercussions because that's the one thing that does slow down fraud.

Yeah. Do many people get prosecuted with fraud in the NDIS? Do you have any idea like how, how much it's leading to actual prosecution and all that sort of thing? What happens if someone gets, you know, found to be a fraud, a provider?

There have been a number of successful prosecutions. There's been some very high profile cases over the years involving millions of dollars of fraud and large networks of providers. Some of these more organised criminal networks might cut into other

areas of concern as well. Illicit tobacco trade, your drug trade, money laundering, that sort of thing. Yeah. Yeah. And I guess in an ideal world, you know, the NDIS would be able to root out all of those fraudulent providers before any harm is done. But unfortunately, that's just not the case. That's not the way we live in. But no, that's right. Yeah. But so we can talk about things that we can look out for, improvise. I think that's basically what you're saying. Being proactive is the most important step. So. And that is a preventative measure

in itself. You know, if, a provider sees that you are confident, you're informed, you're armed, you're not afraid to challenge and you're supported, you've got resources available to you, then maybe gonna maybe try somewhere else. Yeah, yeah. We do see certain types of participant profiles that are more prone or more attractive to fraudsters.

Yeah, right. So they're, they're really targeting those people that don't have that sort of support network around them, don't have those, don't have the awareness. Yeah, OK, that's really interesting. That's good to know. So well done everyone for coming here today. And hopefully even just taking that step of being a little bit more aware will help to protect you as well. So I'd love to go through some of the, what you've called, which I love, red flag behaviours that people can look out for in service providers that they're working with that

might just sort of give a bit of an indication that something's not quite right. So let's have a look at them. We'll just go through each one and you can let us know a little bit about what people should be looking out for with their service providers. So the first one would be not explaining charges. So what should people be looking out for there? This is a nice easy one to give an example too. If you take your car to the mechanic, you don't expect to just have an invoice saying I did a lot of stuff, 2 1/2 thousand dollars. Thank you. We want to know what did he do?

Did you change my oil filter? Did you check the battery, how many hours were spent on each service, what parts were used, that sort of thing? And so you really, and the agency expects this as well. And as a consumer, you have the right to know exactly what you were charged for, how many hours, what type of support and on what days. It's not OK to see claims across date ranges. You shouldn't be billed a bulk amount of hours for a month or a week. You have the right to have that.

Broken down and it is, we would see it as and the agency also somewhat a red flag if somebody's not willing to provide you that, you know, the same as the mechanic probably go somewhere else if he's not willing to tell you exactly what he did. The same goes for service providers. Yeah, and make sure they're quite clear about the service descriptions too. If you know that you had self care, do not accept an invoice that has claimed for community access or individual skills development makes because that of course impacts your funding and what supports will be available to you later on.

Yeah, that's a really good point. And I just want to make a point here that the all of these red flag behaviours, especially this one, it doesn't always mean that something is wrong, but it should be a signal to sort of ask more questions. So in this case,

maybe they're not good at invoicing. Yeah, that's an issue in itself. But maybe they're just not quite sure what the parameters are that they should be including. But I guess it's when you bring that up with them and you say, hey, what is this charge? I don't remember seeing you on that day. And then that's right, if they're acting,

you know, strange about that, a bit of evasive, that's probably a sign to go or something's not quite right here. Yes. And utilise your plan manager. If you have a plan manager, get them to speak to the provider on your behalf. Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. Because the plan manager also is aware of all of the NDIS rules of what needs to be included on invoice. So they can make sure that, yeah, doing they can help you just keep pushing back. And
yeah, I think that's a great point, especially for people that it's difficult to have those conversations and bring stuff up. I know I'll be like that. So having someone that's there to do it on your behalf, if you've got a player manager and who knows those roles, Yeah, yes, yeah, absolutely. So the next red flag to look out for would be wanting to access your personal devices. Why is that a red flag? Look, this is a big red flag
and any part of your life, your friends, your family, people you know, girlfriend, boyfriend, wife, husband, shouldn't really want access to your personal device. Obviously, there's gonna be some situations that you'll feel comfortable with.

However, in a professional relationship, nobody should ever want access to your personal device. They can unfortunately access your my Gov, they could access your banking, they could change email contact details, they could change Pins, passwords, that sort of thing. And they can also communicate or remove communication on your behalf. It might seem a little bit extreme, but in some of these extreme cases at the agency sees this is significant

issue of people, you know, providers, support coordinators, support workers wanting to access and do things on your behalf. Be careful of people telling you again are things are too hard. You know, I'll do it for you. It'll be much easier. No, that's not the life you want to live and somebody should be helping you to get past whatever those barriers are. That's really what working alongside somebody and empowering somebody is about. Hey, look, we all have days where we'd rather somebody else deal with our personal affairs, but it's only gonna make life harder down in the long run.

Yeah, that's true. And I mean, I suppose there are people that just are not able to use technology or something like that, so they would need someone to access their devices and do these things. But I guess the important thing here is that they're doing it with you. It's maybe one important person that you really trust. You don't give it to

lots of people, you know, you support worker and everyone like that. Just gonna add in the next one because this is kind of the same thing. Isn't asking for your login info. Yeah. And just back to that last point. We are living in a modern society. There's a lot of people doing a lot of research and making very innovative products to support different modes of communication. And somebody who's really working for you should be willing to do that research and help, help you connect and identify your preferred mode of
communication and support you to do that. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. That's a really good point. Yeah. And again, asking for your login invokes. Yeah, you're right, Aaron. It's pretty much for the same reasons. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the only reason to get your login info is to go into your actual accounts where you can change anything and also acting on your behalf by that stage. Exactly. Yeah. And I know in the case of banks and things like that, if you've given your login info to someone else and then something happens, you can

be liable yourself with that. Absolutely. Right. It isn't great. You've gone against the terms and conditions, correct? Yeah. Now the next one, you mentioned this before, but stopping or discouraging you from talking to the media, yes. Big red flag. Yeah, very much so. And look, I'm hoping that those of you out there have not experienced this and probably find it a bit strange, but unfortunately, there are cohorts of very vulnerable participants who are being isolated

by providers and stops and they're being stopped from talking to the agency. That means that people can then go into planning meetings and speak on their behalf and ask for increases in funding and also and put down all sorts of things about you that you're not aware of and that facilitates the potentially further fraud. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I suppose sort of on a similar vein is forcing you to use certain providers

that would be a red flag. Yeah, because they might have connections, correct something. So the Commission and the agency take conflict of interest very seriously. And we see a lot of issues whereby, you know, people are operating as support coordinators, allied health professionals, all sorts of things. Some manage though that conflict very well. Others, unfortunately, will assert some undue influence over participants and try threatening, you know, like, hey, if you don't use these other services,

well, I'm not going to provide you this one that you said you do need. Yeah. It's just not acceptable behaviour. You certainly wouldn't like it if you went to Woolworths and they said, boy, you buy your milk from Coles now you can't get eggs from us anymore. Like, yeah, you know, she's my analogies that it just helped. No, that's good. You're right, actually. Yeah. Yeah. Your wife as a consumer is to be able to shop around. Yeah, absolutely.

And then this one is, you know, quite an obvious one that this is a red flag. But any threats, bullying or intimidating behaviours, yeah. Again, I seriously hope that nobody out here in the community that's listening today has experienced this. The Agency and the Commission take this very seriously and unfortunately it is quite prevalent in the Agency, particularly for those who might have immigration status. So they might have, they might threaten them to be deported, they might threaten to report you somewhere

that's not acceptable and we shouldn't allow it for ourselves or others. Yeah, probably. There's probably even, you know, threats that they might not seem like threats, but it might just be something simple as saying if you need to do this, otherwise you're funding cut. Like, yeah, that's pretty common. One really good one, Aaron. Yeah, absolutely. You need to go to the group activities today even though you don't want to because you're funding will be cut. You need to go and do this because you're funding will be cut or you won't be able to

service next week or you won't be able to have your preferred support worker. Yeah, yeah, the great example. Erin, thank you. So if people are noticing any of these red flag behaviours within their service providers, let's just have a look at the steps that someone should go through if they suspect something is wrong. So reporting to the provider, would that be the first step that someone takes? If you

right, if you're a bit unsure whether you wanna continue service, you'd like to give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it's an issue with just one support worker or an admin person or something. All service providers should have a complaint mechanism and that should offer fair and objective process for your complaint to be considered. And you shouldn't suffer any sort of recourse because of that. People shouldn't make you feel bad, belittle used stop services or anything like that. So

always follow a complaint process first. That's the best way to speak to the provider. I mean, you could have an informal chat first, but apologies Andrea, I'm afraid I'm in a shared area at the moment, but I did my best to isolate myself. Yeah, hopefully everyone can hear. OK. I'm like whether they, we'll just, we'll keep going. It's alright if you. Yeah, Andrea, if you have any issues hearing anything, just write in the chat if we need to talk about something again and we can go through it. Yeah. It's meeting rooms booked there in the office.

Somebody was polite enough to tell them to move along. Uh, sorry you're going through the complaints process. If you're wanting to stick it out there. If you're not wanting to stick it out, or it's perhaps a bigger issue, then I presume the next step would be going beyond the provider, right? Correct.

As you've got listed there, there's there is the NDIS quality and safeguards Commission. I can see some questions are popping up in the chats and I'm concerns and experiences and I'm more than happy to discuss them at the end of the session. I think it's very important to clear some of that up and give you some reassurance. But yes, the safeguards Commission, there is also other commissions at a state base. So there's age and disability Commission within each state that you can go to as well. Or if you want some support with independent

advocacy, there's some great groups, charitable organisation that's well out there that are very independent and will help you through that process. If you do suspect fraud, then NDIA fraud reporting, you would need to notify them also. Yes. And you can do that anonymously, can't you as well, if you can feel absolutely too. Yeah, Yep. Particularly we've got concerns about something that you don't particularly want to get involved in. It might be another a friend or a family member, and you can

do so anonymously. Yeah, We have had several community members talk about sometimes when they're not happy with the service or they're worried about something that's going on, they feel a bit scared to speak up, you know, especially if they rely on them for their care or their loved ones care. What would you suggest to those people? What's the, what can they do to,

I guess get through that and, and make a report or would you say go into one of those advocacy organisations or something like that? Might be a good. Definitely, absolutely. Yep. Go and you can speak to a planner, but probably advocacy is the best and they're very experienced and they are independent, so there's nothing to gain for them. Yeah, that's, you know, they really advocate for the community.

I think it's important to remember that a lot of these people are reliant on you being scared. That's what allows them to get away with what they do. Yeah. Yeah. So it's good to think bigger picture. If we all say something, if we're all loud enough, you know? Yeah. The problem, we're exposing the issues more and more, and that's important. Be loud, talk about it and assert your rights. That's what this scheme is about.

Yeah, absolutely. And the more, like you said, the more people that talk about things, the more they root out those bad providers and make it safer for everyone. And yeah, yeah, absolutely important step. Thank you, Penelope. I did see that message and we will discuss that at the end. Yeah, we'll get all the questions at the end. We'll go through them, don't worry. And like I said at the top, if we don't have time to get any specific questions, we'll follow you up afterwards as well.

I guess the important thing to note as well is that it's always OK to leave a provider. Like you said, they try and make you scared, but you know, the alternative is much better than sticking around sometimes. Yeah.

And make it quite clear if you are going to leave the provider, really stress that to the Commission, to your planner, to anybody you can that you may you are at risk of not having supports. Yeah. OK. Yeah, very great. So don't stay with the provider because you're scared of not getting supports. Go and speak to people and let them know what's unfolding and what's happening. Yeah, absolutely.

So on the flip side, let's have a look at some of the behaviours that can signal provider is a good one. So green flag behaviours, now this is pretty much the opposite of the red flag behaviours, but I think it's important to put them in here just so we can remember that there are good providers out there and hopefully everyone here recognises some of these things in their own providers. So we'll just quickly go through these. If you just want to talk through what the green flag behaviours are, Isis sure, they should absolutely respect your right to shop around.

I should recognise that you are a consumer with rights the same as everybody else and the same as, you know, you go into a tyre shop to get tyres. You don't wanna be bullied or, you know, treated poorly because you'd like to go somewhere else. You know, I have trouble saying it myself. But you know, even when you go into a clothing store, you know, hang on, I'd like to go and look around for some might be back later. You know, we have the right to do that and people should respect that, particularly in the

NDIS, given what the purpose of the scheme is for now. You don't want people. It's not, it's not OK. And it's not fair that for generations people with disability have been made to feel less than through, you know, these mechanisms that we have in society through not being able to access community, through not being spoken to sometimes and even seen as a respected consumer. This is our time to get it right. You have

the same rights as everybody else in society and we're here to make sure that that is known and to help you with that and again, helping you to make decisions for yourself. It's the whole purpose of the scheme is for you to be able to live independently and make decisions and make mistakes as well. Then This is why this is about recognising and managing your own risk because we all make mistakes. You know, everybody makes mistakes as consumers. That's part of being your own person.

So somebody should be happy to work alongside you and help you navigate through that. Yeah. As opposed to doing it for you. Yeah. Yeah. People have the right to make their own mistakes, you know, go something that might not work. It's. Yeah, completely up to everyone, isn't it? Yeah, 100%. And you did mention this one before. Support your preferred ways of communication. So, yeah, I must admit, get quite upset. Our team does here when we see narratives of sorry, this person and some of the narratives we see are not acceptable. This person has mental illness.

This person has alcohol issues. It's not OK, you know, or this person can't, you know, doesn't like emails, you know, or something like that, you know. So identify the preferred mode of communication where, you know, most plan managers and the agency hopefully will be happy to facilitate that. And if they don't, then access the complaints process and inform their processes. And that's the agency included. If they're not supporting your mode of communication, give that feedback because that's absolutely paramount to be you being able to communicate your wishes and communicate when something's wrong. Yeah,

100%. There's like, yeah, no, no excuse really in this day and age with all the technology we have. Is there if someone says I need email, that's right, you're a good provider or a green flag behaviour of a provider would be to only email you if that's what you've asked for. Yeah. And they won't create that email for you. They'll encourage you to go to your library or somewhere else and have you created yourself. We do see a lot of providers creating email addresses for participants. Yeah, that's an interesting one.

That would be a big red flag, wouldn't it? Yeah, yeah. And again, going back to the accessing devices and personal information, you really should be supported to understand what your barriers are and how to get past them and bring these things up with your planner as well. Hey, I actually need some support hours to research modes of communication to set them up to, you know, practise

formatting emails and things like that, you know, bring that into your planning meeting as well, because that's the way for you to become more independent also. Yeah, Yep, that's a really good idea. And yeah, respecting and safeguarding your privacy and information is part and parcel with that, isn't it? But I think a good provider should have very good understanding of the Privacy Act and the Australian Privacy Principles as well as of course the NDIA Code of Conduct. So that should be at the forefront of everything they do is respect and safeguarding for privacy and information. Yeah. And because just as you know, all

participants are open to scams and fraud providers are as well. And if they're holding your information, they need to keep that safe. You know, how many breaches have there been of big companies lately where people's data have been released out there? And it's just, yeah, it's really important that they're keeping your information safe. Yep. So let's have a look then at some of the practical ways that people can stay vigilant and advocate for their rights.

You know, maybe there's some practical routines and stuff that people can put in place. So let's go through those. All right, so elected receive notifications. So this is probably quite, this is specific to my plan manager, but a lot of plan managers should have some tech solutions available to you for you to manage your budget. So the notifications we provide here are SMS notifications. So every time an invoice is, is loaded onto your plan, our system sent out an SMS to say, hey, invoice 27 has been received from Erin

On this date. That gives you opportunity to check that, make sure she's not overcharging, that it lines up with what you have hopefully written down as in your log of what supports have been provided. And then you can, if you disagree, you can notify the plan manager and say no. Can you go and speak to Aaron and say it appears she's overcharging or whatever that is? Actually, you can, yeah. If you just let it go, it'll be approved.

Here is what I don't want to just speak about my plan manager, but plan managers generally should have tech solutions, whether it be portals, apps, SMS, that sort of thing where you can view and monitor your budgets and allow you to reject claims as well so that they're not being processed without your authorisation. Yep, absolutely. And if someone doesn't have a plan manager, if they're self managed or if they have a plan manager that doesn't have these tech solutions in place, are they able to get notifications from their
NDIA directly whenever an invoice is processed? Or is it a case of logging in and keeping an eye on it? I'm afraid I do have some gaps in my understanding of how the self managed participants work so I do apologise. But I imagine it is a is logging into the My place portal and having a look self managed? Probably would recommend. Keep a good diary, keep a good log. So and so Support worker AJ came on 13th of June

at 8:00 and he left at 11. You know, even if you wanna get a little initial or something, you know, be clever, come up with a way to log it yourself so that you can then say, hey, no, I logged this on the day and the invoices come in as different. Yeah, I'd say that would be a good idea for self manage all plan manager. Yeah, absolutely. The only difference is how the invoice is getting through. So you still wanna be checking. Yeah, that it matches your log. Yeah. If your plan manager doesn't have tech solutions,

they do have obligations to provide you budget information. They should be able to provide you a budget report regularly and especially upon your request. So be proactive. If you don't have time for that, then probably do look for a plan manager that does have those tech solutions or some way that you can keep that visibility without having to chase them up all the time. Yeah, that's right. You don't want to be adding too much extra time into the admin side of things because,

you know, it's easy to just sort of put it aside and not stay on top of it. So anything that's gonna make that process a lot easier. Yeah, that's gonna be great. Checking your consents. Yeah. So I assume that's with plan managers, but also with the NDIA directly as well, correct? Yes, absolutely. So you'll know throughout your time with the NDIS, you would have provided consents for service providers, plan managers, support coordinators, maybe even family members or friends, right?

So you ring up on your behalf or to query invoices and make decisions on invoices. It's very important that you keep track of who has that access, particularly when you're talking about those tech solutions that might be provided to support coordinators or providers you want to know regularly. So probably 6 months to 12 months, just do a check in, who have I provided consent to? And do I still want them to have that consent? Yeah, really good idea. Cause they could be going in and approving stuff before you've even had chance to look. Yeah, or even just monitoring

or spending. Yeah, which, yeah, yeah. So providers might monitor your spend and then go, oh, there's an extra $5000 there, Maybe I'll convince them that they need an increase in supports for the next three months, Right. Yes, that's a good point. And I guess similar to that is checking that your contact details are correct, because that's the same kind of situation, right. If someone could change them to their own address, absolutely getting instead of it coming to you yet, and it might be too late by the time you realise your email address has been changed.

Ideally, plan manager and agency would have good processes in place that wouldn't allow your information to be updated. However, if you've allowed it access to devices or login information, a plan management agency will be a little bit stuck on trying to determine whether that is actually you or not. Yes, yeah, that would be very difficult now vetting service providers. I just want to give a caveat at this one that

it's obviously never anyone's fault if they pick a provider that then turns out to be fraudulent or anything like that. I think vetting is just more important to sort of up the probability that you have a green flag provider rather than a red flag provider. So what kind of things can people do to check out service providers before they agree to actually proceed with them? Sure. And this is not a strict if you do these five things, you'll be sure that it's good or bad. Not at all. They're just kind of tools and sort of guide.

1st place to look is the NDIS Provider Register. Yep, that allows you to put in an ABN and see whether the provider is registered or not. Once you can see whether it's registered, there's a button you can click when it expands more out and that'll tell you if they've gotten the compliance or registration requirements in place. Yeah, can be worth looking into, absolutely.

Just because somebody's not registered doesn't mean that you don't want to go with them. OK, Yeah, it doesn't come into it too much. Yeah, being registered doesn't automatically make someone not a trustworthy, which means they've they've gone through text. But yeah, exactly. Now on this page as well is related pages compliance and enforcement actions. It's Part 2 of the NDIS Register, Provider Register, and that features those registers, those providers who have banning orders or other compliance and enforcement actions. That's always a good place to start.

Yeah. If they feature on any of those, probably give them a miss and reach out to the Commission and say, hey, this, I was approached by this person. Or, you know, particularly if there's anything unusual. The other thing you can do is ABN lookup, if you're able to get their ABN, put it through and see how long they've been providing service for. If they've only been there, are aliens only been active for a couple of months, maybe ask more questions about how long they've been in the industry. Yep. Yeah,

this canopy. That's why we said what we did. The other thing we can do is check for websites as well. Websites that are not completely, you know, set up are a bit of a red flag. Spelling errors, any that say that they've MDIS registered and not, that's a big red flag. And it's actually, the Commission likes to know of that information. Yeah, ask, ask. It's always good to ask questions like how long have you been in the industry? Why are you, why are you in the industry? You know, things like that,

yeah. Get a sense of yeah, who they are and yeah, what they're yeah. If they're genuine, maybe asking if they've ever supported someone with similar support needs to yourself. See what answers they have to that. I think even looking for reviews online, that would be helpful, right? Seeing what other real people, yes, not all reviews online we can trust 100%, but Facebook might be a good indication if there's lots of people putting bad reviews,

Connect, you know, maybe stay away yeah. If there's people you know that can recommend them, that's always gonna be better. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're reviews are interesting. I always tend to start with the low reviews, take into consideration that there's going to be some people who are, you know, a little bit upset. But if you've got a number of low reviews that have been drowned out by a heap of five stars that that seem a bit generic, it's better. That's maybe. Yeah. Yeah. OK. And how can using service agreements help to protect yourself? So service contract, service agreements here are good

in that they act as a kind of contract. So they have to have fair terms and conditions in there. And if they don't, that's the first starting place you can go to the Commission. Yeah, it also outlines your, your rights and obligations as well as the service providers. It should describe, you know, give you access to the complaints and privacy policies and it should give you an idea of their cancellation policy, some cancer. It's a very good idea to go over the service agreement conditions quite closely. And if you need help with that, get appropriate assistance because not everybody is experienced in writing these service agreements and sometimes they have some unfair terms in them.

So be careful of that. But for the most part, a service agreement is a good way to agree to the supports and the amount of funding that you would like to spend with that provider. It helps your player manager as well to be able to lock away that funding and not allow for that service provider to invoice for, you know, additional services or more than what you've agreed to. So just it's a little bit of a safeguard to just say, no, I've agreed to this, this,

that's all I want. Don't try. And you know, yeah, again, goes back to the mechanics. I'll call you if something else is needed. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I guess if there are things that crop up, like if you need to cancel sessions that sort of holds, holds them accountable if they try and claim for outside, you know, yeah, yeah. Then you can say actually we've agreed to this. So yeah. But making sure that that is in line with the NDIS rules and things as well. But we came along, yes, yeah, we've talked about the importance of checking every invoice and monitoring your budget. We don't need to go over those again. That's probably but conflict to the

to the chat because people are chance. Well, we've got a just a couple other things here. We've sort of gone over it now. Create an email address for your NDIS contacts. That was just one that I popped in there because I know it can help to have everything. Keep it all. Secure yourself in one email address where possible. Have different emails for your social media and your games you might play as opposed to your bank, mygov and NDIS a lot of those apps and things and particularly your social media like Facebook,

they're really easy in road to some of those other the other information. Yeah, yeah. Now we're, we're coming up to time already, but I feel like we've barely scratched the surface, so we might just have to quickly look at some scam warning signs. You know, this is taking a little bit wider now, obviously, as we said at the top, scams aren't specific to NDIS participants, but being an NDIS participant is just sort of one more way that your info is out there, one more way that people could potentially try and trick you so it can make you a little bit more of a target. So do you want to just have a quick look at some of the most

the scams that most often they Yeah, yeah. So we see impersonation scams. A lot of companies will say that, but it's not unusual to see in the NDIS as well. So people impersonating mygov NDIS that sort of thing to look out for is unusual. As you can see in Aaron's great example there, staff member at NDI e.com dot AU. So differences in email headers and there might be an urgency in there in that they're asking for

information. Most government will never ask you, will never send you a link for you to enter information. And same as a plan manager, they shouldn't be sending you links asking you for login details either. Yeah. So always be careful if anybody's asking you for information on money. Just probably, yeah, yeah. If they're really, if they really came, they'll give you a call.

Yes. Yeah. And I guess that's what fishing, what's known as fishing. Yeah. Isn't it? That's trying to get you to click on a link. Yes. That's provided some information or. Yeah. And unlike the impersonation, it's less targeted. So it's just they're sending him out to lots of different people, lots of different types, just trying to trick you. So it might be, hey, you've won something. Hey, if you be quick press on this link, that sort of thing. It's trying to really. Yeah,

I think today I've already got texts from Bunnings, which is a new one for me. Yeah. Yeah. And Medicare. Yeah. My God, the packages that I didn't order had trouble this morning. Yes. Yeah. So many packages just don't get delivered. No. And then one other type of scan that can happen is romance or relationship scams. Did you just want to go over that a little bit, what that might look like? Yeah, we do say that a lot of NDIS participants are vulnerable to these types.

You're out there in social media, potentially in communities with similar people and, you know, others see that quite attractive. And so they will try and scam anybody and everybody and they play on our, you know, everybody. We all get lonely sometimes. We all like companionship. And so, yeah. And via dating apps and things like that. So people might try and convince you that your soul mate and they've fallen in love with you or they just need some help or things like that. So be very cautious and think about what would you do? I'm sure you're all good people out there. And I don't think you'd try any of this. So it's not something you would do. It's probably not somewhat from someone you want in your life either.

Yeah, that's a that's a good thought way to flip it, isn't it? If you're a bit concerned that it might be could possibly be a scam, think, hey, would I ask someone I just met a month ago for money? Yeah, maybe not. Yeah, there maybe that's a bit of a warning sign there. So some other warning signs. As you said, bad spelling and grammar,

Yes, yeah,. Now, um, private numbers. NDIS does call on a private number, so that in itself isn't a warning sign, but just something to be aware of, I suppose. That and that should, I imagine. Yeah, yeah. And do you just wanna talk about spoofing a little bit with the email addresses as well? Because that's a bit

makes it a bit harder to know when it's not a correct email address, Right. Yeah. How does that? Yeah, yeah. Look. And that's where you need to be looking out for the other indicators. So the bad spelling and grammar, the urgency, that change in tone that you wouldn't normally say very unlikely that the agency would have a spoofed email. So spoofing is a technical process. Everybody where a hacker is able or cyber criminal is able to make the email appear exactly the same as one you would typically see. So as opposed to that

impersonation where you can see that slight difference, this is a technical process where it'll appear exactly the same. Some companies will have like this dynamic banners though that would say, hey, that actually hasn't originated from that source. So a lot of, you know, bigger companies like the agency and layer managers have technical ability to flag that.

But. Yeah, but everybody else at home, it's looking out for those other indicators. Yeah. So even though it might come from what looks like an official email address, still remember that they wouldn't send links to click and provide information, so that you'd have to look out for those other things there asking for information, asking for money. I'll. Did you send this email? I've got it. It looks like it's come from you. Can you just confirm? In this day and age, nobody should be making fun of you or ridiculing you.

You're asking those questions. Yeah, 100%. So when you do get those things, you've just mentioned it there, but always stop. Don't click on the links. Yeah. And walk away if you have to walk away and think about it. Yep. Yep. Absolutely. Ask more information. Like you said, walk away. Google the correct phone number, not the number that they give you on the phone to call back. You know, Google the right number. Give them a call and say, hey, is this legitimate? Yep.

And yeah. Do you recommend screenshotting things before you delete them? If you get emails and things like that, is that a good idea for reporting? Yeah, look what I do So because each so if you get a one from your finance institution, go to their website. They typically have like an SMS line and I cut each one will be different. So just you shouldn't keeping it there for a second while you work out what to do is in the real risk. It's only if you start clicking on things or phoning to the to that number or email. So just stop, go and look into it.

A lot of the ones that you will see have great reporting lines and great methods. I think it takes less than a minute to give them that information. So yeah, just whatever, whoever it's from, go to their website. They should have report scams. Otherwise there are there's scam watch and other places like that that would do it as well. Yeah, yeah. Don't forward to people, yes, unless they ask for it because some finance institutions might ask you to do that.

Yes, Yep, absolutely, Yep. So that they can track it. So as well as going to the individual organisations and letting them know just very quickly because I can see the time and I know we've had some questions. So when would you go to, you mentioned at the top briefly, but when would you go to ADAS to report things as opposed to the Quality and Safeguards Commission and what is thier
role in it? So the NDIA will take concerns about fraud reporting. So, so yeah, fraud. So go to Nas fraud reporting. The NDA will also, you know, because their service delivery, if you have concerns, like I said, with the impact to your services, that sort of thing, go to the India as well.

And but the Commission for the notifying of those concerns and the Commission as well for if you're unsure if it's fraud and it might just be repeated noncompliance or you know, what we call sharp practise. So there are a lot of people that will operate in that space. They'll just do, they'll have certain way of conducting themselves that won't be able to be seen as fraud and wouldn't progress to prosecution, but it's still not the right thing. Commissions very interested in that and the Commission will take your individual complaints.

Australian Consumer I triple C, can she bring nerves now? Thank you. Yeah, no, it's fine. I normally know it's just nerves. A triple C won't respond to your individual complaint, but they are very interested in collecting information on what is happening systemically. So it's very important to report to them to let them know this is occurring over here in this industry. Yeah. Yeah. And is that the same with scam watch? Do they get involved in individual cases or is it more letting them know so that they can keep a broader view of letting

you know happening? Yep, letting them know. Australian Cyber Security Centre is the place to go and report that and for that assistance and then they'll link you with ID Care. Yes. And that's for if you've had any of your data, correct, stolen, any sort of identity theft or Yeah, yeah, yeah. And just want to quickly bring up these places as well. You mentioned we talked about those ones there, but just esafety Commissioner as well. That is an excellent website for everyone to go to, to get so many resources. We've got a whole section specifically for people with disabilities, whole section for disability support workers. There's a page you can go to to look up different apps and how to make them more private and things like that.

Yeah, excellent website and just on that, A triple C has similar has focused resources for people with disability also fantastic. I have seen that. I'll have to look that up. So good. OK, I'm sorry that we had to rush through that last little bit there. You just have so much knowledge and pain intent to talk to people anyway, so give them a chance. So yeah, we'll go to event. I have seen lots of and I'm happy to stay as long as required.

I just, yeah, I just wanted to get to Penelope's question, which you kind of sort of addressed a little bit in your recent answers. Isis Penelope's case was she's had repeated what I can ascertain repeated non compliant behaviour from service providers over a number of years and has reported it to the Commission and I don't necessarily so and then obviously has changed providers and has experienced similar things.

Is it more about what sort of expectations can participants have when they report things like are they communicated back to like what is actually happening with these providers or is it just off into the into the system after that? Should they expect or is there any sort of resolution that they can expect?

Look, I don't want to set expectation because what we would like to have happened and you know what the reality is could be quite different. I know that certainly things are changing. Expectations haven't been met over the last few years and the agency and Commission are aware of that. There is some Co design groups occurring at the moment to look at how they can better manage these places. So if you can, and maybe I'll give some links to you guys afterwards and

you can put them into Kinora, Yeah, Because, you know, they're really keen to get feedback from communities. So at this stage there's no guarantee that you would be contacted or get that feedback, which I know is frustrating and can you know when you're already feeling isolated and unsure, It's not helpful at all.

But I can assure you that things are improving from what we've seen in the Commission and they are being more proactive in reaching out to participants and involving that in that process, particularly if you lodge a complaint against those provider.

Sorry, yes, unfortunately we're not unfortunately. But like we tell our frontline staff here, we all have a small part to play and we just have to trust in the process and the system and that and that will slowly improve itself over time. The NDIS is very new. We've never seen any a social reform quite like this before. And some things, you know, it's easier for us to say, we should have seen that this would happen or we could have seen, could have done more. It is what it is. There's a lot of good people

in the agency and the Commission working very, very hard to get this improved. And they do acknowledge that there has been some frustrations and that, yeah, a lot of the time participants might be feeling unsupported. But I can guarantee you that the systems are improving. And yeah, just have some faith in those processes. I think it's very hard, however, when it does have a personal impact on it. Impact yeah,

now I'm in that independent advice, obviously, I'm sorry, I'm just in that particular. So it's also as Penelope said that it was a registered provider. So it's a Level 3 specialist support coordinator. So obviously very specialist service that's really quite hard to find like a new provider to go to once you've found someone and with continued noncompliance from similar sort of obviously like that, the the the feeling of distrust in that particular service would be quite strong. Absolutely reporting to the Commission. Are there other channels in that sort of situation that

can be taken in terms of like either reporting or support or advocacy, that sort of thing to kind of go down to get that some sort of resolution? Yes, advocacy is probably a good place to start. Now I did see in the chat that people were having a bit of trouble finding independent advocate advocates will try and source and I put the link in that. Yes, you're full and we'll try and provide some further links as well.

It's very hard if you don't have informal supports, friends, family, that sort of thing's terribly isolating. There are other agent disability commissions within each state that you can locate. I would, I would also kind of say, um, don't be afraid of being a difficult client in, in regards to if you're not receiving the services that are promised in a service agreement, then really argue that point with their service provider from the beginning. That I mean, the amount of money that Penelope said that had been removed from her plan was like in the 10s of thousands of dollars, so significant without any received services. So that is, yeah,

considered notifying fraud reporting. Penelope, she's going to the Commission. So I think now that she's got a list of other places to go to report, then that will definitely be yeah, OK, OK, there we go. Alright, right. I would try fraud reporting Penelope and if you have a plan manager, see if you can just discuss your concerns factually if you can. Unfortunately people do get overwhelmed when we bring emotion into these things. So try and be very factual, come with your DOT points. Speak to your plan manager. They should recognise their obligations for notifying an allegations as well.

Yeah, they have to offer. Do they have an ability to. We'll send you some links, Penelope. So that's a part of the NDIS that manages fraud reports. So look at particularly the type of non compliance that you're talking about. Yeah. Do they have focused and more skilled investigators in that space, which is potentially why yours might be spinning around in circles there. Not sure. But yeah, be quite factual if you can find a try and find a plan

manager that will allow you to see those invoices before they get processed and that might even be able to put blocks in place and to stop invoices being processed without your consent and authorisation. I do really feel for your Penelope. Um, it's, you know, I would imagine she's not the only one that's been, no, I know experiences. I know. So yeah, for sure. And you know, it's easy for you to say that you can talk. OK, thank you. OK,

Yeah, OK. Well, we, we have made it a little bit past time now. I wish we had another hour to talk to you and me too. Yeah, I know that you and your whole team are just so passionate about this topic and it's really great to hear your sort of insight and knowledge and all these tips that people can hopefully help to protect themselves a little bit or at least knowing where to go is an important thing in itself

into fraud reporting or whatever it is. Knowing those avenues for support is so important. So thank you so much for joining us. It's really, really appreciate you being here and sharing all of your knowledge. Even though we're finishing now, we don't have to end the conversation here. We will continue on in Kinora. So if you wanna jump in and ask any other questions, if we didn't get to them today, we will get back to you in there. But thank you everyone for joining us here today. We'll send you out this video and all of the links mentioned. We'll make sure we get a whole big list from Isis without lots of resources and things like that

to send out to everyone so that you've got that there whenever you need. Save that email. But yes, thank you for being here. I'm Aaron. That was in the chat. We've got Isis Murphy here from My Plan Manager Group. And thanks, everyone. We'll see you in the community soon. You've all got this. Yeah. Take care. Thank you kindly. Bye everyone.