Rebecca Assie, a 60-year-old woman in Sydney who claimed to be invisible to her eyes more than 20 years ago, applied to Centrelink for a grant for the blind, according to Radio 9. So far, she has received more than A $ two hundred thousand in subsidies.
On Current Affair, however, she was photographed walking with her family without a guide dog or crutches.
Not only that, "blind" things that are difficult to do with cell phones, garbage taking out, opening and closing doors, are a piece of cake for Aunt Assie.
She was even able to drive on her own, and she could not see it as a blind man at all.
"over the years, she has received up to A $ two hundred and eight thousand nine hundred and ninety nine in grants, one of the most shocking cases I have ever heard," said Human Services's minister.
Aunt Assie's "pretend blind" path began in 1990.
That year, she found an ophthalmologist who said she could not see her eyes and asked the doctor to issue a certificate.
"I don't understand why this patient wants a benefit," the doctor wrote at the time. "she has very normal eyesight, neither hyperopia nor myopia."
Aunt Assie, of course, was not satisfied with the report, so she went to see another ophthalmologist. I don't know if the doctor is "blind", even to give aunt Assie a certificate that she is indeed "blind". Soon, Centrelink began giving her benefits for the disabled, 21 years.
In the meantime, Aunt Assie updated her driver's license several times and tested her eyesight every time, and each time the results showed that her eyesight was fine.
Later, a staff member of Centrelink began to suspect her and arranged a visual examination for her. The result, of course, was "invisible" to Aunt Assie.
"if a person wants to exaggerate her vision damage or falsify the fact that she can't see it, she just has to pretend not to see the letter of the watch," the doctor wrote in the report. "it's simple."
Staff and doctors strongly suspect that Aunt Assie is not "blind", but there is no evidence.
Later, Centrelink introduced a "data matching system," which allows Centrelink data to connect with data from other departments. If the same person provides different information to different departments, the system will find that the information does not match. The system exists to verify that some welfare recipients are really qualified.
Sure enough, Aunt Assie failed to escape supervision of the system. Centrelink found out from other departments that her eyesight was not impaired. Not only that, the investigators also found that she had been working as a clerk and could not be invisible.
At present, The Department of Human Services's debt recovery department is seeking benefits from Aunt Assie.
In fact, it is not the first time that pretending to be miserable and playing pitiful to apply to Centrelink for welfare relief has happened.
In February, a Muslim woman named Rebecca Khodragha in Sydney claimed to be a poor, single mother who not only lived in a public housing in goverment but also enjoyed goverment benefits, according to media reports in February. But the truth is that she has not only a husband, but also a "Kuai Tai" who owns his own business, earns a million Australian dollars a year, and has two properties in the name of the two.
"through the data matching system and the investigation of fraud investigators, we have removed more than one hundred thousand people who are not eligible for benefits from the benefit distribution list, and we will then investigate them one by one," said Human Services's minister.
We also hope that Centrelink's system will be more sophisticated so that no one can take advantage of it and give welfare relief to those who really need it.