September 21, 2009

paperwork, or the moibus strip of government forms

Back a few months ago, I tried to apply for CPP splitting with my ex. For the unitiated, pension splitting is what happens after a divorce where one partner stayed home with the kids and is now entitled to less CPP. The stay at home partner can apply to share the CPP her spouse accumulated while they were married, thus increasing the eventual payout. I was also applying for CPP to help my disability payments -the real benefit right now is to my disability insurance company, who promptly claws back their benefit based on the CPP payment, but never mind.
So, to complete this gargantuan task, I had to take my separation agreement and my divorce agreement to a Service Canada site, have them certify it and copy it, and send it in.
The lass copied half of the documents and sent them in uncertified. They came back in six weeks, saying they were uncertified and couldn't be accepted. When I returned to the office, asking the same lass to certify them, she told me she couldn't because she didn't remember me. I'd packed the originals, so couldn't show them to her.
Recently I received another copy of the form I'd filled out, saying they had never received it. But they had, since they sent me back a photocopied form with the returned document.
So I've filled it out again, despite hand and body spasms, and now will find the other documents and try to convince them they should accept them now.
Why do I still feel they will come back to me?
It seems most unfair to inflict this on someone who has short term memory problems. It's too hard to keep track of everything. Or maybe they are testing my disability - if I snap and call in and yell at them that they already have this info, will that mean I am not disabled?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi- sorry i don't know how to blog! just wanted to share my divorce/cpp split/cpp disability story. If other people have experienced same discrimination, i would like to know so we can launch a campaign to change this treatment. Please tell me how to use this blog or your email! from lori

Dabble said...

Hi Lori -
I'm just starting the battle, as you can see from my post today - and yes, we should chat! email me at ms_marbles (at) hotmail.com