Out of the Blue

**This featured case is one example of the concerns people have brought to us. Names have been changed to protect the identity of the people involved.

Anne* was very ill and couldn’t work and her fiancé was receiving Employment Insurance. When the insurance ended, they applied for the Transitional Employment Allowance (TEA) and received some help from TEA and Social Assistance for a few months.

More than a year later, Anne was surprised to receive a letter from the TEA program stating that she had been overpaid and owed more than $1,000. She called to find out more about it. They told her that she could not appeal the overpayment because it had been owing for more than 45 days. Anne did not think this was fair and called our office.

She told us that she had not received notice of the overpayment until it was too late to appeal. Her mailing address had not changed.

We made an initial inquiry to the Ministry and they reviewed her file. They found that the file had been closed prematurely, making it appear that there was an overpayment when there was not. They removed the overpayment and sent Anne a letter to confirm that she no longer owed the money.

*Names have been changed to protect identity.