“Seamless” benefit system turned out to be a difficult quest

In March of the outgoing year, Vladimir Putin signed a decree on monthly payments to needy families with children aged 8 to 17. In the future, it is planned to create a unified support system that will last from pregnancy itself until the child reaches the age of majority. In the meantime, parents of eight-year-olds need to run around and collect certificates. This turned out to be quite difficult, both for those who submit these applications and for those who process them.

Everything seemed to be fine. The mos.ru portal, electronic form, everything is simple and clear. I reach a point that drives me into a kind of stupor. According to him, it is necessary to attach information about all accounts in all banks of both parents. And a formidable warning: if you hide at least one account, then this will be the basis for refusal!

Okay, I’m scratching my head, but for what period of information should I submit?

Here I made a mistake – I went with this question to the MFC. Well, it’s logical: a single system for filing documents, one window, and so on. Lovely girls answered the question resolutely: for a year. Yes, they say it will be a lot. What should I do?

Okay, I download reports from banking applications to phones (fortunately, this is now quite easy to do), upload to the site, wait … And I get a refusal!

The wording of the reason for the refusal is very indicative. “Submission of a request and other documents necessary for the provision of a public service that do not meet the requirements established by the legal acts of the Russian Federation, the legal acts of the city of Moscow, the Uniform Requirements, the Administrative Regulations, if these circumstances were established by the OSZN district of the USZN JSC of the city of Moscow in the process of processing documents and (or) information necessary for the provision of a public service”.

What exactly do they not match? What needs to be fixed? Where?

Again I go to the MFC and ask this question. The girls are sent to the social security. It would be better if they immediately told to go there!

I go to the social security office with some apprehension: one thing is the MFC, “sharpened” for receiving visitors, another thing is an office where people sit and think: this one fits the criteria for the payment of benefits, but this one does not.

However, I got lucky here. A very nice woman works in my district social security service, who sat me on a chair and explained everything in detail.

Firstly, it turned out that the reports should be collected not for a year, but for twelve months, which end four months before the month of application. That is, if you apply in December, then report four months – July, report another twelve months – August. From August 1 to July 31, it is necessary to collect reports on all-all-all financial transactions, spending, transfers, and so on.

Secondly, it turned out that you still have to go to the bank. Because in addition to this detailed report for 12 months, a certificate from the bank is also required on the availability of all accounts with a balance. It must be dated on the 1st of the month in which you apply. Yes, and it also has a slightly strange name – “for civil servants”.

“But I’m not a civil servant…” I tried to object.

“I’m telling you what kind of certificate you need,” the lady from the social security office patiently explained. — By the way, do you have a social card? So, you also need to go to VTB. Because a social card is a bank account.

But I don’t have anything on it.

– So, bring a certificate that you have nothing on it.

And along the way, I discovered one necessary life hack: it turns out that applicants for child support are absolutely not allowed to collect money for some kind of school or kindergarten events. You know how it happens: the beginning of the school year, the parent committee announces a collection. For gifts for children on birthdays, for the New Year, for boys on February 23, for girls on March 8, for teachers on all the holidays listed, plus Teacher’s Day. Usually all this money is thrown off on the card to one of the parents. And then it turns out that the “income” of this parent exceeds the minimum that makes him eligible for benefits.

“We have so many mothers flying, especially those with many children,” my interlocutor shared.

Indeed: if money is transferred to the card from a third-party person, it means that he was paid for something. The social security workers who are counting all this do not know that this money will be spent on the needs of an entire class. And if there is also a family with many children, and a mother, an activist of some kind, participates in raising money for two or three different classes, plus a kindergarten group … The amount can be quite significant.

I sit in the security office and examine the documents with horror. For each person – a huge pack of sheets. And all this must be calculated. The transfer of money from husband to wife or from wife to husband is not considered income. And a transfer to a card for a child – if he has one – too. And any third-party income is already income. And now the poor social security workers have to calculate all this, separate intra-family transfers from external ones, sum everything up, divide by the number of family members … There is still a fuss!

And another vanity awaits me – a trip to the banks. Here, too, everything is not simple, but very interesting. As it turned out, each bank issues such a certificate for a reason, but with songs and dances. Moreover, they are similar to each other in much the same way as a gypsy with an exit is similar to a Viennese waltz. Or a belly dance for a Cossack.

Sberbank. A certificate from it was shown to me in the social security department as “ideal”. However, in the department they shrugged me off: today is the 4th, the certificate has not yet been formed. Come back in the second half of the month. 16th, for example.

And this is already some jitters: will I have time to submit all the necessary documents for the remaining two weeks? And if there is another mistake – and the consideration period is ten days – then will it not be necessary to transfer everything to the next month, that is, to collect everything again?

But there is nothing to do, we wait. In the meantime, we’re going to VTB. All three of us have social cards.

It turned out that I was lucky. I recently received a social card, and it has already been untied from VTB. But then I ended up with an account in this bank! The fact is that once, a very long time ago, I was paid a salary to the Bank of Moscow. Then I left both work and this bank, forgot about the account, and the Bank of Moscow ordered me to live long and merged with VTB in ecstasy.

Therefore, there is an account. There is not much money on the account, but you still need to indicate it. Together with two social cards – husband and son.

And here we run into an obstacle. It turns out that the form I need – that very certificate for civil servants – is a paid service. It costs 200 rubles. But they cannot give it to us, because this money is automatically debited from the account. That is, you can’t put them on the counter, and you can’t attach a card to the terminal either.

And even though I have the right amount of money in my account, it still won’t work. Because my account is simple, even without a card, and for such payment, the client must have a master account with a comprehensive package of services.

And even if I sign this comprehensive package of services and the forgotten account without a card becomes a master account, my husband and son still remain, who just have social cards in VTB with a zero balance. That is, they also need to open these master accounts with the complex and put those same two hundred rubles on it.

As a result, we take the usual certificate from the girl, not for civil servants. Just a certificate of accounts – there are mostly zeros. “I’ll go to the security service, I’ll ask if this will suit them,” I wave my hand. The last bank in line is Alpha.

At the office of Alfa-Bank, it turns out that such a certificate must be ordered by calling the “hot line”. They cannot give it at the office, only the central office has the right to issue such a paper.

The operator girl volunteers to help me and calls from my phone to the “hot line”. There follows a dialogue with the robot, from which I also learned something interesting. When the robot in the second circle began to spin its hurdy-gurdy “why do you need an operator, although I’m a bot, I can still help”, the girl deftly knocked him out with the phrase “change the package of services”. Understood, the bot reacted, I connect.

The hoarse voice of Louis Armstrong poured out of the speaker. “Let May People Go!” I said grimly, and the girl snorted, “Imagine how tired we are of this song! We hear it twenty times a day.” I can imagine.

So, finally, a human voice on the phone. I begin to explain what I need. At the other end of the wire – a stupor.

— And for what period do you need?

– I’m not for the period. me for a specific date.

— No, we have such a parameter, a period. What do you need for?

I swear, I look at the certificate from Sberbank for November 1. It is not suitable for social security, but it will do as a model. There really is a period – from January 1 to November 1. I call it, let it be.

– But let the balance of funds be on December 1!

“Of course, of course,” the operator assures. – Which office should I deliver to? Expect within two days!

Do you think I got it? Well, you are wrong!

A couple of days later, I received a letter in the mail with the message “We didn’t understand at all what kind of help you need, can you clarify?”

I open the mobile application, I write in the chat. There again I have to break through a helpful bot that reacts to the word “help” and dumps a bunch of banal information on me. Finally I get to a living person (it seems) and once again I explain to him what kind of certificate I need.

“Understood,” says my invisible interlocutor and disappears. And an hour later, a message comes back in the chat: “We didn’t understand what kind of help you need, please clarify …”

By that time, I had reached the social security office, showed them certificates from VTB, and explained the situation with the master accounts.

“It will,” they told me.

“And Alfa-Bank doesn’t understand what is needed at all,” I taunt.

– Let him give the usual.

The second visit to Alfa-Bank with a request this time to give the usual certificate, not for civil servants. The main thing is that it has signatures and seals. The girl unpacks a pack of papers. I look through them and see that something is missing.

— And where is the “Investkopilka”?

The fact is that a year ago, as a person claiming some financial literacy, I decided to save and save. And opened an account “Investkopilka”. And every month a small amount is deposited there. And someone there, without my knowledge, is trading with this money – buying shares, stocks and bonds on them. It turns out a small gesheft. In order to fly out of applicants for benefits, it is clearly not enough, but it must be indicated.

“And this,” they explain to me, “is Alpha investment. This is a different legal entity. We don’t see her.

— But you see the brokerage account! Here is a piece of paper. And this is also Alpha investment.

– We see the brokerage, but not the Investment Bank.

Again the “hot line”, a conversation with a robot, Louis Armstrong. According to the instructions of the operator, I go to my personal account from the computer and order a certificate to the Alfa-Bank office. The term is up to twenty business days. I hope that it will be done sooner, otherwise I will have to start all over again …

I understand everything, bank secrecy does not allow employees of the social security to request information directly from financial institutions. And the criteria are strict. Therefore, what can be obtained from the Pension Fund or from tax returns is not enough. So they came up with such a quest.

Well, the banks are working differently. I wonder if any of the applicants have an account with Tinkoff or Sovcombank or Raffeisen Bank – do they have their own songs and dances? What will you have to dance there – fandango, mazurka or boogie-woogie?

And while collecting all the necessary information is as difficult as “To let old Pharaoh understand”. Moses, it seems, was easier …

Yana MAYEVSKAYA.

Photo by Sergey Vedyashkin / Moskva Agency