Financial Hardship is a term used to describe a situation where a person is unable to meet their financial commitments due to one or more factors contributing to their financial position. Common contributing factors include:

• Loss of employment of you or a family member
• Illness, including physical incapacity, hospitalisation or mental illness of you or a family member
• Family breakdown
• A death in the family
• Other factors resulting in an unforeseen change in your capacity to meet their payment obligations, whether through a reduction in income or through an increase in non-discretionary expenditure.

If you are having a problem paying your bill, or you wish to discuss options available to you to minimise your bill, call Nehos Accounts today on 1300 726 889

Monday - Friday 9am - 5:00pm EST

The earlier you contact us, the better. Discussing your concerns gives us the opportunity to help you manage your bills.

If you do require time to pay an outstanding amount, agreeing to a payment plan and sticking to it can help prevent disconnection or restriction of your service. Disconnection of your service is used only as a last resort, and we will endeavour to work with you to ensure this does not happen.

To assist us in establishing the level of support you require, dependent on your individual circumstance, we may request supporting evidence, including, but not limited to:

• Documentation such as a statutory declaration from a person familiar with the your circumstances (family doctor, clergy, bank officer, etc);
• Evidence of you having consulted with, and/or being accompanied by a recognised financial counselor or a booking to see a financial counselor.

If you successfully apply for financial hardship, Nehos will negotiate with you to reach an agreement on arrangements more suitable to your circumstances.
It is a fundamental principle of any hardship arrangement that the repayment should be sufficient to cover both expected future use of the service at an appropriate level, and reduce the level of the applicant’s debt over time. Crucially, the agreement should ensure that further purchases from Nehos do not cause the applicant to go into further debt, or substantially contribute to a worsening of the applicant’s financial position. To this end, while the financial hardship arrangement is in place, we will not sell debts, report hardship customers to credit agencies or suspend or disconnect the services of hardship customer due to debt.

Ideally, we strive to develop arrangements that will allow applicants to return to purchasing services on an ordinary basis as soon as possible.

Eligibility

We deal with financial hardship on a case by case basis but as a general rule financial hardship will not be available to business customers. There may be exceptions to this, for example sole-traders or other small-businesses which are genuinely unable to operate without the ongoing participation of a single person. In such situations we will assess whether financial hardship may be available by reference to the individual circumstances of the applicant.

In assessing your application for hardship we will take into account

• Your billing history
• The nature of the services you’re purchasing
• The reason you are making the request
• Any evidence you have provided demonstrating that the reason you have given for your request is a genuine reason

We may also request other information about and evidence of your financial position and circumstances. Without this information we may be unable to assess your eligibility for financial hardship. Once we have received the information, we will advise you within 7 days of your eligibility for assistance. When we reach an agreement we will put that in writing. You must inform us if your circumstances either improve or deteriorate during the agreement. The provision of false information is grounds to end any financial hardship arrangement.

Minimising your Debt

There are options available for minimising your debts and staying connected whilst managing your spending. Examples include:

• Call barring
• Plan change
• You can access the customer panel system via our website, which offers Account Management across all services such as checking your usage.

Further Options

You can talk to a financial counsellor from anywhere in Australia by ringing 1800 007 007 between 9:30AM and 4:30PM Monday to Friday. This free-call will connect you to the nearest financial counsellor in your state or territory; alternatively you can find counsellors near you and get more information on financial counselling by visiting https://moneysmart.gov.au/managing-debt/financial-counselling