You have contacted the Freedom of Information Team at the Commonwealth
Department of Education.  If your email relates to an FOI application made
under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Cth), the department will
respond as soon as possible.

This email address is only for applications for documents under the FOI
Act.  The department is unable to respond to non-FOI related enquiries
sent to this email address, and accordingly, emails sent to this email
address which are not FOI related will not be responded to or forwarded.
If you have a non-FOI related enquiry for the department, you can contact
the department by using the [1]online enquiry form. 

Regards,

Freedom of Information Team

Commonwealth Department of Education

Notice:

The information contained in this email message and any attached files may
be confidential information, and may also be the subject of legal
professional privilege. If you are not the intended recipient any use,
disclosure or copying of this email is unauthorised. If you received this
email in error, please notify the sender by contacting the department's
switchboard on 1300 488 064 during business hours (8:30am - 5pm Canberra
time) and delete all copies of this transmission together with any
attachments.

References

Visible links
1. https://www.education.gov.au/node/2600

OFFICIAL

Dear Mr O'Connor,

Thank you for contacting the Commonwealth Department of Education (the
department).

Based on the subject line of your email, the department understands that
you may wish to make a request under the Freedom of Information Act 1982
(FOI Act). Your request is in the following terms:

                "Ive been enrolled into a course which i have no recall
of. it has taken money out of my tax. Due to not knowing, i cannot found
out the organization or the course i was enrolled to. I wish to know why
and how this has happened. I never attended or signed any approval for
this. Apprently i was given a higher education loan. So i want to know
what happned and hopefully sort something out as i am paying for this."

I understand your enquiry to be about whether you owe a loan under the
Higher Education Loan Program (HELP) and, if so, you would like details
about this loan, including the name of the relevant provider. To assist
you obtain this information quickly and outside formal FOI processes, I
have provided details below on how you may check whether you have a HELP
loan and, if applicable, the value of the loan (e.g. how much debt you
have incurred). If relevant, I have also provided information about how to
dispute any VET FEE-HELP or VET Student Loans program debts recorded
against your name.

Obtaining the information administratively

Checking the detail of the debt/s recorded against your name

I am advised that you can check how much Commonwealth assistance has been
reported against your name and the details of the provider that reported
the information by logging on to the myUniAssist portal. To log in to
myUniAssist, you will need your Commonwealth Higher Education Student
Support Number (CHESSN). If you do not know your CHESSN, please email
[1][email address] to request your CHESSN, noting
that you will have to provide personal identifying information to verify
your identity before the department can release your CHESSN to you.

The myUniAssist portal will allow you to see the units of study that have
been reported by the provider against your CHESSN. The ‘FEE-HELP assisted
units’ tab in myUniAssist includes FEE-HELP, VET FEE-HELP and VET Student
Loan amounts. Under this tab you will also be able to see the associated
loan fees for each unit of study that has been reported against your
CHESSN.

Disputing a VET FEE-HELP or VET Student Loans program debt

If you believe the information listed on myUniAssist is incorrect and, if
the debt is for a VET FEE-HELP or VET Student Loans program, I am advised
you can direct your enquiry to the VSLO (VET Students Loans Ombudsman).
The role of the VSLO is to manage and investigate complaints regarding
both the VET FEE-HELP and VET Student Loans programs.

The VSLO is part of the Office of the Commonwealth Ombudsman and has its
own legal powers to investigate and deal with enquiries and complaints
about VET FEE-HELP or VET Student Loan approved providers. The VSLO also
investigates complaints under the new VET FEE-HELP Student Redress
Measures, which allow the Secretary of the Department of Employment,
Skills, Small and Family Business to re-credit a student’s eligible VET
FEE-HELP debt where it is reasonably likely that the debt was incurred
through the inappropriate contact of their VET providers.

You can contact the VSLO at [2]https://vet.ombudsman.gov.au/ or refer to
the VSLO factsheets at
[3]http://www.ombudsman.gov.au/publications...
for more information.

For more information about government assistance for financing tertiary
study, please visit the StudyAssist website:
[4]https://www.studyassist.gov.au/.

Proceeding with your FOI request

If, however, you would like to proceed with your FOI request, please
provide the department with some form of proof of identity, such as a copy
of a driver’s licence or birth certificate. Since you are requesting
access to personal information, we will use this document to verify your
identity. We note that you are using the Right to Know website and, as
such, all correspondence is published on the internet on that website.
Given this, you may wish to use a personal email address to provide any
proof of identity documentation, and for undertaking any further
correspondence with the department on this matter if required.  

Please also provide further information about the documents you are
seeking. The FOI Act provides applicants with a right to request access to
documents in the possession of an Australian Government agency, rather
than a general right to request information. To be a valid request under
the FOI Act, the request needs to provide enough information about the
document/s you wish to seek access to as is reasonably necessary to enable
the department to identify the document/s. Your request in its current
form does not provide enough information about the document/s you wish to
access and, accordingly, is not a valid request under the FOI Act.  

If you would like to proceed with your FOI request, please provide proof
of identity and more details about the document/s to which you seek access
by Monday 25 November 2019. If we do not hear from you by this date we
will assume that you do not wish to proceed with your FOI request and we
will take no further action in relation to your FOI request.

Please contact [5][email address] if you have any questions.

Regards,

Freedom of Information Team

Commonwealth Department of Education

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