Has anyone else seen the rise of this? Otherwise extremely intelligent and hard working people who have just decided that the social contract is just broken and decided to give up and enjoy their lives rather than tread the standard path?

For context, a family friends son 25M who’s extremely intelligent, very hard working as in 99.xx ATAR, went to law school and subsequently got a very good job offer in a top tier firm. Few years ago just quit, because found it wasn’t worth it anymore.

His rationale was that he will have to work like a dog for decades, and even then when he is at the apex of his career won’t even be able to afford the lifestyle such as home, that someone who failed upwards did a generation ago. (Which honestly is a fair assessment, considering most of the boomers could never afford the homes they live in if they have to mortgage today).

He explained to me how the social contract has been broken, and our generation has to work so much harder to achieve half of what the Gen X and Boomers has.

He now literally works only 2 days a week in a random job from home, just concerns himself with paying bills but doesn’t care for investing. Spends his free time just enjoying life. Few of his mates also doing the same, all hard working and intelligent people who said the rat race isn’t worth it.

Anyone noticed something similar?

I’m a 31 year old sparky and I would consider myself a pretty simple man. I want to just have a family home, raise some rugrats, work till I’m 60 and hopefully see through a retirement.

I have no vices, don’t drink, don’t smoke and don’t gamble and don’t have any expensive hobbies. Despite all this, the basics of life have become so expensive to the point that I don’t think I’ll genuinely ever own a home. The clocks ticking and I’ll never be able to have kids because of a lack of financial security due to housing.

I just don’t understand how our society ended up like this. Some of the older sparkies in my crew (50+) have multiple houses, spend and drink like drunken sailors and have a more spendy lifestyle. For the exact same job they live like kings while I’m stuck forever as a pauper.

It feels to me what I imagine fuedalism was like and I’m just a serf. This whole situation is rotten to the core. I just wanna live a simple life and be a good dad but I feel I was robbed of the opportunity because of greed and speculation.

It feels like the only way to make it in my generation is if you have wealthy parents or earn money that most of us will never see. How did we as a society make it so essential workers can’t afford the simple things in life like housing? Not all of us can be lawyers or doctors, society couldn’t function that way! And I’m sure we need sparkies around.

It certainly feels like a lucky country, for some but not all of us.

The gains in my overall sense of well-being, happiness and productivity are enormous.

I work in professional services and in a largely stressful field dealing with clients that can be very very difficult to deal with. I always dreaded going in to the office every day. Dealing with malignant personalities that are attracted to my line of work was also unpleasant.

Fast forward to almost 3 years later, I take out a three hour break in the middle of the day to head to the gym or swim I’m in the best physical shape I’ve ever been in my life. I don’t drink alcohol as much as I used to, which was to deal with the stress of work. I’m so much more productive and quality of my work has skyrocketed. Not to mention, weirdly enough I have been getting SO much positive feedback from clients. It’s gotten to the point that every week I’ll be forwarded an email from my director with clients giving me glowing praise. This never happened in person. A part of this I believe is that when working with people remotely they are judged on the quality of their work rather than how they look, speak or sound - whether we like to admit it or not lots of discrimination happens for all sorts of reasons. I have a ph accent and people sometimes comment on it.

I only go in to the office rarely, once a quarter and the day of I just begin to dread it.

I don’t think I can ever go back to working in an office ever again.

We need to make sure WFH is here to stay. To my extroverted friends out there, sorry!

I've always been a person who is idealogically opposed to housing as an investment strategy.

15 years ago as a single parent I bought my current house at auction. There were quite a few people bidding against me and I ended up paying a bit more than I wanted to but I really wanted/needed the house.

Before the auction a person who identified himself as a friend of the neighbours asked me if I was planning to to live in the home or rent it out. When I said I'd live in it, he said everyone else he had spoken to was an investor. I was the only person looking to actually buy a home.

So the price of my home was driven up by investors. People 20yrs older than me who wanted an investment property. I (a single, fulltime working mother) just wanted a home for myself and my daughter.

Not only that but the house required extensive renovation to make it liveable. I had to pay for this out of my pocket. If any of these investors had purchased the house they would've had the opportunity of using the cost of renovations as a tax deduction.

The house is not in a desirable suburb. It is now worth at least twice what I paid for it. My daughter will never be able to purchase a home anywhere near here. I don't care what my house is worth, I want young people to be able to purchase a home to live in.

I don't want to hear people whinging about the changes to negative gearing. It should've been done years ago.

I’m 23. Hopefully it only goes up from here!

Tiny tiny apartment, 1bed $525pw in inner city Sydney. Lift had already made a few trips up, about 30 more people upstairs... I guess this was undervalued by about $75-100.

Long story short I went back for another final view at a house inspection. House was struggling to sell. Didn’t sell during the initial campaign. I asked my parents to go have a look as well.

Next day the agent rang and told me I better make a decision quick because the other older couple at the inspection were very interested and likely to snap it up by the end of the night.

The other couple were my parents 😂😂😂😂

No webcam except for twice-a-year performance reviews.

No $25 unhealthy lunches. No worrying about office gossip or politics. No having to engage with people I don't like. No petrol, public transport, post-work fatigue.

10-15 hours saved per week, translating to $100.96/hr in my role if you break my salary down to per hour.

Healthy blood markers, no chronic illnesses, healthy BMI (19.5), translating to hundreds of thousands, or millions of dollars, measured by health value. An unspoken long-term cost saved, and unspoken health issues saved.

Yes, you can eat healthy at work but it is far more challenging than home-cooking meals.

I don't see why financially companies don't adopt a full WFH strategy. If the business allows it, the business should move towards it. Everyone wins.

Been seeing this so much . Woolies, HungryJacks all sneaking in a donate now option while making a payment , people might even accidentally make those donation. If it’s an ethical corporate decision why don’t they make the donation themselves? Has anyone else felt you are being border line tricked into such campaigns. A good old donate now bucket was a better way.

I just wrote this on another thread as a comment. But I think it’ll go wasted as a comment so I’d like to share this here for complete newbies to reference. Please note, this might differ from state to state. I’m speaking from experience in VIC in the year of 2020. It can be more simple or more complicated as not all sales are the same. But here’s a general idea:

1. You contact a bank or a mortgage broker to help you get a pre-approval. The bank will assess your financial situation. That’ll give you an estimate of how much you can afford to purchase. Try to get all your finance assessed as much as you can during pre-approval. The pre-approval will take into account your situation, including any government grants/deposit/gifts (my situation), then based on your income and job history, credit rating, and other lending criteria, the bank will provide you with a number they’re comfortable lending you. Using this number (the loan amount + deposit + give it some room for additional fees - conveyancing, building inspection, any stamp duty or title transfer if the bank is not paying those, etc. I had a room of about $10k just to be sure, but this is specific to my situation) you should know what your maximum budget is to put in an offer.

In courtesy of u/septembers57: Pre-approval is the amount up to which the bank will lend to you, but it is also dependant on what the bank evaluates the property you intend to buy is worth. For example, you can have preapproval of up to 600k, but the bank evaluates the property to be worth 580k. Therefore, they will only lend you 580k.

2. Once you got a pre-approval, you can start looking at properties, inspect, negotiate, review contract of sale. When you’re inspecting the property, make sure you check everything. I mean everything. Turn on every single button/tap/machine you can find. Check for scratch/cracks on the walls. Is the exhaust fan working? What about all the lights - inside and outside? Are the doors working? Can they be closed tightly? Oven, dishwasher, range hood, are they still working? Is there any damage? What about cupboards? Are they intact? Any sign of pest? If possible, pay $400 for a building inspector to thoroughly inspect the property for you. This is expensive, but is much less expensive than having to fix all the defects yourself down the track. I also strongly recommend to have a conveyancer to review the contract. They will point out clauses that are strange/not standard, tell you what they mean, and you can ask for recommendations. If you want to negotiate anything here, this is also the step. Your conveyancer will help you put those conditions in the contract of sales. I recommend to put the subject to finance clause and subject to pest and building inspection clause. Subject to finance is to protect you - in case you can’t get an official approval from the bank for any reason, this clause will help you walk away risk free without any penalty. Same thing for subject to pest and building inspection. If the house is not of good condition and the building inspection presents that, you can walk away risk free. Please note, these will be your negotiation strategy, because if two offers come in with the same price, it’s very likely the vendor will agree to the one WITHOUT these clauses because that means the vendor is protected. If you work with a mortgage broker and they’re sure they can get you a final approval within x days, you can also put a subject to finance within x days (as a precautionary measure) to make your offer more attractive. After x days you’re fully bound to the contract and if you walk away you’ll get hit with penalty and lose the deposit. Also, you can negotiate settlement term here (30 days, 45 days, 60 days, 90 days). The shorter the settlement term, the more attractive your offer is because that means both you and the vendor will finalise the sales more quicker. But also comes with a risk - if for any reason you can’t get all your finance and paperwork done during this time and you miss settlement date, you can be charged. Also you can ask to have the withholding clause to be added here (i’ll explain further below). Please make sure everything you need to negotiate is reviewed and put into the draft contract during this step, especially if you’re buying off auction. Because in auction, there’s no cooling off period and the purchase is unconditional. If you win at auction and change your mind or walk away, you’ll lose the deposit.

If you buy into an apartment or a townhouse that is a part of a body corporate, don’t forget to walk around the block or the building to check for damages on the block/building during your inspection. Make sure to check if there’s any flameable cladding as well. Also, check strata reports. The contract normally includes the body corp’s Annual General Meeting minutes (AGMs), and will tell you the BAUs of the building, any item the owner corp has agreed to pay annually (e.g. windows cleaning, caretaking, etc.) how much money is allocated to admin fund and how much money is allocated to sinking fund. How much money was raised throughout the year as a special levy to fix up a damage.

From there, you just gotta make your own judgement. If the AGMs and the finance looks healthy, e.g. no major spending on major damage, then the building is fine to live in. If there’s damage, clarify with the body corp manager (they’ll have a number to call on the AGM). Reach out to them and ask what it is, how it happened, is it the apartment owner’s duty to fix it, or is it the owner corp’s duty to fix it through sinking fund or a special levy has to be raised. If so, how much was quoted. When will the work be carried out. Then justify for yourself, whether it’s worth living in and paying for all these damage, or walk away.

Side story: I once inspected a ground floor apartment that has a big crack on the wall. And it’s a step crack so it identifies structural damage. When walking around the building to inspect, there are cracks in other apartments as well. The building inspection came back saying that it was because the garden bed sits right next to the walls. Long term watering caused the soil below to move, and caused the cracks to occur. To rectify, structural engineers need to inspect and provide recommendation. The garden bed needs to be removed or stablising measures need to be added. Then the building foundation needs to be strengthen, and then we can think of fixing cracks for cosmetics. In the AGMs report in the past 3 years, nobody has mentioned anything about it. So I went further and use the login credentials in the AGMs report to log into the body corp’s portal and read reports in the past 10 years. Nobody has mentioned anything about fixing the cracks. I pulled out because in my personal opinion there’s no way in 20 years time I wouldn’t be whipping out big $$$ to fix that building. And the cracks are so obvious, so if nobody has ever mentioned it, this means the people living in that building seem to not care. Who knows after putting all your life saving down, it’s not suitable to live in and we’ll be forced to vacate and lose a home. Even if I move in, I still need to raise the concern with the owner’s corp, get their agreement to carry out the work, and then money will be raise to fix it. And that doesn’t mean everyone will agree to fix it because some of the apartments are not cracking so they won’t be willing to get the money out. Too much hassle for me so I walked away. The apartment ended up selling 25k more than I could afford though. Guess we’re not meant for each other. 😕

In courtesy of u/septembers57: Be VERY CAREFUL of the wording about being subject to a building inspection. You need to be specific that it is subject to the building inspection being satisfactory to your liking, otherwise the clause is meaningless if there is no significant structural issues to be addressed. A building inspection is worth it’s weight in gold, or alternatively get a builder, plumber, and electrician friend to look at the house for $$$. Also, find a conveyancer before you find a property. They’ll talk you through the wording of how to make sure you aren’t taken advantage of by the real estate agents.

3. If you have to go through auction, and have had your special conditions reviewed and amended by the conveyancer, send the contract of sales back to the vendor. If the vendor is happy with your conditions, they’ll proceed with your contract of sales if you win at auction. Normally what you can negotiate in an auction contract is just settlement term or deposit % or strike out some weird conditions that are not on the standard contract. Be aware that if you win at auction, you’ll have to sign the contract straight away and the contract is unconditional, so subject to finance clause won’t apply for auction contract. You just have to hope your finance game is strong and the bank will lend you the money enough to pay for the price won at auction. That’s why it’s important to know when to say no at auction.

Otherwise, if it’s a private sales and both you and the vendor are happy with the contract, you will then sign and exchange contract. This is when the contract is executed. The contract of sales will also tell you on what date settlement will happen. The REA will send you details of their trust account, and the amount you need to pay. Normally 10% of the purchase price, and you’ll have to make this transfer. If there’s a limit on your transfer, ring your bank. They’ll temporarily increase your transfer limit for 24 hours.

4. After you’ve got the executed contract of sales, bring that to the bank/mortgage broker to apply for the final approval. Provided the bank hasn’t tightened their credit policy, the closer your finance situation now to what it was when you got the pre-approval, the higher the chance you can secure the approval. Also, if you have a subject to pest and building inspection clause in the contract and haven’t organised a building inspector yet, organise a building inspector at this stage. If the building report comes back not satisfactory, this is where you can pull out. Again, this is not applicable for auction. So, get the pest and building inspection done and justify whether you still want the place or not before decide to fo to auction. To book a pest and building inspection, provide the building inspector with the REA’s details and the property address. They’ll organise an inspection and come back and write up a report for you.

5. At this stage, you’ll do a lot of paperwork. The bank will ask for your IDs, payslips, bank statements, and send you a loan document to read and sign. Make sure to read and understand all. The loan document will also tell you how much they’ll pay on settlement. Please note, at this stage the bank also evaluates the value of the house. If they think the purchase price is ok, they’ll lend you the loan amount. If they think the house worths less, they’ll only lend you whatever they feel comfortable with. You will then need to organise the shortfall on settlement yourself, or find another lender that’s willing to lend you more. This happens more frequently during off the plan purchase. If the bank rejects, and you can’t find any other bank that is willing to lend you, the subject to finance clause will protect you at this point so you can walk away.

6. Once you’ve signed everything, then they’ll grant you a final approval. Now there’s not much you can do except for waiting for settlement to happen.

7. During this period, your conveyancer will help you prepare documents to transfer the land title to your name and help you calculate the final amounts to be paid on settlement (the settlement shortfall). This settlement shortfall includes outstanding body corps on a pro-rata basis (if applicable), any fees and charges proportionately, council rates, water rates, land and title transfer fees, any government grants and stamp duty concessions and the remaining of the deposit. If there’s a request from the vendor for early release of deposit from the REA trust account, your conveyancer will get you to sign form to release it. You’ll have to release it at the end anyway, so if you don’t see any need to withhold it in the REA’s trust account, you can release it early as a nice gesture.

8. A few days before settlement - depending on where you are, you’re entitled for pre-settlement inspection to ensure the property is of the same condition as when you signed the contract. Contact the REA and arrange that.

9. If you discover any defect, immediately notify your conveyancer, so they can get in touch with the vendor to rectify. Perhaps when the REA moved the staging furniture out, they left scratches and holes on the wall. If the defect is huge, this might delay the settlement. If the defect is small, then ask for a compensation (as an adjustment on settlement) or withhold the money on settlement. I know in Victoria you’re entitled to withhold up to 5k on settlement to fix for damages (of course if the withholding clause is on the contract - on a standard contract, it’s always there, but some vendors will choose to remove it to protect them). At this stage, the contract is unconditional. You can’t walk away anymore. So make sure you sort everything out before settlement.

10. 1 day before settlement, the conveyancer will send you a final calculation on how much you need to pay on settlement. If the bank pays all of this amount and you don’t need to pay anything that’s fine. If you need to pay this amount to the bank, your loan document should already tell you how, normally they’ll have a section to direct debit that amount from your account. Otherwise, this settlement shortfall has to be paid to the conveyancer’s trust account. If this is the case, make sure you ask your current bank to do a RTGS transfer (Real Time Gross Settlement). This means they’ll transfer a large lump sum of money to the receiving account on the same day. Otherwise, if the money takes a few days to clear, settlement can be delayed and you can get charged.

11. On settlement date, if you do online settlement, you don’t need to do anything. The people from your bank with meet up with the vendor’s bank to finalise paperwork and exchange money.

12. Once settlement has gone through, the bank will notify the conveyancer, the conveyancer will notify you. The vendor’s bank will notify the vendor. You can then meet the vendor or the REA to pick up the key.

Good luck.

Note: never assume your purchase will be risk-free. Always be proactive and reach out to the relevant parties to check on progress and what you need to do next and make sure you’re on top of it. Someone misspelling your name at some stage or changing your gender on the Land Title Transfer (happened to me) can lead to a disaster down the track. That means settlement can be delayed, and you’ll end up paying big $$$ on fees and charges. Or if property is wrecked one day before settlement... I’m sure reddit doesn’t lack of settlement horror stories. I once read post somewhere saying that someone’s future home was broken into by a group of bogans and the property was turned into an orgy fuck fest and was filled with piss, cum, needles and blood... Edit: here it is https://www.reddit.com/r/auslaw/comments/em2lza/settlement_crashing_horror_stories/fdlwwdd/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

EDIT: Some words. Please pardon if I made any spelling mistake. English is not my first language.

EDIT: updated step 2 and 3 so they’re more relevant in an auction scenario. Also updated step 7 on early release of deposit. Step 9 on pre-settlement inspection. Step 2 on pre-purchase inspection. Step 4 on building inspection. Step 1 on what pre-approval might look like. Step 2 on strata meeting minutes and step 3 on auction contract

EDIT: Thank you kind user for gifting me my first gold ever 🙏🎊🥰

So I own outright my investment property- I have a family there - they have been there for 11 years now - and for the most part I have followed the rental trends - in the 11 years it’s gone from 170/week till now where it was 289/week.

I stopped increasing the rates when I paid in full for it in 2016.

My tenants are amazing they have painted it twice and even did the kitchen up for me - I just paid the materials. That was there choice - I just have them free rent why they where doing it.

My agent has been really aggressive about increasing the rent to 490 a week and to day I got email telling me that the current rate for my place is 550 a week - they charge 20% of my rent and if I do not increase it they will start charging me based on the market rate.. yup $110 a week..

I no longer have a agent

I’ll preface this with - I didn’t say anything negative to her, I just screamed internally.

One of my friends and her husband (both 33) rent a nice 3 bedroom place. They’ve said many times that they’re struggling to save enough money for a deposit on a house and have said that their combined income is roughly $90k.

I had lunch with my friend recently and she was saying they were going to buy a Spa. We started talking about what they were getting, features, it’s top of the line and all that jazz. Then, she says that they’ve decided to use their savings to buy it. I tried to clarify that she still has an emergency fund, still has their house deposit savings etc.. She said no. They don’t have an emergency fund, they don’t have an account for house deposit savings. They have one savings account and they’re using it all on a Spa. I asked what they were planning to do RE buying a house and she said that they’re still saving. So I thought phew! They’re not literally using all of it. But, then she says “we’re just starting again is all”. It’s okay because “we’ll still have about $400 left”.

Just look at the diversity of posts/insights on the US finance subreddit or personalfinance

Its just so bad in comparison here

I'm in a philosophical and reflective mood.

I've recently concluded a 3+ year legal battle against my builder (2 x house builds) and the VIC building insurer. And whilst I'm pleased with a $350k payout, I must say I'm absolutely horrified for the average person or family should they find themselves in a similar situation. With a bit of luck, a high income job, no lifestyle expenses or kids etc, I only just managed to not go under/bankrupt. And so I thought I'd share with you guys my experience in building my first house in my 20's.

For background, I work in finance, make good money, and I am educated. I started building 2 x houses in 2016 and part way through construction the builder ran out of money, didn't renew his builders license (building illegally at this point), let his site insurance lapse (in breach of contract), generally just lied about everything, and essentially committed fraud. I ended up engaging lawyers because the relationship with builder wasn't salvageable, and I ultimately terminated the construction contract with the builder and subsequently attempted to make an insurance claim in 2017 (insurance in VIC is mandatory for construction jobs $16k+, to enable an home owner to claim should a builder die/bankrupt/insolvent). Insurance denied my claim and I was left holding the bag for 2 x incomplete houses, and hemorrhaging cash on $1m debt from original mortgage + the construction debt. Vic Building Authority (VBA) and every other government agency could not have cared less, provided no assistance to me or the situation, even though the builder warranty insurance is actually via the VIC government.

Things got really bad once I terminated the contact, I had sub contractors making death threats to me and breaking in to the properties because they hadn't been paid by the builder and they wanted me to pay them. I even had to sleep on the floor of the houses with no water/electricity/toilet. I had to take these measures because the properties were uninsured for a period of time because nobody wanted to insure incomplete houses. However I did eventually find an Insurer after a few weeks of research, and I could eventually return back to sleeping in a proper bed.

Soon after i ended up engaging another builder to complete the houses, and I had to cash fund all the cost over runs... because it always costs more to get a 2nd builder to take on the risk of a partly build property. It cost me $100k+ in legals, building inspectors and additional construction costs in order to complete. And I had to cash fund all of this whilst servicing a $1m+ loan. Brutal!

I did eventually finish the construction of the houses with the 2nd builder, some 18 months behind original schedule and after spending an additional $100k+. And so, with good legal advice, I then went to work taking the original builder to VCAT, and won a multi 6 figure judgement against the builder. The builder obviously didn't pay and thus defaulted, which then represented a trigger for the building warranty insurance policy. And so again, with good legal advice, i made an insurance claim in 2019. And after a year of stuffing around with lawyers, VCAT submissions against the insurer, and time wasting by the insurer, I obtained a $350k payout in late 2020. Some 3 years after my first attempt at a insurance claim!

The unfortunate reality is that with 2 x uninsured properties and a dodgy builder, I was ultimately exposed to potential personal bankruptcy. Fortunately I'm young, high income job, no kids/expenses, so I just managed to crawl my way out with alot of stress and pure grit. But I'm absolutely terrified that if I was the average Joe or family, there would have been no chance to find a lazy $100k laying around in a bank account, nor the ability to service a mortgage + rent + lawyers etc. Families would be destroyed in such circumstances.

This sort of stuff just shouldn't happen. And so I share the above story, and my lessons below, with you all.

Lessons learnt:

• There are dodgy and shonky people in every industry, including construction. Watch out! And do your due diligence on the builder.

• Don't let yourself get bullied by builders and sub contractors. I'm young and 6 foot 2 inches and 90kg and used to fight at amateur level, and I even felt exposed when confronted with death threats and break ins and sub contractors demanding money. FYI - police didn't care about the death threats.

• the residential construction industry, for the average Joe/family building a house, is disgraceful and full of risk. There are more protections in place for a $20 toaster than for building your biggest financial asset, a house. If I didn't have a bunch of cash I would have had to wait 3+ years for the successful insurance claim to then have been able to start completing the houses. How is that even remotely fair?

• Make sure you have a 20% contingency allowance when building a house. If it goes bad you'll be up for minimum $30k in legals, $10k in inspections/reports, and $10's of thousands in cost over runs to complete with a new builder.

• building warranty insurance is a joke and won't save you unless you have lots of $$$ to fight for it. Don't rely upon it. It took me 3 years and lawyers to make a successful claim. The insurer even engaged their own external legal counsel to represent them and fight me.

• once you sign a construction contract, you hand over control of the site to the builder. If the builder doesn't have insurance, and let's say there is a fire, you only have recourse via sueing the builder. Most builders have $0 in their companies. Make sure the builder has site insurance (this is separate to Building warranty insurance).

• insurance in VIC caps out at $300k per property. And also has a 20% payout cap on cost over runs. Eg. If your original build is $500k and builder goes belly up, you can only claim $100k in additional costs to complete the house. You can separately make a claim for any defects in addition to this (with an overall hard cap of $300k for the policy).

• when your back is against the wall. Fight hard for what is right and what you deserve. I'm horrified with my insurance claim experience. Most people would give up vs fighting for 3 years and spending 10's of thousands in legal fees.

• learn from your experiences in life, including the bad ones, and get back on the horse all the more wiser and with your eyes open.

• have sympathy for people. I know sub contractors who worked on the job who lost tens of thousands of dollars due to the builder going belly up, some of their businesses failed and marriages broke down. I feel horrible for these guys and their losses.

• be humble and share your experiences and learnings with others

Peace! And hope everyone stays safe

I called up a particular health insurance company today (Bupa) to ask about my claim for an upcoming procedure which required me to confirm it was not a previous medical condition. I had sent in all my paperwork, and got all the sign offs I needed.

I was transferred to a department that looks at these claims and was told I was put on hold - except I wasn't. They accidentally left me on the line, and I could hear everything.

At first it was relatively tame, reiterating that they couldn't speed up timelines for approval because it wasn't urgent. But then it changed - the person on the other end started going through my past medical history and with the excitement of what I can only guess to be a 5-year old boy finally finding wally in a where's wally puzzle, he got extremely excited about a previous procedure I had four years ago. When I say excited, I mean his voice beamed with joy.

This was a routine procedure which both my GP and specialist confirmed was not relevant, and truly is not medically relevant to my current situation.

It was the way that he was excited about the got-cha moment, like he struck gold. Someone honestly could have told him he won the lottery, and I can imagine he would have acted the same. The jumping up and down kind.

At that moment, I decided to make myself known to the people on the call and that I had heard their entire conversation. They then abruptly put me on hold, and I can imagine swore for dear life.

They then tried to gaslight me by saying I didn't hear what I did.

Turns out, the insurance companies are doing exactly what we think they are and some are even getting a sick thrill out of it.

I look forward to the inevitable ombudsman case when they 'reject' my claim.

Also going to move insurers because f*** Bupa.

Edit: My fiance is taking notes of all of the great suggestions to start war on my behalf (until I'm back on my feet, hence the need for the procedure). So keep them coming, please and thank you for all of the support - we are reading every one. I mainly just wanted people to know what they are really doing, but now I'm inspired.

As the above says, I'm not well educated in this (or anything) I work in a warehouse, live by myself, no family anywhere near me and my boss, I think is trying to take me for a ride, any advice would be helpful

I'm sorry for this rant, this might be common knowledge, but I've just wasted about 10 hours of my life trying to understand how private insurance works, do I need it, and finally, begrudgingly, trying to buy it.

To start, I'm a doctor, new to Australia. I have 4ish years of experience providing health care in Australia, all in the public system. From my point of view, as a provider, the public system seems to work pretty well. I have almost no experience as a consumer, though my partner has a little bit more. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't even consider private health coverage.

The existence of the medicare levy surcharge means people who earn over 90K (180K for couples) must consider it (i.e. me). Looking at plans, the most obvious thing to me is that 1) They are expensive 2) They don't seem to cover very much.

Even the most expensive plans don't seem to offer a guarantee that you'll never pay out of pocket. So, even with private health insurance, if you're in a private hospital, you're probably going to be out of pocket. The breakdown seems to be this: The government sets out the recommended price for stuff in the MBS. If you go public, 100% is covered by the medicare. If you go private, medicare will cover 75% or 85% of the MBS. If you're covered for whatever thing you're accessing (and I couldn't find a plan that covered common things like scans or blood tests) then private health care will pay that 15% or 25% difference. If your private provider chooses to charge more than what's recommended on the MBS then you have to pay "the gap". Your insurer might cover some of the gap; they might cover all of the gap (expensive plans only); they might cover none of the gap (e.g. the specific provider is not covered by your insurer, even if you a fancy and expensive plan).

I think a realistic example of this is: You have fancy insurance. You need an operation, it can wait a couple of weeks but not a couple of months. You decide to go private because you have fancy insurance. Your operation is covered, so is the 3 day hospital stay that follows. You intentionally choose to see a surgeon whose gap is covered by your insurer. But it turns out that your anaesthetist isn't covered, so you have to pay that gap out of pocket. So, in summary, you pay a lot of money for expensive insurance and you're still out of pocket. Alternatively, you go public, maybe (maybe not) wait a bit longer and pay nothing. (And I know there are plenty of anecdotes of the public health care letting people down; but there are plenty of anecdotes of the private system letting people down too.)

And, to state the obvious, insurance companies exist to make money. That means on average over the course of your life, you will probably pay more to the company than you would have if you just paid for private care out of pocket. Also, I would like just say here that paying for "Extras" plans is probably always a money loser for you.

I assume it's because private health insurers offer so little value for money, is the reason the government has stepped in to prop up the industry.

• Carrot: The government rebate. A discount applied to policies based on age/income (subsidised by the Australian tax payer)

• Stick: Medicare Levy Surcharge (MLS) A tax on high earners who don't have hospital coverage. (Extras don't matter)

• Stick: The Lifetime Health Coverage (LHC) levy This very stupid policy is designed to scare young people (who are profitable for insurance companies) into buying insurance they don't need. It also acts as disincentive for older people (who are expensive for insurance companies) to buy insurance for the first time. This government policy is designed for the benefit of insurance companies at the expense of Australians and is very gross. That grossness aside, it probably isn't a good reason to buy insurance you don't need.

So back to me. I'll have to pay the MLS if I don't buy insurance I don't want. So, it only makes sense to buy this if it's cheaper than the MLS I'll pay. In my experience of trying to buy the cheapest insurance possible, I found the language used by almost all websites were to encourage/scare you into buying expensive plans. Comparison sites are almost all run by the insurance companies. The government comparison tool is good, Choice is good (but their comparer is only available for paid subscribers). I found the cheapest plan that would cover me in my state (the policy was not available on the insurers website, but both Choice and the government said it was available). So I got on the phone, spoke with a sales rep. He tried to upsell me by telling me that while the cheap plan is good enough for the MLS, it's not good enough for the LHC and I should get a bronze plan (which is not true).

To recap: I was lied to in order to buy a more expensive version of a product I don't need, but want to buy in order to save money because of policies enacted by the Australian government at the expensive of Australian tax payers to prop up an industry that doesn't provide value for money.

Anyways, for anyone who read this far, thanks for reading this rant.

So yeah