You should lodge a dispute or get legal advice if you think your debt is in error.
Was phoned yesterday by centrelink, the young lady on the phone said, "I am averaging out your income across the year."
I have always earned very little, and have definitely been entitled to my centrelink payments as often i earn under $450 a fortnight.
Centerlink slapped me with a 3k fine/debt for a period I was overseas.
I arrived back in November 2013 from UK and claimed 2 new start payments only.
I have proof of this from bank statements which i opened with NAB on the 5th of November.
Centerlink gave me one month to provide them with payslips which I could not provide up until now.
I am now facing debt collection from Milton Graham.
I am very distressed and angry that this has happened
I have a 9 month old son, and Centrelink called me while I was putting him in the car.
He was crying and I was trying to do two things at once, I thought it was a scam and I told them to send me a letter if it was real and hung up on the person.
I then received a letter in the mail saying I owed a significant sum of money.
It was from 3 years prior when i was doing my nursing placement (which was working for free to get experience for 6 months).
Not eating or sleeping and effecting my parenting and working capabilities
In my case the ATO data was completely incorrect and it was easily fixed when I provided bank statements.
I'm sorry for everyone who is struggling to provide evidence.
The worst part of my experience was getting an automated message from Probe telling me Centrelink was taking legal action against me.
As far as I knew my case was still being assessed.
Both Centrelink and Probe denied this when I called but the whole process was incredibly stressful.
I haven't even been on centrelink for over a year, and they sent me letters a few months ago once I lodged my tax return saying that I need to update my employment details (as I moved to full time from casual)
I didn't think twice about this as I do not recieve centrelink payments nor have I for ages (I'm not even studying right now!!)
Stress, spending repeated half days on the phone after working long night shifts, zero consideration to this.
Making work very much harder due to sleep loss.
Being gaslighted repeatedly, supplying requested documentation then told it was not provided at a later date.
Affecting family time due to exhaustion, repeatedly.
Being dismissed routinely.
Basically being abused through constant debt intimidation, threats to cut daughters minimum only payments off repeatedly until the age of 22, single parent trying to make ends meet.
I had just come off night shift and when I got the call I just could not stop crying.
They initially told me it would be about 3000 but when I appealed they came back to say it was actually 4800 dollars that I DO NOT HAVE and gave me 2 weeks to pay it.
Are they serious?
Do you think every average joe has that in their back pocket?
It was disgusting
I couldn't sleep; not working to my full potential that night looking after acutely unwell people.
Apparently i owe them 2000 during 2016-2017 which is total crap considering i reported properly.
I cant afford to pay for something that i dont have to its hard enough to pay to live as it is.
The government needs to pull their heads out and stop taking money from the less fortunate.
I received my debt letter and contacted Centrelink to give them my pay slips as I never falsely reported and assumed this must have been a mistake
I then appealed my debt
The initial debt amount was sent just before Christmas, due at the end of December 2016.
Many others received notices at that time.
No ‘human’ consideration was shown in the timing of these demand letters. It was extremely stressful.
I spent around 15 hours on the phone and sourcing information to prove my case; that there was no debt.
I received numerous letters, calls and texts from debt collection agencies, letters of demand, and threats of ‘add on’ charges, if the amount was not paid.
I was initially told I owed close to $13,000.
Then the compliance line operator worked out that it was $2,300 - mind you, this was after I produced my payslips and had to chase them up to review them!
email received to my mum as she was dealing with my issues at the time, home detention, and stating i had a 3600 debt, what a joke as i couldn't work and was on home D, and the was subsequently suspended from centrelink because i started WORK again the idiots.
and the guy who i rang on 1800 dial a crook had all the details in front of him and i questioned the facts before him and had him a bit dumbfounded.
this was amusing to myself infact.
was required to supply payslips from nearly 4 years ago...... RIGHTIO.
i have some but not all.
Recieved a letter in the mail requesting payslips from various work I had during 2013-14 from when I was paid Newstart in between jobs.
Extremely stressful as I have not been on Centrelink for 4 years!
I can’t understand how they could figure this out when I report my earnings.
I feel disadvantaged as I get paid monthly, so this fortnight I might get $1200-1400 and next fortnight I might get $3000-4000 depending on the hours worked but they will just average it out as my payslip shows $4500-5500 for a month.
As over the month I have one short fortnight and one long fortnight. Do know what to do.
They’ve even contacted my employer and talking about prosecution.
As I work with money I’ll probably loose my job now too.
Got told my debt was being put on hold for 3 months whilst being ReAssessed.
I then got text messages from Probe Group which I deregarded as I thought they were a scam.
Turns out my debt was taken to the collection agency without my knowledge as the girl I spoke to 3 months earlier never put it on hold or applied for the ReAssesment.
I now have to wait another 3 months!!
Very stressed and is impacting both my work and personal well-being.
I initially had no idea about this debt as I had received no communications from Centrelink, even though the lady on the phone assured me they had sent 8 letters in the post (somehow I doubt that).
I had logged on to Mygov to check something for Medicare and I saw this debt notice in my inbox for $7407.
I immediately freaked out and called them, got it put on hold while i went hunting for my old payslips, which i finally managed to get and submit.
Whilst in medical school I received Austudy.
Additionally I worked on a casual basis as I needed to be able to pay for books, fuel, bills etc. as well as rent & food.
My income was declared, an exorbitant amount of tax was paid & I finally managed to graduate in December 2014.
Only a few months later I started to get phone calls from a debt collection agency demanding payment of $560, which had been supposedly "overpaid" to me.
None of this made any sense as I declared my income when I was getting it.
On the night before we moved house, the online letter arrived for my daughter.
The timing has added immeasurably to the stress.
As her nominee I am dealing with this insanely confusing and totally unexpected issue.