Go to top of page

Welcome to govCMS

#NotMyDebt Shared Stories

My Sister is Being Robbed

My sister, who is a single mother of two young boys received a bill for $20,000 and another for $1,700.
These debts have arisen from 2011 until now. No mention of how the bill got so high.

She was informed one fine related to her youth allowance, and the bigger to her parenting payments.

She is anxious, stressed, depressed and struggling to pay her bills. They 'kindly' removed the recovery fee, but have made no moves to our knowledge to go back over her bank statements or make any moves on her appeal.

Didn't even know until my tax return disappeared

I found out I had a debt when my tax return was garnished in 2018.
My partner and I had just had our first child, I also moved house (rent more expensive than my last), and I started a new job (paying less than my previous job), suffice to say, we were under a heck of a lot of pressure, both emotionally, physically and financially.
I had a small tax return of about $500 I was expecting - enough to just help a little with the expense we had just had to wear.

Straight up heartless pricks.

I broke both my legs and was in a wheelchair for months and I work as a chef I had to prove I wasn't working, and told me that I declared that I made $0 that year which is a lie gave me $5500 debt I asked for evidence several time with no success.

Might I add I've work all my adult life first time I really need centerlink then I worked my arse off to be able to walk again and earn my money just to get back to work.

$28k, this debt is SOUL CRUSHING!

I was hit with 3 debts.
Two from way back in 2011-2012, apparent over payment of newstart allowance due to my "incorrect reporting" & another debt from 2015 occuring due to me not declaring my partnership date correctly WHICH I ABSOLUTELY DID!!! Totaling $28,000!!!!

Ive already paid off $8k. Ive appealed all the debts, 2 have been dealt with. Resulting in $5k being knocked off due to admitted fault on centrelinks part for "doubling up"?!
What the hell does that mean?!

Tax refund taken

I lost my tax refund without due notice of the debt.
No one is giving me any reasonable response and when I have appealed under info given — so told info supplied was wrong.
Where is this ok? ARO supported decision but did not address my reasons — merely quoted Acts about overpayments.
If they are not listening to reasons — what is the purpose of the ARO?
Have gone to AAT with all the reasons including incorrect information.

Keep Fighting!

I received a debt letter in 2016 and have been fighting it ever since.
When I submitted payslips in 2017 I heard nothing back until recently (2019) when I requested a review of the 9k I supposedly owed.

I lost the review and they increased the amount to 11k and took my tax return.

Here we go again!!

As a single parent, I have always been grateful for the assistance given me that was not forthcoming from my child's father.
I have always worked part time and diligently declared my earnings so such a scenario never arose!!

My son gained part time employment as soon as he was old enough and I encouraged the same diligence in his reporting.
To no avail - he was investigated by Centrelink MANY years later.

Going under, I have spent all of my saved retirement money

For most of my working life my wife was my daughters carer, in 2012 her health had deteriorated to the point that Centrelink wouldn't allow her to be carer anymore.
I was forced to retire and look after both my daughter and my wife, for a time my son helped but he was able to find full time work. Caring for both of them with rising bills I burnt through a retirement payout of $30,000 in the first 4 years, and was forced to seek some type of employment.

This is theft

This is the second time I have been given a Robo Debt. The first time was for $12,000. I disputed it and have now received this.
I woke in the middle of the night to an email sent at 12:46am saying that I owe money as I was overpaid when I received Youth Allowance back in 2017.

I cried. I have been under so much stress for unrelated things. I am moving interstate for work. I just paid off all of my credit card debt last week. I thought I could just focus on saving but now I have this. I feel so stressed, my head is spinning. I can barely afford to live as it is.

My daughter

Contacted business that is supposed to keep Pay slips 7 yrs.
No, business sold.
ANZ bank account closed in 2016 and unable to get Bank statements.
Daughters health at all time low, struggling to make ends meet & Centrelink making her repay money she doesn't owe not have.

How could this be correct?

I got one debt & so far Centrelink has taken $8,257 in repayments towards the debt with an outstanding amount of $9,183 but then they hit me with another debt of $2,662.

They said both debts are because I didn’t declare my income correctly but I don’t know why this wasn’t picked up when I did my tax returns.

It’s affected me on so many levels,
Financially as I’m a single parent working a casual job just trying to get ahead.

Very Stressful

This debt has been extremely hard on me mentally.

I am so stressed out all the time about paying this off and raising three children on my own without a permanent job.

Unknown incurred debt

This has been an incredibly stressful event that I have no control over. It has left me shaken and in tears multiple times.

Now I am reflecting it could have been a better option to be homeless and not on welfare while I was studding to avoid this debt.
This is NOT human services this is punishing the lowest income earners with debt. How can someone incurre a debt over five thousand dollars and not be aware or notified.

Fighting the Averaging Calculation

This is very stressful, and quite embarrassing to have to tell people, especially previous employers.
I am lucky in that my alleged debt amount is fairly low, and if Centrelink can prove that I do owe the money I can actually pay it. I just don't agree with the way the Department of Human Services is going about it.

Family Tax Scam

Honestly, I am grateful that I have the opportunity to be able to appeal the amounts but I am so horribly stressed as to the outcome. I have two children under 5 to support. I hid the debt from my partner for such a long time because I was embarrassed that I had made so many mistakes that would cost us this amount of money. We are trying to save for a home but I doubt this will happen now. It had put such a large strain on both my relationship with my husband and my mental health.

Jumping through hoops

I was working one day a week, meeting with a job agency one week and Centrelink the other week. I handed payslips in to the job agency, where they were scanned and added to my file. I applied for jobs, I trialed at a few, during which I did not get paid. Three years later, and three years off payments, I get the debt letter. I was young, and very scared of what all this meant. Even though I knew I did everything right, I still had this large sum of money I was told I had stolen from Centrelink.

Debt Appealed and found incorrect

Receiving the letter, I felt a sense of doom. Yes I am now working full time and my financial situation has improved, but not too the point where I had a spare $900 to give them on demand.

Debacle of calculations and contacts

Firstly I had a series of 'silent number' calls with a fuzzy message but heard "human services" and to press 1, which then went dead. After two of these I called Centrelink who had no messages on my file and suggested they were hoax calls and to ignore them. After another two I called again and eventually got put though to the Compliance Team who said there was a discrepancy between my tax return and income claimed.

View more #notmydebt stories