After being hit with the initial letter I was left feeling extremely anxious and hopeless. I have aspergers and it’s extremely hard for me to communicate with people and stand up for myself. So, for me, paying it rather than fighting it was the only option.
After finishing uni I worked full time for a bit before it became to overwhelming, so now I’m working part time. I was constantly worried about how the weekly repayments to centrelink would effect my life since the minimum I could do was $60. This would have a huge impact on me financially. I spent weeks and weeks worrying about it. It added huge amounts of anxiety especially after I kept receiving calls from a debt collection company.
Terribly. Especially the way they’re taking advantage of and treating vulnerable people.
I’m luckily enough to have an amazing partner who disputed the claim on behalf of me.
After centrelink reviewed my $3200 debt, they realised they had actually counted it TWICE. Which means I (allegedly) only owed $1800... This was realised after my partner requested a review of my case. My partner then asked for proof of my overpayments, which they were unable to provide straight away so centelink paused the debt for 3 months. At the end of those 3 months my partner called up again and centrelink were still unable to provide proof. My partner then said we will not be paying anything until we have proof of the overpayments, to which centrelink responding by pausing the dent for another 6 months until next year in Feb 2020.....