This debt was confusing right from the start. I was expected to look back 6 years ago to my casual work that I was doing while studying? I can't remember 6 month ago let alone 6 years. What it ended up being was the confusion between my casual jobs at the time and how I had earnt so much in such little time (coming home every summer to work at my local supermarket on good casual rate with full time hours) and even though it wasn't within the letter that was sent out, apparently issues that had occurred in 2013 and 2015 also affected my debt amount. Nothing about it made sense. I felt like I needed an accounting degree to have even a small amount of knowledge.
I suffer from generalised anxiety and a letter from the government like this is exactly the poison that triggers my levels to spike. As a lot of 20 something's in Australia, I'm not the most wealthiest person, after travelling and living overseas and moving states so I had no dispensable money to be able to pay this supposed debt back. Living in Melbourne, means expensive rent and if I was made to pay this debt, it would have put me in the minus.
I called Centrelink quite distraught, and all in all they weren't horrible but not totally professional. I did have to talk to a rep for 2 hours, and in the end he stated he WAS able to get me off the debt. However, after saying he would let me know for sure by giving me a call on my mobile I haven't received any confirmation of this and I'm pretty worried it will come up again in the near future, or they'll just debit my money straight from my account.