My Family Assistance was cut off with no warning in December 2016. There was nothing in the post, and so I checked the myGov website, which said that as I had not responded to Centrelink communications, my matter had been referred to debt collectors. Centrelink said my husband's salary sacrifice had led to him receiving a salary too high to keep me eligible for payments, even though he had sat down with Centrelink twice, and had been told both times that I was still eligible by Centrelink staff.
I feel distraught. I have Bipolar 1, at the most severe end of the spectrum. Not receiving any letters that I could dispute was disempowering. Centrelink contradicted their own advice to us without telling us meant that my husband couldn't rearrange his salary sacrifice details to minimise or even negate a potential debt. It means Centrelink have basically created a debt for me and cancelled my payments while my husband and I had been acting on their advice and assuming everything was fine. Suddenly the debt collectors were calling out of the blue immediately before Christmas. This is exactly the kind of stress that can crush bipolar sufferers.