I felt highly anxious and had a panic attack at work.

I received the debt notice the same time I was organising my finances for the Xmas period Having a debt in the thousands I realised I would have to make cutbacks where I wouldn't usually and would have to possibly loan money to get me through Christmas. Also with school holidays approaching it would be my Primary aged daughter who would pay the price as I wouldn't be able to take her to any fun activities that required an admission fee or extra costs.

I felt highly anxious and had a panic attack at work. I realised a week later I had made silly errors at work I wouldn't normally have made had I not been highly stressed and anxious.
I contacted my past employer from 2010/11 who sent me a payment statement within half hour of my request (which I was incredibly thankful for). I promptly uploaded it to the Mygov portal. I had only weeks earlier thrown out my payslips from 5+yrs ago thinking for legal and for tax purposes I no longer needed them, never did I anticipate I would be required to use them to prove something I was already innocent of.
Shortly after this I received 2 letters dated 28/11 and 29/11 stating I owed 3292.90 which included a recovery fee of $297.65.
On 30/11 I received a letter dated stating I now owed $88.14 which included a recovery fee of $8-
After my debt had been recalculated to $88.14, I paid this amount immediately, thankful I had gotten off lightly (for what, I still didn't understand and had no evidence of?!). I paid the amount using my debit card on the mygov portal and took a photo of the screen saying my payment was successful. For the next week I checked back into the mygov site and the due amount was still sitting there as outstanding. It wasn’t until a week later the site said there was nothing further owing and I breathed a sigh of relief. I had never lied to Centrelink about my working hours and if anything I had over estimated my employment income. I couldn't understand why they were targeting me when I had always dealt with them honestly and transparently.