I kept getting phone calls, a number i didn't recognise, 3-4 times a week. When i answered it would be prerecorded message, an American accent telling me I needed to contact some legal firm, when I called the number, i'd get another pre-recorded message.
It was blatantly a scam so I ignored the calls, I received a letter in the mail dated about a month earlier saying I had about a week to pay off my 851 dollar debt before centrelink would take legal action.
It was really stressful because looking through the payments, it didn't actually add up.
I hadn't reported a payment between the 60 days of my application being submitted and my application being approved, however I was never asked to report it either.
As a student in the middle of my semester at uni with other commitments, I didn't have the time or the financial capacity to argue it, so i reluctantly paid it feeling grateful that it was only 851 dollars that they were convinced they overpaid me.
I think it is disgusting.
Not one person contacted me to tell me i had a debt.
instead it was prerecorded messages, a letter to my centrelink account, which I had no need to access anymore, and a hard copy letter that took a month to arrive.
I still maintain that the debt was wrongfully issued.
They make us go through such stringent processes to even be entitled to the money in the first place, but when it comes to a debt, they can't get a single employee to run the numbers or to check if it should be issued or to contact the customer to ensure they know they have a debt.