About 6 weeks ago I applied for Austudy. Well, first they lost my paperwork and I had to re-lodge it. Ok, annoying, but not fatal. Very quickly after that I was approved, granted Austudy, a nice respectable sum each fortnight. Hooray, now I can afford dentists and optometrists and driving lessons!
Here is my own personal mistake: I completely forgot that I had to report Aidan's income to them every fortnight. I've never had to do it before, so it just slipped my mind. So yesterday I got a letter from Centrelink saying my Austudy had been canceled for lack of reporting. Ok, no worries, my fault. So I called them to report the income and get the payment re-instated.
"Oh, your husband's income is too high. You will not be getting any Austudy."
But WHAAAT?! It hasn't changed since I gained approval. Nobody at Centrelink seems to know quite what has happened, as apparently I should not have been granted Austudy at all in the first place.
So now I await their little investigation and a callback to tell me what the hell is going on. Am I special? Will I get any money? Or am I just another poor sod mislead by the misinformation machine? I'm tipping the latter...
3 comments:
Unfortunately they will probably make you pay back the money they gave you...sorry if they do. I've managed to rack up about a grand worth of Centrelink debt because of their stupid mistakes. Mainly when swapping from Parenting payment single to Parenting paymeny partnered. They actually put down the wrong partner and linked me to some strangers account! Again, no one knew what went wrong...
They just called me back. It is now confirmed that I should never have been approved, should never have gotten anything. In fact their records show that I never did get a payment, so I'll have to check back through my bank accounts to double check, because I thought I did get something. But if they ask me to pay anything back, they can go to hell - I gave them complete and accurate information, this screw-up is their fault.
I had that thought when they told me to pay back for their screw up and they don't care no matter how much I argued and explained my side of the story. If it goes on for long enough they will refer the debt to a collection agency and it all goes downhill from their. Heartless bastards they are.
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