Just got a letter from Centrelink saying they're witholding 20% of our childcare rebate to repay a debt. A debt that we don't owe, that they have confirmed on the phone we don't owe, and that we have called about THREE TIMES.
That's $45 a week for us. We can deal (at least, we can now, while I'm still working), but this sytsem is appalling.
It's because when I tried to update Matt's work activity to be more accurate, it updated it for the whole time he was working on it, rather than the period I wanted it to update. So it reckons he was only working 10 hours/week for the first half of last year- manifestly untrue
So they changed it and said they had to recalculate it. First guy said it would take 24 hours, and to call back the next day. I did that, and spoke to someone who said *nothing* had been done in the back end, but to fix it, and to call back in a few weeks. Nothing since.
Now they reckon we do owe the debt because even though Matt was working more than 10 hours a fortnight at the time, and it was reflected accurately at the time, the fact that was overwritten by the 10 hours means we have to appeal to get more than 10 subsidized hours a fortnight
