‘Sheer terror’: Nightmare of $65k robodebt demand

AN elderly pensioner has revealed how her life was turned “upside down” after being told she had to pay back Centrelink $65,000 as part of its bungled robodebt scheme.

Rosemary Gay told the robodebt royal commission in Brisbane on Monday she experienced “sheer terror” after a letter warned she had just two weeks to pay up.

The 76-year-old said the message came on September 29, 2016 and had stated that Centrelink had received information from the ATO about her employment income.

The income referred to in the letter was $17,436 Ms Gay said she made as a part-time receptionist between July 1, 2010 and June 30, 2011, while working at a transport company in Ballarat.

However, Centrelink said the amounts she declared were different from what was actually earned, something Ms Gay said left her in “shock” and “surprised”.

“The data that I provided to them of my earnings would be exactly the same as what would be contained in my group certificate in my tax return at the end of that financial year,” she said.

After checking the paperwork was the same as what she had reported, Ms Gay thought the matter would be sorted.

“I presumed that once I’d confirmed that (amount) was in my group certificate, that would be the end,” she said.

Ms Gay had been employed on a permanent, part-time basis at the time and was paid around $22 an hour for 14 hours’ work a week, she said.

However, on October 12, 2016, Ms Gay received a debt notice for $64,998.17, something she said left her in despair. The mammoth payment, more than three times her annual salary, was due in less than a month, she said.

“It turned my life upside down. It was just sheer terror that I owed a figure which was just such a huge amount, that I had never earned that much money. How could I owe that much money and I had to come up with it in three or four weeks. It was just sheer terror.”