Centrelink strikes again

9 Jul 2013: I had to deal with Centrelink to report my earnings as I do every fortnight. This took me all day long.

I began my mission to report my earnings at 6.45am. I tried online (my preferred option) but it was unavailable, I tried the phone option and that was unavailable.

I went in person to the local Centrelink office and I was told they had to reinstate my service. The wait was going to be too long so I decided to ring when I got back home.

When I got home, I rang and the telephone queue was 55 minutes so I left my details for them to ring me back. When they rang back 2 hours later I still was on hold for 30 minutes.

When I finally spoke to someone my service was reinstated but they told me to go online again to enter my earnings. The online service was down because it had crashed and so I tried via telephone again which cut me off towards the end of my call just before I got my receipt number.

I decided to leave it for a couple of hours. Near 5pm the online service was still unavailable but lo and behold phone reporting worked.

The next day I received a letter from Centrelink saying that I no longer had to report my earnings because I was no longer working. I am still working and I never told them I wasn't working, so I have no idea where that information came from??

A big day of frustration courtesy of Centrelink – it was a full time job for a day to get a 5 minute job done.