Edit: my comments are being downvoted because people can’t read. THIS IS A RANT. I’M NOT ASKING FOR ADVICE. I’M NOT SHARING MY CLAIM OR PERSONAL INFORMATION.
Thank you to the people who did read my post and I’m sorry you’ve all had negative experiences as well.
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Just a rant.
I've been lucky in that for the majority of my life I've not had to deal with Centrelink. Other than a brief period of unemployment when I was younger, I've had no reason to until recent years.
Now I'm in my 40's and have had to interact with a few different departments. Each department is confusing to deal with at best. They seem to forget that they are trained in the Centrelink system, we are not. If they make a mistake we suffer the consequences.
Now I'm going through a new claim process. Since January I've had numerous phone calls, each one leading me to become confused then thinking they have everything sorted and just need a decision to be made. Four months of conflicting information, being told information is missing then being told the missing information isn't needed. Each phone call has been a minimum of 1 hour on hold and a minimum of 1 hour talking. I can see in the portal that there's an action that I need to do which I've been explicitly told twice I'm not to do. But if I don't do it the claim will be denied automatically. I've been told that they can't see it on their end so to just ignore the portal. This is all on top of the stress I'm dealing with in my own life (the very reasons I'm making a claim in the first place) and having to get reports done by a variety of medical professionals as well because Centrelink staff claim they won't accept the information provided by the GP.
This morning I received an email telling me I have a message in MyGov. I literally had a panic attack. Each time I interact with Centrelink now I'm on edge. I don't even have a very complicated situation; Centrelink has made it complicated, mostly due to having such a convoluted system. They actually have all the information they need to approve my claim; it's been provided multiple times now just this year let alone over past years. I'm convinced now that the system has been intentionally changed to break us and make us give up.
Every time someone calls Centrelink, this is what the call centre staff are answering. A person who is confused, stressed, has been given conflicting information, is living in a stressful situation and trying really hard to be polite and calm when all I want to do is scream.