Centrelink customers reveal months of frustrating call hang ups—are you one of them?
- Replies 26
For many Australians, Centrelink plays a vital role in providing income support, family assistance payments, and other essential services.
But lately, customers have become increasingly frustrated as long wait times and dropped calls become the norm when trying to contact the agency.
This is not just an inconvenience, but a significant issue for those who rely on Centrelink.
One disability support pensioner, Kathy Parrey, noticed last month that her disability support pension had stopped.
Due to her disability, she is unable to visit a Centrelink office and has been trying to get through on the phone for four weeks.
Kathy's experience is not unique. She's one of many Australians who claim they can't get through to Centrelink, regardless of how many times they call.
'If you don't choose the automation process, the next thing you get is, “Well, we're very busy, goodbye”…and you're just cut off,' she said.
'You can ring 20, 30, 40, 50 times a day, it doesn't matter.'
Bernadette Lohrey-Toms and her husband Peter share a similar story.
The couple, currently travelling from Queensland to Melbourne to visit family after Peter's retirement, expected that the application for the pension would be a straightforward process.
However, they were told they would have to wait five months.
'He's 69 years old, he's worked his whole life, he's never claimed Centrelink ever, and he's told also five months,' Bernadette shared.
'I don't understand why they're not being funded adequately (enough) that they can at least answer the telephone.'
General Manager of Services Australia, Hank Jongen, defended the five-month wait to get on the pension, saying, 'Look, age pension is a payment, where we're putting someone onto a payment for life.'
'And what that means is that we need to be absolutely certain that we have all the information validated.'
However, he admitted that the current customer delays in accessing government welfare were 'not acceptable'.
'We're in a situation where, despite the best efforts of our staff, our customers are waiting longer to have their payments processed than they should be,' Jongen added.
'There's no question that this is [a] disadvantage [for] some of our customers. It's a matter of grave concern for us.'
The impact of these delays and hang-ups is far-reaching.
Dr Domenique Meyrick from Financial Counselling Australia shared that its counsellors are experiencing an overflow of calls from people waiting on welfare help.
'It's really unfortunate to have a system that's designed to help, actually causing harm or increasing harm. It's making life more difficult for people,' Dr Meyrick said.
Services Australia is currently sitting on 1.1 million unprocessed claims, but Jongen said it has onboarded 3000 new staff to get through the backlog.
'3000 staff is a significant number of staff to bring on board…and in fact, we've recruited closer to 5000,' Jongen said.
Charlotte McKay is one of the new starters and has just completed two months of intensive training.
'It's always busy, we are working as hard as we can, as efficiently as we can to get things done,' she said.
Services Australia hopes to reduce the number of unprocessed claims by half, which may also reduce the number of people needing to call in.
'Current delays are not acceptable, and we are very conscious of that,' Jongen reiterated.
'And we feel that once those staff are brought on board, the situation will improve.'
'It's always disappointing to hear the stories of our customers' experiences but those disappointments are shared by our staff.'
'Make no mistake, the staff in this organisation are focused on and committed to providing the best quality service.'
In the meantime, customers like Kathy are left to navigate the system as best they can. Kathy has since hired a carer to accompany her to a Centrelink office to get her issue sorted.
In similar news, data presented by Services Australia revealed that approximately 7,444,939 calls to the agency received a congestion message in the year to the end of December.
This means that these calls were not answered but instead were directed to a voicemail system.
In addition to this, over 2 million calls were reportedly terminated by customers, likely due to long wait times.
You can read more about this here.
Have you had a similar experience with Centrelink? Share your story in the comments below.
But lately, customers have become increasingly frustrated as long wait times and dropped calls become the norm when trying to contact the agency.
This is not just an inconvenience, but a significant issue for those who rely on Centrelink.
One disability support pensioner, Kathy Parrey, noticed last month that her disability support pension had stopped.
Due to her disability, she is unable to visit a Centrelink office and has been trying to get through on the phone for four weeks.
Centrelink customers reported that their calls are being hung up on. Image source: Shutterstock.
Kathy's experience is not unique. She's one of many Australians who claim they can't get through to Centrelink, regardless of how many times they call.
'If you don't choose the automation process, the next thing you get is, “Well, we're very busy, goodbye”…and you're just cut off,' she said.
'You can ring 20, 30, 40, 50 times a day, it doesn't matter.'
Bernadette Lohrey-Toms and her husband Peter share a similar story.
The couple, currently travelling from Queensland to Melbourne to visit family after Peter's retirement, expected that the application for the pension would be a straightforward process.
However, they were told they would have to wait five months.
'He's 69 years old, he's worked his whole life, he's never claimed Centrelink ever, and he's told also five months,' Bernadette shared.
'I don't understand why they're not being funded adequately (enough) that they can at least answer the telephone.'
General Manager of Services Australia, Hank Jongen, defended the five-month wait to get on the pension, saying, 'Look, age pension is a payment, where we're putting someone onto a payment for life.'
'And what that means is that we need to be absolutely certain that we have all the information validated.'
However, he admitted that the current customer delays in accessing government welfare were 'not acceptable'.
'We're in a situation where, despite the best efforts of our staff, our customers are waiting longer to have their payments processed than they should be,' Jongen added.
'There's no question that this is [a] disadvantage [for] some of our customers. It's a matter of grave concern for us.'
The impact of these delays and hang-ups is far-reaching.
Dr Domenique Meyrick from Financial Counselling Australia shared that its counsellors are experiencing an overflow of calls from people waiting on welfare help.
'It's really unfortunate to have a system that's designed to help, actually causing harm or increasing harm. It's making life more difficult for people,' Dr Meyrick said.
Services Australia is currently sitting on 1.1 million unprocessed claims, but Jongen said it has onboarded 3000 new staff to get through the backlog.
'3000 staff is a significant number of staff to bring on board…and in fact, we've recruited closer to 5000,' Jongen said.
Charlotte McKay is one of the new starters and has just completed two months of intensive training.
'It's always busy, we are working as hard as we can, as efficiently as we can to get things done,' she said.
Services Australia hopes to reduce the number of unprocessed claims by half, which may also reduce the number of people needing to call in.
'Current delays are not acceptable, and we are very conscious of that,' Jongen reiterated.
'And we feel that once those staff are brought on board, the situation will improve.'
'It's always disappointing to hear the stories of our customers' experiences but those disappointments are shared by our staff.'
'Make no mistake, the staff in this organisation are focused on and committed to providing the best quality service.'
In the meantime, customers like Kathy are left to navigate the system as best they can. Kathy has since hired a carer to accompany her to a Centrelink office to get her issue sorted.
In similar news, data presented by Services Australia revealed that approximately 7,444,939 calls to the agency received a congestion message in the year to the end of December.
This means that these calls were not answered but instead were directed to a voicemail system.
In addition to this, over 2 million calls were reportedly terminated by customers, likely due to long wait times.
You can read more about this here.
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