IT starts with a barrage of text messages telling you to urgently call a number. Then the persistent phone calls, sometimes more than ten a day.
Then come the letters telling you to pay “immediately” or risk “further recovery action”, including taking the money directly from your wages or bank account, or turning up at your door to seize your assets.
These mysterious antagonists are the debt collection companies paid millions by Centrelink to wage campaigns of harassment against unsuspecting Australians.
The agency employs three private firms to recover money from people it believes have been overpaid benefits and failed to repay the outstanding amount: Dun & Bradstreet, on a $10.9 million contract, and Probe Group and Australian Receivables, both on $2.6 million contracts …
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