Age pensioner felt ‘sheer terror’ at receiving robodebt letter demanding $65,000, inquiry told

Woman says she feared she could lose her home when Centrelink letter ‘turned my life upside down’, before debt was reduced to $120 then refunded

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An age pensioner who was initially told she had one month to pay back a $65,000 robodebt will “never get over” what happened to her, a royal commission has heard.

The commission is investigating why and how the unlawful Centrelink debt recovery scheme was established in 2015 and ran until November 2019, ending in a $1.8bn settlement with hundreds of thousands of victims.

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