a lot of updates made online are double checked by processing staff as there is something that flags as being "not quite right" - actual income much different to estimate, arrears payment being generated - any of that stuff has to be manually checked. as you can imagine, there are heaps of these going through daily, and there is a fine line between getting enough staff to check and complete these updates, and keeping those staff on the phones so that the wait times aren't blowing out any further on the phones. i am one of the people finalising online updates at the moment - in an 8 hour day, i get through about 100 updates - each has to be checked, finalised and documented - and if anything seems to be incorrect, it has to be followed up. hence the 4 week-ish turnaround. yes, you can wait on hold for however long the queue is if there is an immediate need for the funds, but keep in mind, it WILL be addressed, in order of receipt, and there are lots of eople on the phones each day at the moment who have a need for claiming payments etc - if you don't need to clog up the phone lines, i wouldn't bother....