On our last telephone conversation with child support agency we was told that the information we we’re providing was no use to them, as it wasn’t coming directly from the mothers that the children lived with. We then voiced our concern that we didn’t want to be lumbered with arrears and we accepted we needed to make payments towards the children, but we were still met with the same response,“ There is nothing we can do about it until the mothers contact us, so there is no need to keep ringing and writing to us until contact is made to the child support agency by the mothers.”

In the meantime we was having regular contact with my other 2 children and had in affect come to an arrangement with Their mother, to contribute towards the children’s necessaries, and shared contact. As with regards to my other daughter contact had not been arranged because my ex partner had moved and had not left a forwarding address or contact number, which made arranging contact and child maintenance impossible to resume.

We then heard nothing from child support agency until 2008 when we received a letter stating that both child support cases had been closed, no further action was being taken and that there was nothing more we needed to do. We took from this letter as it stated there was nothing more we needed to do, our understanding of this was that both mothers,were happy with said decision and the cases were closed.

We continued to have regular contact with my 2 children, then in August 2010 1 of my children decided to come and live with us, and the other child stayed with his mother. Still no contact was in place for other daughter because we still had no contact information for her and no possible way of finding this out.

Then out of the blue in October 2011 we had a phone call from child support agency admitting an error in the case with regards to my children and had been closed, and had been stuck in the old system and was now being re-opened.

Child support agency had told us that they had been in contact with both mothers, The result of this was my ex with the 2 children confirmed that my daughter had now moved in with us and was happy to keep the case closed, so no further action would be taken. As for my other ex, we have been informed by child support agency that she had been making several complaints for some time on her case being closed, we can’t help but feel for her as surely at this point child support agency should have re-opened the case sooner, and for our payments to have resumed with herself. We also feel that my ex has properly never been informed that we have contacted child support agency on several occasions trying to arrange payments, which we have no doubt that she may think we are not wanting to take any responsibility for my daughter which is untrue and certainly unfair to her, myself and our daughter.

We have been very co-operative and provided all relevant information that has been requested from us, but at present we are finding it very hard to accept the arrears child support are demanding, as from our point of view the case had been closed through no fault of our own in 2008, and we deem it extremely unfair that when we had tried on numerous occasions to sort this out before it got to this stage and any arrears had been incurred.

We have and still are more than happy to pay my ex, child maintenance for my daughter, we always have been, but due to an error on child supports systems and the case being closed in their admitted error, we do not feel this is our fault that there is now nearly seven years of arrears on this case .

I do need to stress to the child support agency that yet again we are not refusing to make regular maintenance payments for my daughter , however we will be putting my other four children under hardship if we are to make the arrears payments, due to the fact of us already being on a consumer credit council agreement which I can provide if needed, having a mortgage to pay, feeding my family and making sure bills are kept unto date, which is why we once again several years ago tried to sort this out before any arrears were incurred. we also fear for that child support agency has started that the arrears will be taken from a deduction of earning directly from my wages, which to me and possibly my employer will state that I do not want to take any responsibility for the upkeep of my daughter, which as you can clearly see is untrue, we have just been unable to as we don’t know her where about.

We have since 2005, got married and had 3 other children,and are very concerned about our financial situation and strain the arrears payments are going to have on us as a house hold and the possibilities of losing our home as we could not possibly keep up-to-date with our mortgage and bills as well as pay the very high arrears that we have be landed with because of child support agencies ADMITTED error, not ours.

I now feel I have to seek legal advise with regards to this issue which is more expense to us due to an admitted error of which the child support agency has made. I will be forwarding a copy of this letter of appeal to my local MP, as we feel like our case has escalated out of control through no fault of our own.

I’d also like to request for the arrears to be put on hold while this matter is being dealt with, however we are wanting to resume regular payments for maintenance of my daughter as soon as possible.

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This a a copy of the appeal letter, and since this was sent we have been told that appeals department cannot deal with it, we have to send it to complaints instead,FEEL LIKE WE ARE BEING PASSED FROM PILLAR TO POST. we are now making regular payments and trying to pay off the arrears at the same time, no one wants to help us, it seems like CSA pockets are deeper than ours so you cannot fight the system. we are now left with nearly £10,000 worth of arrears . PLEASE HELP IF ANYONE CAN WE, WE NEED ADVICE

That was the first and last payment iv recieved since leaving me under the assumption my ex was no longer in receipt of benifits, as we split on really bad terms i have no contact nor does my now 4yr old son. In december 2011 i contacted my ex asking for fineanciel help towards christmas to be told “—- off i pay maintainance!” i then rang CSA and they confirmed that since feb2011 they had in fact been taking £10 a fortnite from him however they couldnt explain why the payments had not been sent to me.

I gave bank details and was told all the money would be in my account within the next 7 days, however 7days on no money i rang again and had to go through my case all over again as the woman had no idea what so ever about my case so much so their system was telling them payments were going into my account,i was told id be called back with an explanation days passed and i rang them back requesting the date the very first payment was taken as i was going to my local tabloid and telling them what CSA was really all about.

Within an hour a supervisor rang me back she apologised said it was CSA at fault an still couldnt offer a explanation as to were the money was or why it had not been passed on to myself, i asked for the money to be put in my bank as im a single mum to 4 children and suffer fineanciel difficultys badly already christmas was a mear 7 days away an i needed my money more now than ever! She told me there was a 1% chance id recieve it before christmas and it would take 2/3 weeks to process as it had to be done manualy!. I found this to be very very distressing as my ex would of contributed to my sons christmas all be it not much but never the less he would have helped me some what but because CSA had for a year been taking money he point blank refused.

When the supervisor rang me exepting full responcability she told me wen my payment is sorted they would be looking to pay a lump sum of compensation for the way id been tret by the CSA! well several phone calls later numarous threats with the press i received a payment on the 16th jan 2012 of £180! no letter no call no explanation and no compensation pay out either, no compensation will not make things better my children had a very poor christmas im a single mum of four children that struggles emencly already so much so i dont eat some days so i can put food on the table for my babys! however compensation will help me out of the “rat race” i feel so many people like myself are in this day an age. Im absolutly discusted by the way iv been treated by CSA more so because its not the first time its happend to me my girls dad was made to pay £3.33 a wk from march 2006 yet iv only been recieving payments for just over a year!!!!

Again nobody within CSA can give any sort of explanation as to were the money is or more to the point why i havent received it? I have give that up now as i feel like im bangin my head against a brick wall, PLZ PLZ HELP!

I had 3 letters from the CSA informing me of 3 different payment amounts, the 1st letter stated that i havnt paid enough in the past and that i needed to pay the excess, the second letter stated that i had paid to much in the past and that any money that’s owed to me will be deducted from future payments. The 3rd letter stated that according to their records, I hadn’t been paying enough in the past and they decided to add an amount of unpaid money which just didnt add up. The CSA just make up these payments and rob us all the time. They use wording like “the past” instead of stating an appropriate date when it comes to their assessments. I now have an appeal in progress and I know that there final decision will still be benefiting to them even though they’ve broken the data protection act. How is it that the CSA seem to have an answer for everything in there favour, even when they’re wrong and who conducts these appeals, I’m guessing that the CSA have their own law.

We then got together and got married and went on to have four children. Firstly in 2007 we was told by the CSA we didnt have to pay nothing because my husbands wages would leave him short she appealed and a load of letters were sent back and forth (these letters can not been found so the CSA say). my husband then got made redundant and was out of work for 6 months. he then got a new job and started paying CSA £210 per month.

We have now just been told that on his calculations he only has 3 children and they was informed buy myself in 2008 that another child had been born we cannot claim none of this money back because they cant find no letter or phone call on there system stating this. we have been over paying a strain on our marriage at there fault. The way they speak to you is disgusting.

We have had 10 years of hell with them

After speaking to the CSA I feel they have not answered any of my questions, like “Why has it increased so much in such a short space of time when my wages haven’t increased proportionally?” I’m a serving soldier based in Germany and happily married, and the extra £147 I’m supposed to be paying is generally spent on travelling back to the UK to see my child aswell as birthdays, christmas etc. We are struggling to make ends meet as it is, with my wife being unable to work as jobs are scarce here and having to pay such a large increase will make our lives extremely difficult.

The CSA being what they are though don’t care about that, just their money no matter the consequences. The only advice they give is to speak to the mother, which we’ve tried but to no avail. I don’t begrudge making payments for my child but at the correct amount. I’ve heard from other people on a similar wage that are paying much less so why am I paying so much. Please can you help or advise us on the predicament we’ve been put in to help us get the correct amount we should be paying until they leave us in financial ruin

Their reason was that he owed the money and they were taking it. Managed to come to a better agreement eventually!! We found out that the CSA had made an error at the begining of the claim 4 years earlier by £5 a week which added up to the £1500.

So we were happy to pay what was owed. However 2 years later baering in mind they were responsible for taking the payments straight from his wages, we recieved another letter saying he was £1000 in arrears. Again after many phone calls no returned calls and having them blame the employer for not following intructions we were really losing it with them. Over an 18 month period we were told they needed to do a break down that would take 6 weeks.

7 times we requested this and it was never done!!!

We spoke to managers that promised to look in to it and call back. They never did. After 34 phone calls and getting nowhere we contacted the local MP. Within 15 days we had the breakdown! And right enough he owed the money but again it was due to their miscalculation as they had been responsible taking the money. Then!!!! We paid off all the arrears that they caused and the payments should have been reduced to £46 a week as we’d been paying £59 to clear the arrears and it hasn’t happened!!!!

6 weeks now and again they’re trying to blame the employer and again they aren’t calling back and again they say they need to do a break down. We are giving it 6 weeks and then going straight to the MP. I don’t understand how people can do their jobs so badly or not at all!!

We got dna tests done this year with help from the mp as the csa wouldnt give info about the child or mother and yes the child is his. the biggest shock was a letter saying there was 10k arrears owing, the csa claim they contacted him in 2006 asking for wage info, but in the data protection files it shows they contacted the army who gave them that info but wouldnt confirm his address as he was in an operational zone.

The csa didnt act upon that info, they waited another 4 years to contact him again after another call from the pwc asking for an update on her case( even she waited 4 years) they are taking 430 per month from his wages, we have appealed against this and things i found in the data files, one saying the case had been closed in 2003,last month we went to the tribunal and the judge picked up on several things too, he wanted to know why they would back date us having 3 children in our house for 6 months and not back to 2006, the csa said thats not what we are here for, well the judge had a printed piece of paper for my hubby to sign to appeal againt that, he said if they can backdate 6 months they can backdate to the effective date, the next he wanted to know why it stated in the files the case was closed in feb 2003 just before the change from csa1 to csa2, the csa man couldnt answer he was skimming through his books very uncomfortable.

Also he picked up on the original case was on csa1 and they have calculated it on csa2 he wanted to know why and what legal reason they have in doing so. he adjurned the case.he said to the csa rep, u do understand if the case as been closed there is no case and no arrears. he sent a direction notice asking all he picked up on. i have gone back through paper work and have noticed that in 2004 they put another child on my hubbys case, it is the 2nd child of the pwc, and no its not his( she as 4 with 4 different men) they must have picked up on it as it says date become liable for child then 3 months later date you become unliable.

So that would have dragged the csa1 over to csa2, but the child is not his so surely no legal reason to do it, it was there mistake. we are now waiting for another date, the csa had 28 days to respond which was up last week. the judge told us to go home and look thru the paperwork in detail and look for certain key words.

I’m really hoping it goes well. even csa1 would be better for us.

Anyway, sure enough they started paying me money which i would then give him back. I have never questioned the amount over the last 7 years. However, today, i looked on my online banking and found that they had paid me £18 for the last 3 weeks. This differed from the normal amount which ranged from £32-£35 per week. When i phoned them today, in the presence of my ex husband, the guy told me they take £533 a month from him direct from his wages and that from that £290.53 is for our daughter. I HAVE NEVER EVER RECEIVED THAT AMOUNT PER MONTH!!!!!!!!!!!! Where the hell is his money going? Doing the maths, if that is the amount that should be paid to me, i should get £72 per week for a 4 week month and £58 for a 5 week month. That has never been the case.

So i am now awaiting a call back as they need to look into it. They shouldnt bloody need to! My ex husband has struggled to even feed himself over the years as they have taken so much money and now we dont even know where its all gone! RIDICULOUS!!!!

I know this story is out of the norm, the norm being people not paying etc etc and i feel for those who have very different circumstances.

But this goes to show that even amicable parents who get on really well even when estranged get screwed over by the CSA. He has paid his money direct and it appears some of it is vanishing into thin air! I only ever applied to help him and it now appears we have both been done! Absolutely livvid!

They told me the deduction would be worked out once my new son was on the Child Benefit system, and there usual rule confirmed again today, is of course notify them of changes As Soon As Possible.

When I phoned them today, they said the deduction is only effective from today when I phoned them, not the date of birth! Of course they didn’t tell me this before, and now claim there’s nothing they can do because (usual excuse) it’s “CSA Legislation” – I have to write to my new MP.

It seems I was supposed to call them when my wife was pushing our baby out last week.

Fast forward a number of years and after I made contact with the mother of the child she stared saying things that raised doubt in my mind and then my fiancee started to look at pictures of the child and said I should ask for a DNA test. this I did and we completed 1 through a private agency, the results were that there was a 0% chance I was the father. The CSA wouldnt accept this so I had to do another this again showed I was not the biological father. The CSA gave me £390 back payments, this I had to then give to my ex-partner for my Daughter.

Since January 2011 I have been fighting the CSA for all the money from 2001 to be given back to me, this amounts to nearly £16000. to date I have written letters to 2 MP’s, the CSA and the Independent case examiner all of whom have said no you cant have any more money. I have no chance of claiming this money from the woman who bough the claim to the CSA.

So now what do I do…… the CSA/government is quick enough to take money from me but why cant money that I paid in good faith to a liar not be given back to me……