1 year on and still haven’t received a penny

October 13, 2011

Last October one of my daughters came to live with me. I informed the CSA of this so that not only could I stop the maintenance payments I was making to her mother but to put in motion my own claim for maintenance against her. I obtained child benefit the following month and informed the CSA of the details.

Weeks passed without hearing any news so I called to enquire about progress. I was told my case had been ‘misplaced’ but that now I had called about it things would be dealt with quickly. Again, weeks passed until I repeated the call. I was now told that there had been a problem with the system so my case had gone clerical. This all meant nothing to me but I was given the number of the clerical team in Stockport and told to contact them. I did this and was told they would be processing my case shortly. This persisted for many months until, finally, in May of this year, I was told things had been resolved and my maintenance would be backdated. However, instead of being backdated to last October, it was only until the end of January. I asked why this was and the person I spoke to said it must be a mistake and that because it was the fault of the agency that they would pay me the rest of what i was owed in backdated payments.

All was well I thought but still I received nothing, neither money nor confirmation of the arrangement. I called Stockport again to be told that the reason for the payments only being backdated to January was because it hadn’t been until this point that they’d been able to get in touch with the mother. They said that the agency would never pay any money themsleves and suggested that I was making it up that someone had told me otherwise. At this point I was also ask if I’d prefer to deal directly with the mother. This made sense to me so I agreed, naively believing that money I still needed to pay to her for our other daughter would also be covered under this arrangement. As a result, I cancelled my standing order to the agency and contacted the mother in writing with a schedule that would see her pay off her arrears and ultimately result in me paying her the difference between what I pay her and what she had been informed to pay me.

For 3 months I didn’t hear anything else from the agency until one day I received a threatening letter saying that I was behind on my payments. I contacted the agency and explained why I had stopped making payments to be told that it was only my claim that had gone direct for the daughter that was with me and not for the daughter that was living with her mother. As a consequence I was told that I had to increase my payments for a period to pay off the 3 months arrears. Worse still, I was told that, as my claim had gone direct the agency could no longer do anything about the arrears I was owed.

So here I am, over a year since my daughter moved in with me and I still haven’t received a penny. I’ve asked for my case to go through the agency again rather than direct but I’m starting to think things will never be resolved. If there’s anything you can do that will help me with this I would be eternally grateful.

Comments

  • John says:

    My ex cried to the CSA when she kidnapped two of our children and left one behind with me. I was hounded and harassed by the CSA to pay straight away. I counter-claimed for her to pay maintenance for the child living with me!

    It took the CSA two and a half years to obtain money from her. They deliberately put her status as a ‘nil assessmen’t, which was a total lie as she had income and savings. In essence I was keeping her and all three children.

    I went to my M.P. in the end and embarassed the hell out of him. I soon got the maintenance owed to me, plus arrears. I advise you to do the same!

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