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CSA Complaints

CSA has bled me dry of money

14 January 2013 by Karl Mugele

In 1994 my ex-partner left me and took my son. I did not want that but had no realistic means of preventing it. I had no parental resposibility.

I applied for contact and PR through the court.

After having been treated as an income stream by the first solicitor I approached – the case never quite being completed in several months…more and more charges being leveled – I eventually found a solicitor who sorted out the contact in a few months, but the costs started my debt at £4k at the least. My contact agreement was for me to cover complete costs of contact as she refused to, but she chose to move 100 miles North to be near here family, and I moved 100 miles South, following work. My contact costs became a round trip of over 400 miles and the train did not get me there early enough, so before I got a car, I had to stay overnight in a B&B.

In 2003 I was rather hopeful that my CSA payments would reduce as the 15% charge was significantly less than I was paying.

For my one child I had been paying more than 25% and then, when I pointed out my high travel to work, they reduced it to approxiately 20%.

When the CSA had started to deal with the case, they wouldn’t take into account the cost of contact. The 2003 legislation seemed to offer this as another hope.

When I rang them in 2003 the person said that I would be moved onto the 2003 legislation in 2004, but it wasn’t to be. In 2004 I was told that I would only be moved onto the 2003 legislation if I had to be reassessed due to changes in circumstances. I was also advised by the CSA person I spoke to that my only real options to control the amount I was paying would be to have further children with someone, move in with a person with children that I would have to provide care for, or to move abroad, out of their jurisdiction.

Since 2004, I have continued to overpay support.

5 years ago I moved to a lower paid local job for medical reasons and didn’t immediately contact the CSA as they had told me on a previous occasion that they couldn’t re-assess me without 3 pay slips showing the new wage, and I couldn’t afford to pay the old amount on my new reduced salary.

I recieved late night calls with threats to take my home, 40% of my salary etc. and eventually they did take 40% of one wage packet before the CAB managed to broker an agreement.

I wrote to the ICE who simply said they couldn’t get involved if the issue were with how much I was charged … not taking into account the fact that my complaint was that I was being charged under legislation that had already been superceded.

I wrote to my MP confirming that if something were not done, I would have to cease face-to-face contact with my son. My MP got a letter from the CEO of the CSA confirming that the government had agreed the CSA would not have to move people onto the 2003 legislation….this becausae they had made a mistake with the 2003 It system project.

2 years ago I could not afford to fund contact by increasing debt as my level of debt had become unsupportable. I had to cease contact with my son.

In February 2012, my son turned 18 and in June of 2012 he left full time education but they have continued charging me.

I have currently paid 7 and a half months of support that I am not required to pay and cannot help my son with his first steps on his career. I expedt to be in debt for the next 8 to 10 years for this, and when the debts reached an unsupportable amount I had to take out a DRP which has ruined my credit.

On top of all that my ex-partner is an alcoholic and has been spending the money she received at the local off-license. This was documented in court but “of no concern” to the CSA.

The CSA have broken my son’s relationship with me and not even supported him as the relative stability of the PWC was not taken into account.

Reading many of the heaqrtbreaking and infuriating tales on here, it is clear that one size does not “fit all”.

If the CSA is really about child support then the next incarnation of it must take into account contact, responsibility and be accountable for their own mistakes, not just blame the absent parents.

Of course, who am I kidding…the purpose of the CSA is to replenish government funds at the expense of children and families that are already experiencing turmoil., taking advantage of a completely “above the law” status that they have been unwisely given.

18 thoughts on “CSA has bled me dry of money”

  1. They have kept it’s remit very narrow to try to reduce costs of everyone involved which is a good intention but in doing that as you say the state has lost it’s legitimacy to be involved with family issues at all. I personally think that my life and my children’s lives are worth an hour of a judges time who can look at each aspect of the case as they have been doing for hundreds of years.

  2. hornbeamfairy – why do you continually post links on this forum which are broken?

  3. To Alice
    Re ” the csa have bled me dry” read the last 2 paragraphs ….seems yet another who sees the Same vision of the csa as me…I wander how many more have this same vision of them. It tells us something I think or are we all paranoid ,wrong and dis gruntled ?

  4. And here here smithy….very good point and very well put
    We don’t need these vultures picking the flesh from parents that have split up and can make their own arrangements for their kids welfare.
    Let the courts deal with the deadbeats that don’t.
    The csa does indeed take advantage of the children and families that are already experiencing turmoil and taking advantage of a completely “above the law” status that they have been unwisely given.they do not care about the kids….again and again I will repeat this…it serves only one….the treasury….don’t care how many ways you wish to look at them and what and why they do or not do….it exist to replenish the treasury for all the money it hands out in benifits and alot of those are cheats,layabouts,liers,something for nothing culture brigade,unemployable Jeremy Kyle layabouts those believe is the state owes them a living ,the finacial burdens of society that take all and give nothing…and all at the tax payers and NRP’s expense.

  5. Tax credits for those who have never paid in!

    Pensions for those who have paid in for 10 years, when I paid in for 30 + years!

    I’ve been such a fool, for working hard all of my life, paying into the system and now I find that those who haven’t wil benefit for NOT paying in!

    I have recently made an enquiry regarding payment of maintenance. I had 5 more payments to go before I would be free of the useless scum at the CSA, after 13 years of suffering at their hands………..guess what? I am told that if my child (nearly 19…a child…ridiculous) stays in education, I will be paying until 20 years of age, an absolutely scandalous situation!

    The childrens act 1989, states that a child ceases to become a child a 16 (if married) and at 18 for the purposes of the act!

    Why then is maintenance going to be payable upto 20 years of age? They are not children, and it’s just another benefit scam by the pwc and the dwp!

    Are there any individuals or groups that are challenging this latest government/csa scam to demonise and criminalise nrp’s for longer and rob more money from them. I would like to be able to join any legal challenge to stop the latest breach of our human rights!

  7. UPDATE: The CSA have now admitted after 7 months that I have overpaid since June and are going to refund me, though they say I still have to pay the £61. The are confriming the exact amount but it could be as much as £2.6k.

    My MP has asked for the CEO of the CSA to send me a complete breakdown of the calculations. I suspect they’ll be incomprehensible but good to have. I can then breakdown how much I’ve overpaid since 2003/2004 due to their error in poor requirements specification or implementation of the 2003 computer system.

    I did have one heackle-riser in that the response from my MP read:

    “From my understanding and experience, overpayments are repaid however this can be a long process especially as this often causes a great deal of distress. I have asked that if you have been overpaying through your deduction of earnings that this be stopped and sorted as quickly as possible to prevent further distress for all people involved.”

    …Who exactly is “distressed”? …my ex partner because her gin money has stopped, me because my overpayments to the CSA have left me hugely in debt to a l;evel that will take around 8 years to pay off and unable to help my son, either throughout the period or now as he starts his career, or maybe my son is distressed because he has lost contact with his dad and feels let down by both his parents.

    I got informed yesterday by his grandparents that his mum’s current boyfriend has threatened to assault him but I wasn’t told at the time and, having no contact, would have been unable to intervene anyway.

    Again – this agency needs to be shut down and replaced with a function that deals with breakups involving children, parental responsibility, contact agreements, child support and all this in the interests of the child; ensuring the safety of the child, rather than that being “of no concern” to the agency, as all they are interested in is recoupng money for the government.

  8. …I guess it’s probably worth working out the interest on the “loan” the CSA took from me as I had to borrow the money.

  9. Well Done Karl. Make them have it!

    Make sure that you get a written apology in case of future f–k ups, and as evidence of their maldministration.

  10. I am happy that you got some resemblence of justice Karl, tho agree that it has come at a great cost to you and your sons relationship. No amount of money or apologies can ever make up for that. This agency is not about keeping families together or advocating contact for both parents if no abuse involved. But I get a good feeling though that you and your son will get back in touch.

    All the best to you both.

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