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CSA has refused to pay back the money they owe me

November 24, 2009

I have been paying for a son I never even knew existed, I found out in March 2009 that he had turned 19 and his mother had stopped claiming since Sept. 08. They acknowledged that I had overpaid and advised me that my payments would stop. They continued taking the money from my salary until June 09, even though I had to continually keep ringing them to ask them to stop. So by my reckoning I was entitled to a refund.

I rang the CSA to discuss this and they advised that they would calculate my overpayment and send me a refund. After many, many, many more calls they sent me a letter on the 30/07/09, advising that they accepted the overpayment and would refund me a total of £2,345.89. This amount would be repaid in due course.

I rang tohe CSA almost immediately asking if they had a date for me to expect the refund, they advised that they had 6/8 weeks to assess my case’s (I have 3) and would advise me within this time frame. Eight weeks passed and still no news, surprise, surprise. So I continually rang the CSA for over 2 weeks. Eventually they advised me that my case had been passed to a Case Worker and that she required 2 weeks to assess my case. 2 weeks passed and no news, surprise, surprise. I rang the CSA and was told that my dedicated case worker had been taken off of my case as I was under the old rules system.

Therefore, a specialised case worker would have to assess my case.

I spoke with a supervisor at the CSA to ascertain an update, he has now advised that the money I am owed has been used to pay for arrears on another one of my cases. And that I will receive no refund!
The case they have allocated my money to is a dead case from 04/2004. My ex-wife was so fed up with fluctuating payments that she asked the CSA if would could come to a private agreement. They agreed and closed the case, they sent me a letter stating that the case was dead. Cannot find the letter now though.

There was some outstanding arrears on the case, but I was told they would no longer be applicable, as the arrears were due to my ex-wife and that they were considered dead when the case was closed.

Can anyone please advise me as to whether they can still claim arrears going back to 2004??? and also whether they can reallocate my overpayments???

Thanks in advance
Jason

Written by Jason Woollett · Filed Under CSA Advice 

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Comments

  • kaye steeper says:
    July 8, 2011 at 7:34 pm

    This sounds awfully familiar , my other half had a similar situation , his daughter reached 18 and was working but his maintenance didnt reduce he kept complaining and they eventually sent a letter stating he was owed £720 pounds which never arrived , he got his MP involved as this had been over a year , they then wrote to say the case had gone to a specialist advisor , the next thing they had reassessed his case and due to an error they had made in 1992 in calculating his payments he actually owed them £11k, they did send a cheque for £50 to apologise for the error …we now have nothing to live on for the next 4 years as they slapped a DEO on straight away , our MP was amazed but he hasnt been able to get a straight answer from anywhere …it seems that if you question them you suddenley owe them yet more

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