CSA wants arrears paid immediately
My son-in-law has a 15 year old daughter by a previous relationship and has now two lovely little girls with my daughter. Due to being unemployed many years ago he accrued arrears with the csa.
He has been paying maintenance and arrears for years and recently had a phone call from the csa on his mobile. He was out walking the dog at the time and asked if they could put it all in writing. The csa officer then asked him if he was refusing to cooperate and he told them no, but walking in the street was not the ideal place to be discussing his finances. She then threatened to enforce 40% on his maintenance patments.
Lo and behold a week later he had a letter with increased payments which stated that he had agreed to these increases. He was now to pay the all the arrears over a six month period. They rang the csa and they were told that as he had ‘refused ‘to speak them the arrears must be now paid. As the payments were beyond their reach I offered to pay £500 off the arrears hoping to bring their monthly payments back to an affordable one for them. This was put to the case officer who rang the following day who refused the offer of £500.
She told my daughter that they had enough funds to pay the full amount of just over £950. The officer had looked at their credit and she told my daughter to put it on a credit card. The fact that they were not in a position to pay the credit card back at this amount was completely ignored. The officer was completely heartless and gave an ultimatum of pay the arrears in full or pay the high monthly payments to clear the arrears in six months. I then paid £500 with my card and my daughter had to put the balance on a credit dard.
What an agency!! I have dealt with the agency in the past when my partner had dealings with them, and things are no better and you are stilldealing with totally heartless people.
My concern is this the end of the arrears. She assured us it was but I know of other cases where they have found further arrears. The other concern they also have two card numbers, mine and my daughters, where they could take further amounts.
We are going to contact our MP and have requested a full breakdown of the arrears with confirmation of the arrears being cleared.
Any further advice you can give us would be more that welcome.
Thank you for listening.
Caryl
2 thoughts on “CSA wants arrears paid immediately”
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He was quite correct. Do NOT deal with the CSA on the phone. As you have seen they will deliberately miss quote and miss use what you say. Always deal with them in writing.
You must immediately write a letter of complaint as to what has happened, and make an appointment with your MP and take a copy of that letter to him/her.
In the meantime, as they have not made a proper assessment, and have not provided a proper breakdown as to where the arrears have come from, detail in the letter that you want proper copies of the detailed assessments and full details of the account within fourteen days.
Come join us on CsaHell on Facebook. There are many, more of us with similar situations.
You could also write to the financial ombudsmen , my husband got stung with a 10,000 arrears and we got mp involved asked for new case worker and asked for full investigation into account . They have since admitted fault but won’t remove arrears but have lowered payments to what we can afford . The fact you just paid the arrears without any detailed paperwork is crazy , the Csa will bully if they can . I have trouble with my ex paying kids and it’s total opposite they spoil soft with him I even asked them once if he paid them backhanded to deal with case . If you let them walk all over you they will . Good luck but be firm