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Child Support Agency

I can’t afford to work anymore because of the CSA

18 March 2013 by Iain Reid

i am paying around 141 pound a week to the csa.they are leaving me with 200 pound per week wages i have never refused to pay for my kids.since they were born.I have tried to come to an arrangment with my ex but been told to get stuffed i have been in touch with the csa to tell them that this amount is putting me further into dedt and at the moment i stand to lose my house they are not intarested they are taking 40%.of my wages this has been goin on since nov 2012 and they are saying it will take up to 10 april 2013 to get adesicion on my case seems like the dont care if the father gets to see his children.my kids live 400 miles from me and costs around 300 pound every time i go to see them. i have had to stop going to see my kids as i cant afford to do this anymore

Surley its better for the children to have a relationship with thier father as well as getting funds from me but the csa do not see it this way. it’s breaking my heart that i can, see my kids now they are threatning to take my license and my passport i cant see how this will help as i am an hgv driver. without my license i cant work what are we supposed to do the other thing that is angering me is that my kids dont even see any off the money i pay for them i even offered to open a bank account for my kids and put the money into there accounts and was told i cant do that surley this would give them funds for thier future.For when the leave school or go to uni i am at the end off my thether with this and even considering giving up work as i cant afford to work anymore

iain reid

53 thoughts on “I can’t afford to work anymore because of the CSA”

  1. Hi have the csa put a liability order on you, have they put it in writing re your licence and passport, or have they said this over the phone, if not in writing its illegal and against your human rights,

  3. Its illegal for csa to threaten you over this phone, this is scaremongering tactics to get.you to do as they want, the csa cannot take your lisence or passport only a.judge in.court can.do this, and because its your job and they want you to.pay there isnt a.chance, seems to me like your ex is just a.money grabber and will stop at.no length to get what she wants, make a complaint and get this looked again, dont let the idiots on the shop floor do this, ask to speak to a manager, tell them you want a variation done to take into consideration your expenses of seeing your kids, they claim to work for children to.keep families together, good luck

  4. 40% of £341 = £136.40.
    They’ve got their figures wrong they are taking too much.
    Write in declare hardship show your outgoings ask them to reduce the deduction to 30%.
    All arrears letter contain warnings of what might happen if arrears not paid, it’s proforma in which names and amounts are inserted.
    It is not illegal, it’s standard business practise.

  5. @ Wilf, it is illegal to threaten the NRP down the phone to take his passport and driving license as i have been told, the CSA cannot take your license as the contract of you having that is between you DVLA and the law, as for your passport the same applies, they have no idea how saying things like this really does affect people, scare tactics dont wash with me anymore, i record every phone call, i wont be taken for a ride by idiots on the shop floor who think they are above the law,

  8. I so hope this gets sorted for you, its hopeless when being left unable to meet own bills let alone support your children. Soul destroying, and the children lose out in so many ways, such as a parent being there and being able to treat them to days out etc.

  9. You need to make a complaint, it doesn’t take longer than a few weeks to readjust your case, in fact it takes hours, I know this as I have done this with them over the phone for my hubbys case, they are screwing you blind, you demand they take the DEO off your wage and ask them how you can go about paying them however you see fit to, they have let your account to fall into arrears while they were assessing your case at the start, that’s not your fault, get your mp on the case, tell them your going to lose your home and tell them if it carries on you will have no alternative to leave your employment because of there unreasonable demands, before anybody jumps on me saying you cant do that yes you can, the CSA will tell you they will prosecute you, tell them to go ahead they have about as much power as a dog with a bone, that’s how we refer to them, don’t be bullied, you need to see your kids and they have to take that into account, though your ex will be constantly on the phone to them demanding to know where her money is, tell them to contact you in writing only, if they do this it could only tip you over the edge, maladministration at its best, good luck, I hope you manage to sort this

  10. As Wilf says the letter advising an NRP of arrears contains the legal sanction advising the NRP of the possible consequences they may face if they do not make arrangement to pay their maintenance and arrears – this is a legal requirement as the agency must issue a warning informing the client what action will be taken if they fail to comply and make payments. Case officers will also advise an NRP of the possible penalties if legal action is taken against them. The CSA do not ‘take’ an NRP’s licence, this decision would be made by a judge if the NRP was prosecuted.

    @ Iain – check the figures that the CSA have used on the DEO, they can take a max of 40% of your average net weekly income for regular maintenance and arrears. If your income has dropped since the last assessment (possibly if you are not doing overtime or if you have reduced your hours etc) then the income details held would be the last ones supplied by you or your employer. If your income has dropped then you need to request a re-assessment. If the income is correct but the agency are taking more than 40% of your net income the DEO needs to be revised.
    Also request again that you are suffering financial hardship and ask that the amount being collected for arrears be reduced – the amount owing for arrears will be a consideration.
    With regards to the cost of visiting your children, you can apply for a variation based on contact costs, if successful your maintenance assessment would be reduced by an amount for the cost of your travel and, if applicable, accommodation costs to visit your children.

    If the PWC wishes the maintenance to be collected and paid to her then the agency cannot agree to you putting money into an account for the children, it is something you can discuss with the PWC and if she agrees she would need to contact the agency to have the case closed, or if you can re-establish a private agreement the case could be made maintenance direct.

  11. It should be made illegal to collect on overtime, the men who have deo slapped on him do overtime to make up what they have lost to the greedy PWC at the end of the day that man has to live and with the csa chasing him he aint never going to be able to have a life, its immoral and wrong,

  12. overtime is taken into account so that NRP’s do not take part-time contracts and work full time hours so as to reduce the maintenance they have to pay for their children.

  13. I know of NRP that work full time hours and have to do overtime to make up what they are losing in order to be able to eat, how can the CSA justify taking what is done out of desperation??
    How do you sleep at night knowing what you do to these men

  14. I sleep fine at night knowing that in the vast majority of cases I have secured payments for children who’s NRP has tried everything possible to avoid paying for their children – I would counter the question with how do these parents who claim to love their children sleep at night knowing that they have done nothing to support them financially, sometimes for a number of years.

    There are constant comments on here about ex’s should be allowed to get on with their lives etc, to suggest that a parent should be able to just walk away from a child with no further obligation is ridiculous. The back-up comments whereby it is regularly assumed that the PWC trapped the NRP into having a child and PWCs are benefit claiming money grabbers hold no water with me – if a man does not want the responsibility of a child then he should take the relevant precautions to ensure that his partner/wife/1 night stand does not get pregnant , condoms are readily available and often free – relationships break down and yes, ex’s can walk away from each other, but a parent cannot walk away from a child and absolve themselves of any responsibility

  15. @ Alice, you make me sick, you would rather see a man starve and not be able to see his children??? You take all his wage for some spinless bitch who has probably never worked a day in her life, just pop out kids and expect the whole world to foot the bill regardless of whether they belong to the chap at all,
    Yes the man is allowed a life and 99% of the time money rules and contact is stopped, after a while the poor dad gets fed up of fighting and walks away, i dont blame him one bit,
    You obviously dont have kids so untill you have been in that situation dont comment you sad excuse for a person

  16. By the way, dont always believe what your told over the phone by women because like a know for sure 9x out of 10 they have told you what they know you will listen to just to secure moer money from you, thats because your all biased idiots that work for csa

  17. lisa:- Well done. Name calling and personal abuse always wins the argument it’s the intelligent way to debate and resolve differences.

  18. yet again Lisa resorts to her own brand low level abuse and assumption. As has been pointed out many times Lisa knows nothing of my life, she assumes I do not have children, she states blatant inaccurate comments about what the agency do, she has little knowledge of the legalities of various aspects of child support, she makes her usual comments about PWCs when she knows nothing of their circumstances. Lisa once again shouts about the rights of men – and she does so because as Karen has rightly pointed out she is now the partner of a man who is being made to pay for his kids, a different story now to when she was a PWC and supplied the agency with information about her own ex … wtg Lisa, you are such a barrel of intelligence I’m sure a lot of people will benefit from your advice.

  19. @ Alice, you state you have kids, should you not act more adult like, yes you know what when I go off on one regarding the csa I do get mad, because the more and more I read of the way they treat people the more you realise just how nasty the staff are that work there, they are threatening to take a driving licence, they are not allowed to do this, ( being told this from your top management team) they cannot put you in prison its against your human rights now, unless you have totally avoided payments and arrears are proved to be right (we know csa make it up as they go along in some cases) this guy posting cant afford to eat, but that’s ok as long as the money gets paid, the whole thing is money, it doesn’t matter about the people they are just numbers a voice on the end of the phone I may be a barrel of intelligence to you alice but I cant be the only wrong one on here that has the same views,

    SACK ALL THE CSA STAFF PUT ALL BRAND NEW TRAINED UNBIASED STAFF IN TO CLEAR THE BACK LOG, AND MAKE IT LAW THAT IF ANYBODY FROM THE AGENCY MAKES THREATS OR TELLS A PWC/NRP TO DO SOMETHING THAT INJURY OR LOSS OF LIFE OCCURS THEY ARE HELD TOTALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR IT

  20. @ Alice just to clear something up, my husband has always paid for his kids, never missed, it wasn’t enough so his went to the csa, she wanted birthday/Christmas/maintainance money all in one go, telling her we couldt afford it all together made her mad, she went to csa thinking she would get more, she did tell lies, her case laid dormant for many years, unused but unclosed, she claimed never to have had a penny till we provided bank statements, she was mad at us sending the evidence and it had to be recalculated, because of this access we stopped, its all about the money with some PWC, so don’t you ever say my hubby has been made to pay for his child, he has done since the day she was born, and still to this day has, how dare you make your own mind up and judge, its called double standards, my ex doesn’t pay yet my hubby who has always paid get stung by the ex,s lies and half his wage taken, now is that fair???????

  21. lisa:- You know they can not take more than 40% of anybodies income, so saying half was taken does not ring true. Exaggeration does not lead to credence.

  22. Seriously, they had taken a lot more than what they should have done, secondly the DEO had been put on his wage without any letters from csa because his ex wife had given our previous address, had it not been for wages telling him that the money was being taken he wouldt have known, they didt take into account we had kids living with us, they didt take into account anything travel to work etc, it was only reduced after the facts had been put to them, then they threatened my hubby saying he could be prosecuted for not giving change in circumstance, how can you do that not knowing they are chasing you, the whole place is not fit for purpose, as we have all established

  23. @ Wilf, seeing as you are an NRP you have had first hand tactics of what this place does, Letters when they arrived finally said one thing, the fax to the accountants office regarding the deo said amounts completely different which we have the data prints to prove this

  24. lisa:- It is up to all clients to keep the CSA informed of all changes including changes of address and children in the household.
    Why did they have to rely on the ex for an address?
    All employers are told about protected income which on CS1 is equivalent to the exempt income and on CS2 60% of income.

  25. We did update them as soon as we knew they were chasing us so to speak, they had never been involved with my hubby back to 1997 because she was a single mum on benefits, so they only had a super old address, we updated all details and they were very different to the ones they had, they took the PWC word for it so they could secure payment quickly, she also knew where hubby worked so it wasn’t hard, she did live 250 miles away, so it was all hear say, until they had the proof and did the reassessment that they realised they had taken way to much and breached the protected income, maintainance was paid standing order from our account to hers every month,

  26. @ wilf

    In lisa’s defence, yes they do take more than 40% as they did with my husbands wage, like lisa we knew nothing of the csa’s involvement until we found out via his wage slip….having involved our mp my husband infact owed nothing and data prints proved no letters were ever sent to him. They had him down as a single man without even checking if we had dependants in our household….even with my own case with the csa did not set up a link for them, I had to supply my chb number 4 times before they believed me!! I closed my own case with the csa because ive seen first hand how they treat an hinest nrp who supported his children, yet my ex is untraceable and doesn’t even send as much as a birthday card.

    This is my life and I’ve no reason to lie or exaggerat what the csa has done to us, they made my husband very ill with stress and nearly cost us our marriage by saying we were lying and putting us against each other as I dealt with his case as my husbands has learning difficulties.

  27. Jo:- I understand the CSA is a lumbering behemoth leaving discontent and distress in its wake but often it is hampered by uncooperative, manipulative, clients who often ignore communications, some times for years, until they are forced to pay, and so it sometimes flails about and the undeserving are treated poorly.
    I also realise that people on this site have many problems and do not deserve abuse or name calling from anybody.
    When people complain about errors, maladministration, mistakes, they have right to our sympathy and a little respect. If the cause of errors or mistakes can illuminated then understanding may follow. Tarring all people with the same brush and using it as an excuse to sneer,call names and be abusive helps nobody.

  28. Hey Alice,

    Working Fathers pay income tax. That should be used to ‘pay’ for the children. Tell why children are being singled out as ‘not to be paid for by tax payers money? Surely your wages and the wages and expenses of the MPs who’se willing you so readliy do, should ‘not be paid for by tax payers’. And the same for the Olympics, wars, foreign aid, bailing out fat cat bankers, etc, etc. So why are children singled out twhen the fathers are payig into the system??
    And tell me how a father who willingly gave money to the mother for his children and took them and bought their shoes and then gave them more money still when they needed it, should have that money taken by your government and KEPT! NOW THE CHILD/CHILDREN GETS NO SUPPORT AT ALL YOU IDIOT! And the child/children now do not see the father because the father cannot afford to take them out. And they can kiss goodbye to school trips, school uniform, shoes, etc, etc, all of which the father paid for because the government have taken the money he used to spend on them and KEPT IT.
    THIS IS STEALING FROM THE CHILDREN! You CSA and your government are CREATING CHILD POVERTY!

  29. To the CSA,
    How many men have killed themselves because of the CSA?
    That makes you CSA MURDERERS! You have blood on your hands and you have caused the children to now have no father! And we all know what fatherless boys do, they often get into gangs and all sorts of people get attacked. And you CSA are helping to fuel this.

    CSA EMPLOYEES MURDER FOR A LIVING!

  30. @ Freddie,
    Yes this is the case that men unfortunately have taken there own lives due to the lack of support and input towards the NRP during hard times within that persons life, Its been clearly noted during an inquest one time that the CSA had hounded this guy to death, He had left a note beside him saying it was down to them he had no where to turn!!!!!
    We all know in turn that the CSA are never going to be held accountable for these actions and with bated breath people still wait for answers, its morally wrong, the system is wrong, things need changing so badly and so quickly,
    If things did change maybe this wouldt happen,

  31. Last night I was put on patient transfers. This meant a lot of time spent in A&E and getting the trolleys ready for the patients to settle on other wards. One man had a bag with some wet things and some wet shoes, with lots of sand on them. From the simple style I mistook them for surfers shoes and I said “oh, you been surfing and had an accident?” He looked down, and uncomfortable, and told me he had gone in the sea to end it all. I was obviously taken aback by this and told him I thought he was very brave to do that, and was about to enquire further when got a call from porter to take someone else to a ward.

    He was well spoken, had such a kind face, no wedding ring, and I just wondered if the CSA had got to him. I wish I could have talked to him more.

    On the overhead screen by nurses station I saw another man, with details of “intentional O/D”

    So that is two men in 6 hours I know of that had tried to take their own life. Again I wonder if the CSA were involved, or loss of their relationship with their children. Of course I do not know, and maybe its good I do not for their own dignity and privacy…I would hate to ‘have’ those examples as proof to aid my beef with the csa. Two men wanted to die. Nuff said. This world is shit and unjust and cruel and is run by power mad, greedy, psychos. I would like to leave myself.

  32. Interesting to see the contrasting views of those employed by the agency and those hounded by them. @ Alice – if you honestly think that the agency do a good job and are achieving their purpose, then you are wrong. The agency is directly responsible for the deaths of over 60 men and in my case, I have never refused to pay for my children or tried to avoid doing so, I have been, for over 12 years now, the victim of constantantly poor maladministration, bullying, threats and intimidation from the agency, who have on nearly every occasion allowed my account to fall into arrears therefore resulting in huge debts, and on one instance closing the case, with a nil assessement, for several years before informing me that this was a mistake and as a result of the agencies “mistake” i have a debt, at that time off over 10,000 pounds. Whether agenct staff like it or not, the majority are poorly trained, show no compassion or understanding and are NOTHING more than Government sanctioned Bullies. There are obvioulsy parenst out there that try to escape their responsabilities and they are the ones the CSA should be persuing instead of persecuting the easy targets, IE those that work and are happy to support their children.

  33. Wilf and Alice working in perfect harmony there, Shame they do not understand why passions run so high. to spout the CSA rules is one thing to embrace them with such passion is another. Lives and relationships have and are being destroyed by this monster. What should happen and what does is clearly different and the CSA employees whom frequent this site under various guises should take a long long look in the mirror as judgement day will come and you will be chastised as one of them who willingly destroyed a generation.

    I for one will rejoice when it happens.

  34. Actually I do understand.
    Which is why I bother to post on this site.To try and advise those who are not aware of the way the CSA functions.
    I do not believe the CSA does a good job.
    I believe both the clients and the staff are hampered by poorly thought out legislation and an unmitigated disaster of a computer system.
    I will reiterate that I hold no brief for Alice and I have nothing to do with the CSA.

  35. @Wilf

    Actually I do understand.

    Time you started showing it then,
    very tempted to say,

    I fear you do protest to much!!. But give you the benefit of the doubt for now.

    But have my doubts regarding your motives and contributions I have seen Wilf, unhelpful and bordering on wind up……If nothing of value to add why add?

    Just my opinion of course.

  36. I do not believe the CSA does a good job.

    Well why then do you not post that you agree the CSA do not do this and that when they should? You avoid those issues and make no comment.

    You just say what they should do? something lack in your posts Wilf.

    Emotion………..Thats why I believe what I do. You can feel the hurt in most posters with yourself it is robotic and staid.

    Sorry just wanted to say so you understand my reasoning.

  37. The CSA doing a good job??? Nope you must be getting them mixed up with somebody else,
    All they are good for is persecuting robbing starving and killing people,
    No fairness, no equality, just shameful nasty beahviour, what else could we expect from the shamble and idiots that work there

  38. Lisa:- Where does anybody say the CSA do a good job?
    My sentence says ” I do not believe the CSA do a good job”.

  39. Stuart:- I only defend when you accuse.
    Enough people emote on here without me joining in.

  40. @ Stuart

    Nobody at the moment believes that the CSA does a good enough job, thats why so many people are now complaining, having cases looked at further and realising that to many mistakes have been made, at least when complaints are made to the right people, you get to see exactly what incompetence has been used towards you as a person regardless of who you are IE PWC/NRP

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