Missing Child Support Agency money finally received

Money that had gone missing from the Child Support Agency has finally been reunited with its rightful owners, the CSA has stated.

The CSA worked together with the banks in question to resolve the errors and almost half a million pounds has thus been given to around a thousand children who had previously not received the money for a variety of different reasons. The most common reason was that standing orders had been filled out wrong, meaning the money got lost – however others had been deliberately filled out wrong, in cases where the parent did not want the money to go through.

Many parents had even omitted their own names on the forms, in an attempt to avoid making payments, whereas many others – intentionally or not – had entered information into the wrong field, such as putting numbers into fields for text.

The British Banker’s Association made a statement highlighting the fact that this shows how important it is to make sure individuals get their information correct when filling out forms. Additionally, the Financial Ombudsman said that this problem may largely be due to people becoming confused about the differences between a standing order and a direct debit, therefore outlining that it is important to make sure people know the differences between how each works.

Thousands of people make simple mistakes on standing order and direct debit forms every year, resulting in large amounts of money never reaching its destination, whether that destination is the individual’s children or otherwise.