Voluntary payments suddenly become arrears

I paid my ex-wife directly when we first split up but she decided to ‘CSA’ me becaause she thought she would get more money but she actually got less. I chose the deductions from earnings route as I have no desire to have any contact with the ex-wife, who I have had to take a non-molestation order against anyway. The payments were going through with occasional re-assessments whenever the ex-wife felt like complaining until I lost my job in Oct 2008 and was unemployed for 3 weeks but never signed on or claimed any benefit (which the CSA CANNOT comprehend!). The DEO needed to be set up with my new employer but it was suggested by the CSA that I make a voluntary payment so as not to incur any arrears. The payment was made by my wife on her debit card.

Yet more re-assessing, first in my favour, then her favour, then my favour and so on. I had received a small payrise at work in May and my eldest son, who is 19 in November, finally seemed to have left his 16 hour a week college course and got a job, so I sent a letter to the CSA informing them of the £900 per year payrise and asking them to re-assess based on only paying for my youngest son.

I have just finished a reduced payment schedule when I received the letter from CSA stating I was £4200 in arrears.

A frantic phone call later and the only thing I had established was that it was because of the ex-wife saying the voluntary payments from the first threee months of the marriage break-up were to pay other debts and not for child maintenance. When this money was paid to her it was on the basis of childcare and mortgage – and she certainly never paid the mortgage as the house ended up being reposessed after she trashed and abandoned it but told the mortgage company not to talk to me (that’s a whole other story!). plus she went bankrupt so there were no debts.

The ignorant moron that I spoke to at the CSA agreed he could see that they had accepted all of thes voluntary payments as such previously and had even stated it in letters but he spoke to his supervisor for approx 2 mins came back and basically said it was tough and the arrears stand.

I have compained to the CSA via the route stated in their (useless) booklet ‘How to complain about the CSA’ and escalated to the next level but they just do not bother responding even though they are supposed to acknowledge receipt of the complaint within 2 days of receipt (sent both complaint letters recorded delivery so we could monitor how badly they would respond as we knew they would).

Two weeks after the first complaint letter was received by the CSA I received a phone call from a woman (who couldn’t/wouldn’t give her surname) who was more excited about the fact I need to be re-assessed and apparently my 18 year old son is not working, so is still entitled to CSA, therefore I would be paying more. I requested that she email acknowledgement of the complaint as per their own booklet, which she had clearly never even heard of let alone read, but she told me they are not allowed to email.

I have since spoken to another woman (again, she couldn’t give me a surname – are these people just robot clones and should have numbers instead of names?) but she was of no use either as they cannot suspend the made-up arrears payments until it is investigated and surprisingly re-assessed, but still no response to the actual complaints that I have made.

Although I have a professional career and am quite well paid, this just makes it easier for the CSA to just take as much as they want. It almost seems that the CSA staff hate me because I earn reasonable money but I do actually work incredibly hard, approx 60 hours every week and do 25 thousand miles a year for work in my own 8 year old car.

I have been looking through the internet and reading some true CSA horror stories but I keep seeing that the CSA are contacting people to say their voluntary payments are classed as arrears and the figure seems to be around the £4k figure – are they on another rampage ‘let’s penalise the Fathers that do pay?’

The CSA have not supplied any breakdown of the supposed arrears and the three months voluntary, plus the 3 weeks of not working/claiming and the volutary payment made by my wife do not add up to the figure they say I owe but as usual it is head against a wall time when you ask them to back anything up in writing

Has anybody else had this happen to them? Is this just another CSA ploy to get more money?

The next stop for me will be the ICE and then my MP – I will not let this rest as I am sick to death of being treated like a criminal when I have NEVER tried to shirk my responsibilities.

The CSA is a total joke and needs to be abolished. Possibly a fairer way is to revert to the old family court scenario where payments are fair and I don’t end up paying for Fathers who do just up sticks and disappear!