csa: has anyone been in trouble with them?

[juicychops]

I dont want to go into my personal details,but need information. has anyone not gone through CSA but still had regular payments from child's dad and been found out?

BUMP........ very urgent and important

When dh and his x split up they agreed an amount for him to pay her every month and the CSA weren't involved. They did get involved later.

Was it declared to income support what was being paid?

Sorry, I don't know, dh just kept up his end of the agreement and paid what he agreed with his x. The CSA got involved because she started claiming benefits. She told the CSA he hadn't paid anything - whether that was because she didn't want to declare the payments, I don't know. The CSA wanted a huge backpayment from DH, which he refused to pay - it would have meant he was paying twice - and as he was able to prove he had made the payments by standing order, they discounted what he had already paid (which was way over what he was assessed at) from what they said he owed.

Sorry juicychops I have to go, I'm at work. Hope you get the problem sorted.

Do you know if she got in trouble for lying? not exactly the same situation, but elements of similarity my ex has not kept his side of the agreement regarding payments so im buggered really

I really don't know Juicy, that's not something she'd ever discuss with dh. I doubt whether the CSA were bothered that she had lied, and dh's payments would have gone towards her benefits from the date of her claim, so I doubt whether they were worried either.

What is it you're worried about?

dh x wife was supposed to give him a set amount every month but after the first few bounced cheques didnt bother. got the csa involved and they sorted it out. if you have not involved the csa to begin with i dont think they hold that against you but will then sort it out

my ex was paying me money each month that i didn't declare to benefits. He's now messing me about and has stopped paying me. Im now going to go through the CSA. There is no proof of the amounts he has been paying me but i thought i might get into trouble from CSA for not declaring money he had been paying me from the start

about 5years ago i hit really bad money worries/debts and went to the cab they asked if i got any maintenance for my 1st ds,i was, but i hadnt declared it as it went straight into ds bank account, it was something like £30 a week. basically i had been committing fraud but because of the circumstances i presume, i never heard a thing about being imprisoned. i spent weeks/months worrying that id get a summons for court and be put away for fraud. the worry taught me a valuable lesson.

ds's maintenace stopped a few months later as his father gave up his job

I worked for the CSA for many years, from all the cases that I saw similar to yours (and their were quite a few) about 70 - 80% of them had their benefits reduced to re-coup money that they shouldn't have got, which I'm sure you will agree is fair, but only about 5-10% of these ever got prosecuted for fraud.

I would say bite the bullet and tell them, I would also advise that you tell the benefits agency because it will look a whole lot worse if the CSA report it through the fraud department.
Remember that your ex may become nasty when you do this, so you need to own up to everything you have had off him because he will make sure that they know about every last penny he has paid (rightly so) but may try to say he has paid more so if you lie they will be more likely to believe that he has paid you more than he has.