CSA Has anyone ever fought them and won? Sorry a bit long

[tarantula]

Jsut wondering has anyone ever managed to get the CSA to back down and admit they are wrong?

Our case is this. DP made redundant May04 and sent letter to CSA. No responce to that or 2 other letters. Finally emailed them in Nov. They claimed that they never recieved the letters and are refusing to backdate the maintance changes to time dp was made redundant. This comes to over £2000, money we just dont have and cant pay as we are struggling to live on my income as it is. We have tried complaining and are getting nowhere fast. Noone there seems to know what they are doing at all and the last letter we received asked us to phone them yet again despite us saying we wanted no phone contact (they were making abusive phone calls to dp at work before this).

Would getting in contact with our MP help at all. Dp wants to support his son but has been unable to get a job that would even cover nursery fees for dd let alone Child support for dss too.

This whole situation has put a huge strain on our relationship and I can feel myself slipping into depression. Feeling sick now even thinking about it.

TIA

Yes, get in touch with your MP. It seems to be the only thing that the CSA responds to. I've been on the other side of the fence (not receiving any maintenance) and so far, I've had 3 compensation cheques. They do back down, but you have to fight them effectively and the MP is the best short cut to that.

thanks Caligula Glad to hear that someone has got somewhere with them. Dp jsut seems to be burying his head in the sand atm and keeps saying 'Well what can we do they are the law'.

They are the law, maybe - but they are incompetant, their computer system is failing and the staff are all demoralised and unmotivated. You have my sympathies - we have just been in a similar situation to you, with my dh having too much money taken from his wages. We have been fighting them since November and have just had the payments adjusted to the correct amount. DH was writing to them every week and phoning about 3 times a week - so stressful and depressing, their computer system was regularly down, or they had an 8 week backlog, always some excuse, just a complete waste of time. Now we have to start the fight to get compensation from them, but atleast the stress of us not having enough money on a month to month basis to live on is over. But they owe us a lot, and I dread to think when we will finally get it. The whole system stinks. I agree he should help support his first born son, but the csa failed to acknowledge that he also has two more children to support too! Definately contact your MP, and rethink the phone thing, because without dh phoning them every few days I don't think we would have got anywhere

there have been stories in the press about CSA staff deliberately losing files and letters because they can't cope with the workload. So your MP may be your best bet.

We had a letter from them after 6 months of no payments from DW's exh - it actually says they now admit their original decision to cancel payments was wrong

No apology of course though.

and this was all after countless phone calls / letters / letters to MP etc.

Still no arrears through either but the payments are going again.

Hang in there - I have every sympathy.

MP definitely the way to go - ours was a bit slow to act on it but I definitely think it helped.

Hi Rosie So glad you got things sorted out a bit with them. I think its awful that they were allowed to take so much money from you. The thing is with us is that Dp is very inarticulate over the phone at the best of times and would prob end up just swearing at them which def wouldnt help his case. I think Ill just have to up the volume of emails Im sending them and also get dp to contact his MP. I was doing well for a while but we werent getting anywhere and dp has got to the stage where he feels like giving up. He loves being at home with dd and is a fantastic sahd but feels that he should be out supporting all his kids and now feels he is a bad dad to dss cos he cant pay towards his upkeep. Have to say tho that its not like dss is going to see any money anyway cos his mum is on benefits so that makes it even more frustrating.

Jsut want to say thanks everyone I feel a bit more hopeful now and rang my MPs office. We are going to a surgery next month (after Ive been on hols so will be fighting fit then ). Now all I need to do is get all our details together and sort them out and print them off and put them into a posh folder (to make me feel more professional). Really hope we get something sorted. In te mean time I shall continue to bombard them with mails and hope that we get some kind of breakthrough. Cheers again all.

We have had so much trouble with the CSA. DP had a letter through from a girl he dated briefly while we were seperated saying she loved him and had a child by him and wanted to become a family. We worked out the dates and they didn't match. I phoned the girl and told her that we were back together and she then freaked out completely saying she was gonna get him with the CSA. Her child was already 6 months old and this was the first we knew she was even pregnant. Anyway the letter from CSA came through and we didn't want to ignore it and so filled in our adress details but said "?" next to is this child yours. We then spoke to CSA on the phone and they said they would order a parternity test. however, next thing we knew payments were being taken from DP's wages.

We called the CSA and they said that as far as they were concerned, DP had admitted being the father and they were not prepared to do anything else.

We have contacted the courts as we would have to get an order to make this girl agree to a parternity test and we have been told that the only way to do it is to go for access rights to see the child and then tell the courts that we are not sure of the childs parternity and they will then order a test. Dp has discussed this and he doesn't want to have access and the girl doesn't want him to. Anyway looks like DP will be paying for a long time yet which we dont mind if only we knew the truth.

sorry to hear your nightmare Horseshoe - I found it unbelievable at first how inept they are, but now I just tend to expect it al

now been told that if they ring him 3 times about the arrears and dont get through the case gets passed to a different department!

and when the arrears are paid it will be spread over 5 years!!!

Caligula - how did you get compensation? They have admitted its all their fault - reckon we can do anything? how do you make a claim?