c.s.a. advise

Ken,

You need to get back on the phone to them and sort this out asap. Phone the complaints line http://www.csa.gov.uk/contact/index.asp and ask to speak to a manager/supervisor.

There's no reason why they cannot give you a full exlpanation as to why your payment have shot up so unexpectedly. I feel that, from your post, the letter to your employers may have been generated automatically due to the payments that you missed. If this is the case then you can relax but in any case you need to know if their calculations are incorrect.

Take names of every person who you speak to and write down what they say so that you have some evidence in the future.

Good luck and I hope that your wife isn't too stressed with all this.

Interesting post ... hope it worked out OK Wireman.

However, CSA Reality Check for anyone involved with The CSA

Faced with being scrapped CSA staff are hell bent on saving their jobs... the priority now and has been for 6 months, to take as many fathers to Court as they can for the simply reason they have to convince the Parliamentary Select Committee to chage their recommendatrion to scrap the CSA and sack the lot of them. The ONLY way they can do this is to fiddle the figures i.e. double, tripple quadruple Court application etc. This costs the CSA nothing as they simply add the costs to the fathers arrears.

CSA Legislation must be the envy of North Korea...it protect the CSA regardless of how incompetent it is... few realise that a father has no opportunity in English Law to challenge the CSA in the Magistrates Court! I know, I tried it. The Magistrates were quite clearly alarmed if not horrified by the catalogue of incompetence I recited to them. Desperate to shut me up the CSA representative interjected and actually told the Magistrates they had to grant the application....as by Law they have to!

I have been told there is now an outright war on any fathers the CSA can trace... and the ones they can trace are with rare exceptions those that do pay at least something... they are sitting ducks and these are the easiest and quickest way the CSA can boost its staistics and save their jobs.

CSA will lose correspondance it dislakes or puts them in a bad light... it will even doctor documentation. I obtained a copy of a CSA officers report of a meeting I attended. It stated the meeting covered all the points I wanted dealt with and lasted two and a half hours .... It had in fact lasted barely half an hour and barely scratched the surface of the issues which needed clarification.

So Here is my advice to anyone dealing with the CSA

DO NOT ASSUME
1. the person you are speaking to knows what they are talking about.
2. What they tell you is factually correct
3. they they will keep a note of your call/letter
4. That any notes or records will be accurate
5. That your call even took place... or your letter was even written
YES the CSA are that bad!!!

You can help yourself by at the end of your telephone converstion

1. Read back to the CSA worked a summary of the key points.... tell them you will send them a copy of this record/summary
2. Then put this summary in writting and send it to the CSA
3. End the letter with the following sentence (or something similar) '
IF you do not consider the above to be accurate you must write to me within 14 days of this letter staing specically whgich aspects of this record are inaccurate.

This will offer some help in the appeals process.... which is likely to take years.

NEVER give our any bank details ... if the CSA can find out when you are on holidays from your ex they can work the system and Garnish (a posh word for take) money from your bank account and by the time you realise whats going on its gone!!!

If you pay by standing order transfer only what you pay/owe each week/month into the account you make the payment from. The CSA only need one account number and they can garnish money in all the attatched accounts with that bank... To prevent them doing this transfer money into the standing order account from another bank.

Keep all your bank details secure... Never write your ex- a cheque. If you have any accounts which your ex may know about close them.

Good responsible fathers BE WARED ... the CSA are on the warpath ... are like Wireman you could well get caught out by their legendary incompetence ... and ask yourself one question...

'' What is the Number one priority of those working for the CSA ... to keep their jobs ... or to sort out my problems?''

In my experience as a father, every single time I have dealt with the CSA the officers have used every trick in the book to escalate the arrears I owe, and even when they accept they have made an error they refuse to backdate any corrections... so they insist I must pay three times what they knew I was earning. That is why they don't bother to answer mail and their so called complaints departments is interested only in safeguarding the interests of the CSA.

And if you had any thoughts of suing the CSA in Court forget it...They are protected by the Governent from being sued ... its the Can't be Sued Agency ...North Korea eat ya heart out!!!