CSA Mistakes and excuses

Feline_friendly

I do hope someone can please help me, i feel like i am hitting my head against brick wall! Ill summerise my case..

12 years ago i split with ex..we have 2 small children then and he walked away from them..he hasnt seen them for 12 years.

12 years ago i get CSA to get payments..he is assessed at £0

13 months ago..after every assessment coming back £0 i get advised to change to CSA2..which i do after closing my 1st case, waiting 13 weeks..and reapplying.

Ist they claim the system had faults and this delayed getting my ex reassessed.

Finally assessed in Septemeber...ex does his best to delay payment....not his kids..assessment wrong..his earnings wrong..not answering phone etc.:rolleyes:

I do get 3 small payments from him when they do get through to him..but he asked to be reassessed and last week i get another assesment through...but no payment schedule.

I have rang this morning and this is what i was told....

my case has gone into long term system error....this happened when they tried to get arrears put onto regular payments. System says he should be only paying £5/wk....but this isnt correct. They say my case has now gone to Clerical dept. in Newcastle??!! It could take several months to sort out. She advised i go direct to ex for payments...but the reason i went through CSA is that my ex refused to pay me anything....and i told them this. She just apologised and said there was nothing else she could do.

What can i do? Is there something i can do??? I have phoned the CSA weekly for 10 months now....costing me money....just to get money for my children.

Please..any advise will be great...i really feel like giving up...but why should i..it's what my ex wants..and my children deserve something. Also, every week that goes by my ex gets further and further into debt....and he is already owing a few hundred pounds.

marksoton

Get your MP involved. That normally makes the idiots speed up.

jacklink

also contact NACSA they deal with issues like yours

https://www.nacsa.co.uk

good luck

ann1971

Go to your mp and ask him/her to phone the mp hotline for clerical cases which is based in Falkirk. As far as I know all clerical cases with an MP complaint on them are worked in Falkirk

koolmummy

Hi Feline.

I do understand, I've been dealing with the CSA for 5 years now, never had payments, ex owes £35k and like you I understand the banging your head against the wall feeling :mad:

I had a rant about my situation on this forum a few months ago and it was suggested that I write to my M.P. Although I was skeptical about it, with nothing to loose I wrote ( via email) and got a call from my M.P's secretary within 20 minutes!
I wrote from here:-www.writetothem.com

My M.P has been great and the CSA have done more to peruse the debt in the last few months than they have ever done before. My case is now with Legal Enforcement and if my ex does not pay in next few months he will find himself languishing at the pleasure of her majesty!!:D

Good luck and best wishes to you.

Feline_friendly

Thank you for the advice. I will give that a go.

I dont really understand what they mean about it having to go to clerical....why did it come up as a system error?? I sometimes feel that unless the ex pays without any problems or moans, they really cant be bothered with you.

NASA_2

Feline_friendly wrote: »

Thank you for the advice. I will give that a go.

I dont really understand what they mean about it having to go to clerical....why did it come up as a system error?? I sometimes feel that unless the ex pays without any problems or moans, they really cant be bothered with you.

I dont work in the CSA/CMED but if their systems are anything like ours then its really down to the computer software. Sometimes it just doesnt want to do what its meant to - no-one in their right mind would willingly make a claim clerical as it is so much more time consuming to maintain.

Feline_friendly

I know ESA it just gets very tiresome after 12 years of excuses. I shall be contacting my MP through the site koolmummy gave...thank you so much for that.

Feline_friendly

How long does it take for an MP to become involved in a case? I emailed my MP on the 27th with a summary of my case and the problem, but besides an automated response to say it had arrived i have heard nothing. I know he is a busy man but i just have no idea how long i should expect to wait :-S

markeymark

why dont you go to his/her local surgery?

Feline_friendly

Thanks for the reply markeymark....but do you know what? I have read loads of threads on this part of the forum and qiute frankly i dont think my MP will help really.....my ex doesnt want to pay and going by what i have read i would spend too much time getting angry and stressed about it...all for what £20 -£80 a month the £20 more like if my ex keeps changing his circumstances like he has. Some of the posts on here qiute frankly scare the heck out of me and just shows how awful and badly managed the CSA are.

Thanks to all who have helped me.