Frustrated with CSA

supersavershal

My partner pays child support through CSA for his daughter who will be 19 in November.She left college approx 3 months ago and has been working full time in a hairdressers.
My partner contacted CSA to ask why he is still paying CSA and they said they will reveiw it in September.I understood that he should stop paying when his daughter left college so why does he have to wait until September.
The CSA wont listen at all, they are like a broken record, they say we have to prove she is working, OH gave the name and telephone number of the hairdressers but they dont want to know.What can we do, I also presume the mother is claiming child benefit still for the child and also tax credits.
They are living a high life, with 3 holidays a year, as the mother has 4 children all to different fathers all paying CSA, whilst we are struggling to get by with all the increases and our pay being frozen.
We feel so frustrated and angry and helpless.

supersavershal

Have just contacted ICE, is there anything else we can do?

speedster

yep.

stop paying and inform them that as the child is now in full time employment, and that CS ceases at that point.

then get onto the CB ofiice and inform them of the situation.

the csa will whine about arrears, but will be wiped out when they do their job properly and talk to the CB office anyway.

do this in writing via recorded delivery. NEVER do anything with the csa via telephone. they "mysteriously" lose copies of call and then it's your word against theirs.

DX2

supersavershal wrote: »

My partner pays child support through CSA for his daughter who will be 19 in November.She left college approx 3 months ago and has been working full time in a hairdressers.
My partner contacted CSA to ask why he is still paying CSA and they said they will reveiw it in September.I understood that he should stop paying when his daughter left college so why does he have to wait until September.
The CSA wont listen at all, they are like a broken record, they say we have to prove she is working, OH gave the name and telephone number of the hairdressers but they dont want to know.What can we do, I also presume the mother is claiming child benefit still for the child and also tax credits.
They are living a high life, with 3 holidays a year, as the mother has 4 children all to different fathers all paying CSA, whilst we are struggling to get by with all the increases and our pay being frozen.
We feel so frustrated and angry and helpless.

Sounds like Child benefit is still in payment.

kelloggs36

if child benefit is in payment then maintenance continues. If you notify the Child Benefit that she is working full--time then if they cease the case, then CSA can too.

Didismump

Surely the PWC can get 'done' for claiming CB if the 'child' is now working full-time???

Need to get a few spies out to find the facts and stop her claiming if it is not rightfully hers any longer...
S'all wrong..:(
As advised by all the wonderful people on here...DO put everything in writing and send via recorded delivery (keep the stub/copy the ref number of the paperwork you get from PO when you send anything)..
As it seems with all other CSA matters..you are damned if you do, and damned if you don't pay up..
but I would definately say get looking into as much as you can yourself..get as much evidence and proof as possible..and get all the facts right..
Then after you have dotted all 'i's' and crossed all 't's'....FIGHT to get what IS right, put RIGHT!!!!
Good Luck..everyone here will be behind you ( as I have recently found:))

Blonde_Bint

I could be wrong but I thought CHB was paid until the september after the child leaves education be that 16 18 or 19.

So if child goes on to further education then is 19 in say April CHB is still paid for the months may june july august until the september iyswim:) for chb purposes her summer job may just be seen as that, a summer job which could be packed in before start of college in september.

I thought this was in case the child decided to go back to college in september.

shell_542

According to the child benefit info, it should stop once a child leaves education and starts working 24 hours a week or more, so if she is still claiming CB she's doing so fraudulently. Like the others have said, report her.

supersavershal

Thank you so much for your replies, it would seem the mother is claiming child benefit.This is definitly not just a summer job, she left college to work full time there.The CSA said it is up to OH to prove she is working full time, how the heck do we do that, all they have to do is ring her employers and they would know or check her national insurance number.If we ring child benefit, do we use the same telephone number as for benefit fraud?

supersavershal

Just a quick update, ICE has contacted us to tell us they will be investigating our case.The CSA have also contacted us to say they have allocated a case worker to investigate complaint who will be in touch within next 5 days.We have contacted child benefit to inform them child is working.
OH always paid but it is now getting a bit much when child has been to turkey all inclusive, a festival and a week in London and we cant afford a day trip to the zoo with our boys.

supersavershal

Well here we are in September, Ice dropped our case as they said they couldnt investigate whilst the complaint with CSA was live.CSA said they would review in September, we heard nothing, so OH rung them up.They denied all knowledge of any of the above!!! Luckily we had the letter from them to refer to and had sent our letter recorded so they couldnt argue even though they tried.
They are now saying there is nothing we can do, we did report to child benefit and nothing happened.Daughter has told us herself she is working full time and has not been in education since May! All CSA say is that they cannot do anything whilst child benefit is being claimed and that even when they do decide to review the case it can take up to 20weeks, daughter is 19 next month.Does this mean we will be paying for 20 weeks after that?
If they do finally do a review is it likely they will refund the overpayment automatically? This is so frustrating.
We dont know what to do now, does anyone have any ideas, have filled in a complaint form but I have learnt with CSA this means nothing.They were also talking about reviewing if any arreas are owed, how can arreas be owed as OH has paid via CSA 2 since contacted, and was refunded about £60 two years ago for overpayment.I cant make sense of any of it and it is causing us a lot of stress as we both thought it would be done with by now.