an old case

mullycar

Can anyone give me advice please. Just had a phone call from CSA this morning and they want to know if I will let them write off the £5000 owed to me by my ex. I feel angry as the csa did not handle the case well in the 1990s when he was supposed to be paying. my ex claims he is ill now so I suppose I will never receive any money. But when the boys were young I had an awful struggle making ends meet and I think CSA could have tried harder. I will have to pay if I proceed and receive money. So do I just write £5000 off, knowing the real financial state of my ex, but unable to prove it

shoe*diva79

Personally I would refuse to write the arrears off. That is your money that should have eased the financial burden of raising children. A shame the ex is now poorly... but thats not your problem.

Csa_Survivor

mullycar wrote: »

I will have to pay if I proceed and receive money.

Why will you have to pay?
If you do decide to make the Csa figures look better, whoops, sorry, I mean write your ex partners debt off, whatever you do, ask for it all explained in writing to protect yourself.
Seriously, nothing would surprise me anymore with this agency, I personally would not be amazed if you decide to do this for your ex but then a couple of years down the line they come back to you saying that all of a sudden, somehow, you owe your ex money!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I don't want to scare you but this agency still appears incompetent if not fraudulent if you ask me. I don't know how much reading you have done on forums like these but time and time again you read of the Csa getting their figures wrong, sometimes by thousands and thousands of pounds. I have lost count of the letters from people in distress because the Csa claim they owe thousands of pounds, yet after further investigation when they kick up a stink it turns out to be a few hundred quid, or in some instances absolutely nothing at all!
Obviously I am talking from the paying parents experience of things but there is nothing to say you will not get caught out, ask for it in writing and cover yourself should you proceed down this road.

Cally_Smart

Well said Csasurvivor. Look at the situation we have been in for almost 2 years.We are still seeing MP trying to prove that we should have no 'arrears. Everything we have found seems to prove the CSA have all the legislation on their side but constantly get very many things wrong! Its not just for us but in many hundreds of cases we have heard about.Even my ex fiancee has got in touch to tell me of his desperation caused by the CSA (case long since over & compensation paid to him for their incompatance over the years) I can remember being taken to his MP(different constituency) years ago to talk about his case & my case (as a pwc then) Those that won't pay will get away without supporting their children and some like us will end up paying twice!

PreludeForTimeFeelers

mullycar wrote: »

Can anyone give me advice please. Just had a phone call from CSA this morning and they want to know if I will let them write off the £5000 owed to me by my ex. I feel angry as the csa did not handle the case well in the 1990s when he was supposed to be paying. my ex claims he is ill now so I suppose I will never receive any money. But when the boys were young I had an awful struggle making ends meet and I think CSA could have tried harder. I will have to pay if I proceed and receive money. So do I just write £5000 off, knowing the real financial state of my ex, but unable to prove it

I'm not really sure why you've been told that you'd have to pay to proceed - if your current case closes and you open a case on the new 2012 scheme then you may have to pay further down the line but that wouldn't affect any debts already accrued.

mullycar

I will have to pay if they proceed and recover any money. They will keep a percentage of anything I might receive. Believe the CSA are not my favourite people. They treated me badly back in the 90s and I complained twice and my complaint was upheld. My ex has lied about everything, he always worked and never paid. I am very angry at CSA for what they put me through, many times I was on phone in tears to them. I do not think I will allow debt to be written off. My ex has now made a great recovery and is at his work as usual.

PreludeForTimeFeelers

mullycar wrote: »

I will have to pay if they proceed and recover any money. They will keep a percentage of anything I might receive. Believe the CSA are not my favourite people. They treated me badly back in the 90s and I complained twice and my complaint was upheld. My ex has lied about everything, he always worked and never paid. I am very angry at CSA for what they put me through, many times I was on phone in tears to them. I do not think I will allow debt to be written off. My ex has now made a great recovery and is at his work as usual.

Believe me, that's not true - charging hasn't even been brought in yet, not until later this year, and that would just apply to any liabilities going forward, NOT to anything already owed.

How old are the kids/kid in the case?

Crellow4

Prelude is absolutely correct, there is no charge for enforcement action on 1993 or 2003 cases. The charging on 2012 cases has not yet started and will only apply to debt going forward.

mullycar

The guy who phoned me told me a number of times, if I proceed I will be charged if I receive anything. Unbelievable I thought thy were trained better, :mad: The boys are adults now and have left school

PreludeForTimeFeelers

mullycar wrote: »

The guy who phoned me told me a number of times, if I proceed I will be charged if I receive anything. Unbelievable I thought thy were trained better, :mad: The boys are adults now and have left school

So I guess if they've left school then the case is effectively closed, so it's just the arrears to be collected - in that case yeah, there wouldn't be any charge at all. Any monies owed to you will be paid to you in full, with no collection charges for the Government.

Csa_Survivor

mullycar wrote: »

The guy who phoned me told me a number of times, if I proceed I will be charged if I receive anything. Unbelievable I thought thy were trained better, :mad: The boys are adults now and have left school

Assuming there have been no crossed wires between yourself and the guy at the Csa you spoke to, I think you will probably see where I am coming from now with my earlier comments. I am no expert by any means on the Csa but if you notice, the first thing I said to you was a question asking why you thought you would have to pay because that sounded very odd, if that is what you were led to believe! Seriously, this must be Janet and John Book 1 stuff for someone who works for the Csa, how can it be possible to get that information wrong to you?
Given that I had very little contact with the Csa for years other than the lies in early 2003 saying that my case would be eventually be moved over to what was then known as Csa2 (it never happened in the 10 years following!), it does seem odd they contacted you at all?
The more I think about it, the more certain I feel that it probably is their way of making their figures look better in some way if they write off cases such as your own. Even so, Csa are renowned for not giving you anything in writing so I will ask you these questions:
1. Did they actually tell you over the phone an EXACT figure your ex is meant to owe you (I would be surprised if they did!)
2. Have they actually wrote to you giving you that EXACT figure (sticking my neck out here but my guess is almost definitely not!)
3. During that conversation you had with them, did they even offer to send you some paper trail proof of what they were asking you to do ( 99.99999% most probably not!).
I will just say this to you, I have just been reading on another site that someone under the Freedom of Information Act wanted to know how many complaints the Csa received in one particular year, this figure was quoted as 48,000. Now then, once you add on all the thousands that felt afraid to complain or just thought they would be wasting their time that is one hell of a lot of people with grievances! Call me a cynic, whatever you like, but in my own personal opinion even more actual complaint letters were most likely filtered out those figures if the envelope was not addressed as a Complaint at the top, but as I say that is me with my cynical head on and have no actual evidence of that, would not be surprised though!
Do you really think it a good idea to trust them?, if you do decide to go ahead then ask for them to put their request, with figures, into writing or tell them to whistle Dixie!