You’re supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, but where the CSA are concerned you have to prove your innocence. I just had a call from a very rude woman who wanted to know why the CSA hadn’t been paid.
This is of course despite my former employer telling them twice and me telling them once that I no longer work.
Ironically enough she demanded that I prove that I’m not working. I begged the question how can you prove you’re NOT working, and she had little idea except for going to the job centre.
As if.
Could I perhaps show her a payslip that I don’t have? Could she speak to an employer that doesn’t exist? Who knows, yet she ended the call by saying as the CSA were not told that I’m no longer working, by me or by my former employer, that I’m still liable for the full deductions.
How on earth does that work? I no longer work at Just Search. I am not employed by them. The CSA have been told this on THREE separate occasions.
She even apologised for the fact that they hung up on me twice before, shortly before she, yes you guessed it, hung up on me.
It’s been over two months since I left my job, in part due to the unreasonable behaviour of the child support agency and the fact that they refused to speak to me, and they’re still chasing my former employer to deduct money from my wages.
I notified the CSA that I was leaving in April this year, via letter, which you can read here. My employer also notified the CSA that I no longer worked there. You’d think that would be enough for the child support agency, but no, despite being told twice, in writing, they still can’t take in any information and have just contacted my former employer with a payment schedule for a deduction from earnings order.
How many times do we have to tell these idiots the same thing?
The irony is that the DEO also comes with a stern warning stating that if you move house or change job you must notify the CSA within 10 days or face a £1,000 fine and a prison sentence. What’s the point in telling them? They don’t frickin’ listen anyway!
I’ve had it with the CSA. I told them I was leaving my job, almost three months ago now, and don’t have anything else to say to them. If they want to speak to me they know where I am and they know my number. They can get in touch anytime, night or day.
My problems with the Child Support Agency are well documented, as are a great many people’s problems I guess. Because my efforts to get them to admit their mistakes proved fruitless, even when they posted someone else’s bank details to me, I set up the anti-CSA website CSAHell.com.
This website was created to allow people who are having trouble with the Child Support Agency to voice their problems to the world and maybe get some advice on how to deal with it.
On the website you can read emails we have received from non resident parents and parents with care who have given up hope on trying to get the CSA to do their job properly. The website also features my famed YouTube videos of phone calls I have had with the CSA.
Now, how has this impacted?
Firstly, anyone looking for the ‘child support agency’ who Google’s ‘child support agency’ is able to see my legendary CSA video on the front page of Google, as you can see here.
The video has received almost 10,000 views at time of writing this, and will receive a lot more over the coming weeks and months. The ‘administrative error’ the hapless Ryan admits to on the phone is hilarious, and very damning for the CSA.
But what of people looking for ‘CSA Complaints’? Well, I have that one sewn up in spades. Not one, but TWO websites on the front page of Google, csahell.com and mrdaz.com.
There’s no escaping for the CSA. We’re here to stay and we’re only getting stronger.
If you’ve been screwed over by them, have your say at csahell.com and tell the world your story. It will be heard, by a LOT of people.
If like you’re having problems with the CSA, The ONE Show on BBC One want to hear about it. They’re making a short piece about disputed parentage and want to speak to people who have been in this situation.
Here’s the message The ONE Show has asked me to put up. Get in touch with them now if you believe you could contribute.
The ONE Show- Film about Disputed Parentage
We are making a film on ‘Disputed Parentage’ for The ONE Show, a primetime topical magazine show that transmits every weekday evening on BBC ONE at 7pm.
For the film we would like to speak to men and women who have been in this situation.
It will be an informal chat with a view to doing an interview at some point this week.
You can contact me on 01612443248 or 07843023251. Alternatively you can email me on joe.casey1@bbc.co.uk
Sadly it’s finally come down to my having to resign from my job as a direct result of the CSA. It’s not something I wanted to do, but as they’re taking 40% of my salary, refuse to speak to me over the phone and haven’t sent my employer an updated payment schedule in almost 2 years, I can’t continue.
The last message I received from the idiots stated how they had sent a payment schedule to Just Search in July 2008, however they hadn’t sent one. I didn’t receive one and Just Search didn’t receive one.
The CSA lied.
I then heard that my DEO (deduction of earnings order) can’t be changed by my employer until the CSA send them an updated payment schedule, which they’re not planning on doing until July this year. This is despite my having already overpaid according to my records, and my employer’s records. Now, as the CSA lied about sending one in 2008, am I to trust they’ll send one in 2009?
Not likely. Even if they do actually send a new payment schedule this July, with the correct reduced payments, I would then have to APPEAL to get my money back!!!
Again, this isn’t going to happen.
As the CSA refuse to provide my employer with the correct payment schedule, haven’t done so for nearly 2 years and refuse to speak to me I’m left with no option but to quit. I can’t afford to work anymore.
I’m not the first to have to do this and I won’t be the last. I really don’t understand how the CSA can legally demand money direct from your employer based on a calculation that they refuse to update, and claim they did in 2008, when they blatantly didn’t. They have lied to me, they have lied to Just Search and they have been stealing money from me. No one can do anything about them, they are not governed by any policing body and they’re answerable to no one.
It’s a shame, but that’s the child support agency for you. Of course the real losers in all of this are my children, as they won’t receive any money from now on. The CSA have made sure of that. That is of course assuming they’ve received any of it in the first place?
Here is the letter I sent to the CSA informing them of this. Perhaps someone has a comment on this?
Birkenhead Child Support Agency
Great Western House
Woodside Ferry Approach
Birkenhead
Merseyside
CH41 6DA
REF: Resignation from employment
National Insurance Number: **********
Dear Sirs
I write to notify you that due to your failure to act accordingly, and your failure to supply my employer, Just Search, with a payment schedule since July 2007 (almost TWO years ago) I have had no option but to resign from my job.
May 7th 2009 will be the last day of my employment as it just isn’t financially viable for me to continue working when the CSA are taking 40% of my salary and refuse to update my payment schedule to account for my overpayment.
Congratulations to you sirs, you have forced another hard working father who just wants to earn a living, pay his way and see his kids, to quit his job. I do hope the government rewards you accordingly for adding to the country’s unemployment figures.
I will be unemployed until further notice, but won’t be going out of my way to find a job. Nor will I be claiming benefit, as I don’t believe in sponging off other people who do work.
I complete a self assessment tax return for my affiliate earnings, but made a loss last year due to increased costs and reduced revenues. I might break even this year, so there is still nothing you can claim from me as I will not be earning.
This will be my last letter to you as I do not wish to correspond with you via letter in future. Any future correspondence must be made via phone call. You have my number, but here it is again just in case: ***** *** ***.
I had wondered what the term CeMAP Training actually meant, but as I’ve just bought a house (which completes on Monday, when I get the keys) I’ve now realised what it means and exactly why it’s so important in the current climate.
The term means the ‘Certificate in Mortgage Advice and Practice’ and is awarded to people who qualify from their CeMAP exam to become mortgage advisers. My own personal mortgage adviser was with Lloyds TSB, and he ensured I had the right mortgage package so that I could afford the house I’m buying in Manchester, so he was very helpful to me, when most people wouldn’t have given me a mortgage right now because of the CSA deductions I’m currently experiencing, despite having already paid off more than their stated arrears.
But that’s for another blog post. This one is about my new house, which I’ll be living in from Monday 9th (which also happens to be my youngest son’s birthday) and I’m able to finally ditch BT, as I’m having Virgin Media installed.
So I’m getting a new house, with REAL broadband and Sky Sports. Things are looking up. Thanks for the help Tim!
The guys at BBC Radio 5 Live are featuring the Child Support Agency this week, and are looking for people who have experienced horror stories with them. I’ve already had a phone call today from Phillip Kemp asking to be put in touch with people who have expressed their views on MrDaz.com, and I’ve just had an email from ‘Howard’ pointing out this request from the Beeb.
Radio Five live is looking to do a story (on Sunday) about cases where CSA have created large debts on accounts but despite this being their fault, they are threatening enforcement if the debts are not repaid as per their demands.
They are particularly interested in any case where this has happened and the case involves a child that the NRP was unaware of until CSA made contact years later.
This is one of the rare opportunities whereby the press are looking at issues of unfair practices from CSA, so I have taken the liberty of emailing everyone as I know how many of you have been affected by this problem.
I hope many of you will want to make your story known, so please email Phillip Kemp on phillip.kemp@bbc.co.uk.
If you are going to email please be brief. They will not have time to read the full history of your case, so just put two or three sentences to explain how CSA have created the debt, the debt total, plus what if any enforcement action has been threatened/taken. If they want more details, they will contact you.
The program is due to go out on Friday, so will be wanting to speak to people to make recordings in the next day or two.
A few weeks ago (January 20th) I asked the CSA to send me a breakdown of what I paid to date, and what I owed. I recorded the phone call, because I knew they’d either lie about my requesting it or just muck it up. Sure enough, when I phoned back some weeks later they had no recollection of my having called (even though I had) so I asked the same question again.
This time a chap named Barney said he’d send me the details, which to his credit, he did. I did tell him I was recording the call though, so he’d have struggled to worm his way out of it.
I received my details through the post in a timely fashion; however, I also received something else. I received something which highlights a level of incompetence and lack of organisation that only the Child Support Agency has the ability to display. They sent me a printout of internal email between one of their accountants, Natalie Walters, and Patricia Corris. In the email, Natalie asked Patricia to update the details on a PWC (parent with care), and printed the woman’s bank account number and sort code for her building society.
This email was printed out by Patricia Corris, left lying around on the printer at the CSA in Birkenhead, and then picked up and posted to my address! In doing so, Patricia Corris broke data protection laws.
Here’s a copy of the email, with the bank details removed (because I’m not incompetent like the CSA):
Sorry trish am on training now and the phones have been mad im trying 2 do me 2 pieces of post b4 she has me ha.
Will you update iico please for pwc bank details sc 165521 acct num ******62 thanks don’t forget
Natalie
OA3 Accounts
Ext 2463
You’ll notice by the mix of broken English and text speak that Natalie isn’t the sharpest tool in the box, and by the fact that Patricia printed an email containing someone’s bank details and left it lying around on the printer for some other bright spark to pick up and post to random people, it’s clear that the CSA isn’t really filled with geniuses.
So, if you’re a parent with care and your bank is the Cumberland Building Society, Cumberland House, Castle Street, Carlisle, CA3 8RX, with the sort code 16-52-21, your bank account details may have been printed out and posted to me. Perhaps they’ve been posted to other people as well? Who knows!
The real question is, what did the CSA have to say about this? Let’s ask them!
Here’s the recorded phone call of what happened when I phoned the CSA to tell them of their gross negligence.
As you can hear, they ‘claim’ they’ll contact the PWC to let her know about the screw up, and they ‘claim’ that a manager will be involved. I doubt either will happen, so I phoned the Daily Mirror and got a journalist on the case. He spoke to the CSA, and received a grovelling letter back from them admitting the mistake, but I have yet to hear back from them, either in writing or by phone call. I was promised that Patricia Corris would call me to apologise, but she hasn’t.
Hopefully she’s been sacked. Hopefully the whole of the Birkenhead office has been sacked, but sadly I doubt it. This type of cock up is hardly out of the ordinary, and I expect the CSA will continue to do this until the whole organisation is shut down amid mass public outcry. How many screw ups will this take though? How many CSA mistakes must we endure before something is done?
If I wasn’t laughing so hard I’d be crying right now.
We use cookies and have to tell you about it because of dumb laws. If you don't care, fine. If you do, I don't. AcceptRead More
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
