CSA Grrrrr.

I see why the British Economy is in trouble. The amount of money they must waste on paperwork must be immense!

Every week for the past four weeks I have been receiving letters through the post from the Child Support Agency. This is a Government organisation that assures that some form of child maintenance is paid to a child in the circumstances of an absent parent. This means that Matthews dad should pay something towards his sons living costs.

It's already an incredibly feeble amount that he should be paying. It equates to my ex paying £5 per week into this organisation for Matthew to have some benefit.

In the past few years I must have had about £40 of payments that I have actually received.

So today upon receiving yet another letter (a four page letter with a booklet on how to claim) on what I should be getting I finally give them a call.

I go through the normal channels of half a dozen security questions before getting to the point. Why are you sending me so many letters saying I should be receiving when in reality I do not get anything? The gentleman on the phone was very efficient and asked when I received my last payment, how I get paid etc. I told him it went directly into my bank account but it's been a long time since I had anything enter that account. On my previous bank statements for the past 6 months I did not get one payment. He offered to look into it telling me that my ex was claiming unemployment benefit and last went to his Job Seekers meeting on Nov 25th (Friday) so it should have gone into my account today.

He proceeded to my bank details to inform me that the page was empty. They had no record of my bank details stored.

I was NOT impressed.

Normally when I don't receive payments it's because he isn't signing on for his benefits. He gets a job and conveniently forgets to inform the CSA so we don't get a penny of his wages when he should pay 17% of his wages.

Today they tell me, he is claiming but their computer programme has a fault and it's Government policy to not write or phone asking for bank details as it could easily be used as a scam by fraudulent individuals. I part understand that but if it was the case why could they not just send out the letter with the details of what I should be paid and a comment saying "Please call us to discuss this issue further"  Would it be that hard?

So it's been left that I should receive payment December 9th. I could be in line for a nice little sum of backdated money if the money has been put in a holding account due to non payment or it could all be a big Government con and I am left with nothing. I suspect the latter scenario.