Tell Us Your Experience At Your Local Child Support Office
June 15, 2017
Tell us Your Experience at Your Local Child Support Office in the Comments Section below
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your experience will be shared on childsupportoffice.us
My experience with Child Support Services in Los Angeles County in California for the past 11 years has been consistently horrific. To rehash it all will be a waste of my time as well as the readers. I will address my most recent encounter which exemplifies what I have been dealing with since day one. First and foremost, my children’s dad has a well established history of long-term unemployment and/or the appearance of inability to hold a job for longer than six months at best. He is highly educated and talented, but is now on his third career change since I filed for divorce in 2007. Of the 60+ times I’ve been to court, only 3 were my motions; initial divorce filing, modification of child support when I became permanently disabled, and a move away order as I was no longer able to afford to remain in California….every single one of the rest were motions filed by the ex for downward modification of child support.
Back to my most recent dealings with Los Angeles County. Only six weeks after I arrived in my new home, I found out completely by accident, that yet another modification hearing was set for the first week of February of this year. I began trying to contact child support services to request my participation for the hearing be telephonically as I am now over 2000 miles away as well as what forms I needed to file and by when. My first call was on January 4th to the county call center who “tasked my case worker” as they didn’t know the answer. Eleven more phone calls, either to the call center or directly to my case worker, throughout the month of January were made without the success of reaching anyone who knew what to do. Multiple times my case worker was either tasked by email and at least eight voicemail messages for left for her by me…not one was responded to. Finally, at wits end, I demanded to speak to her supervisor…low and behold, my case worker called me back. This was a HUGE problem as my court date was in 5 calendar days and the law requires me to file the request to appear by telephone a minimum of 12 court days in advance of a hearing.
1 – My case worker would never had responded to me had I not escalated it to her supervisor. Two – she further claimed she was too busy with too many parents in her office to return phone calls – WTF!, Three – she further stated cases like mine are too difficult to deal with as the NCP is regularly unemployed and/or changing jobs and careers.
Flash forward to court date five days later. All was pushed through and I was able to appear by telephone in spite of the ex objecting. You are going to just love this!! Child support was reduced by almost $200 to guideline of the ex’s most recent “job”. I knew if I fought it to be based upon his actual earning ability, he would just quit the job or find a way to be fired. (Get prepared to roll your eyes know.) The monthly payment on the over $9,000 of arrears was reduced to $25; basically 1/2 of the interest accruing every month. I brought to the attention of the county attorney as well as the judge that in my responsive filing the ex either recently has or is about to receive a sizable life insurance policy and estate distribution of which should be used to pay-off the arrears balance. I was told I needed to file another motion and get another court date to bring this to the courts attention because they couldn’t find my responsive declaration. (I had evidence of proof of service to the court, the ex, and the county…but no one seemed to figure out what they did with it.) To make matters worse, they actually released his drivers license.
Finally in a subsequent call, the county staff attorney actually said, “just be happy you’re getting something”. Tell my kids that when I don’t have the funds for them to participate in a school activity or I am late on college tuition. Just like everyone else in child support services in Los Angeles, “this case is too difficult to keep up with”. I also challenged the release of his drivers license and here is what I was asked…”How is he supposed to get to work or seek a job when he’s unemployed?” Ummmm…..a bus, especially that he lives walking distance from a major mass transit hub.
Oh well….I guess I wait 8 more months when I have been in my new home state and turn this over to the federal government and pursue it under the criminal laws in place for deadbeat parents when it’s interstate and there are arrears like my case.