[gmtejese]

I haven't been on here in awhile and I just wanted to post a quick update on our situation.

Ryan and I had court on July 30th. I flat out told him that if he truly loved his son like he claims he does, then he would sit down with me and come up with an agreement before court. He did. He gets every other weekend with the baby and wednesdays from 5-9 (depending on his work schedule) and on the weeks that he doesn't have a weekend he gets Evan from 5-9 (again depending on his work schedule) on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. I was granted residential parent. He was ordered to pay $100/wk in child support.

Now onto the problem.

Ryan is insisting that he is paying $200 MORE a month in child support. He swears up and down that the judge made an error. For the past two weeks, he has bugged me EVERY.SINGLE.DAY to give back the "extra" $200 to him.

It's only been six weeks since court and I've only received two payments from him for child support, each $200. I only got one payment in August for the two hundred and have only got one payment this month for $200 (he gets paid every other week) but by the time we go to court I would have received the third so that equals only $600 since court in July. He was ordered for payments to start on July 30th. I didn't get the first payment til Aug 22.

He swears up and down the judge will order me to pay the money back. He swears I will owe him $400 by the time court is here. He said that if I don' tpay him that day at court that I will go to jail supposedly.

I have texts from him stating that the "******* old judge screwed him over and doesn't care" and all the messages from him harassing me for the money back.

I won't go to jail will I? I haven't given him ANY of the money back.

[Ember Rose]

Uhm....if they did mess around and overcharge him it might have to be paid back but I don't think you'll go to jail.

I wouldn't take it seriously unless he showed you stubs where he's losing more money than he should be. And then honestly he should just go to court and deal with it.

[w292737]

If its being garnished they'll just credit the overage and not give you any till enough months go past that he owes again. But from my experience child support recovery is quick to know. Call your child support worker and ask them.

[Stepmom2Be]

If you have documentation saying how much he should be paying, even if they messed up, it wont be your fault.

Did you get documentation that says $400 a month?

[gmtejese]

Yeah. The court order says $100/week but Ry gets paid every two weeks so I get $200/bi-weekly. It is garnished from his wages.

[ShesaDreamer]

If there was a mix up it will be put as a credit. You will not go to jail because it's not your fault if they mixed up it's the child support agencies fault. Don't let him bully you into giving him money. And save the messages to show the judge.

[Admin-Rachel]

Yeah, like everone said you won't go to jail if there is a mix up. In the meantime, ignore him.

[K.A.T]

Not your fault at all. If there is an overcharge he needs to take it up with the court and the support enforcement agency. You can't get in the least bit of trouble and don't give him a dime back.

[plan4fate]

Yeah, don't give him a cent. If they are doing it wrong, they will notify you. I would contact the enforcement agency and speak to one of them and see if they can clarify for you and him.

[Ember Rose]

I will add by stating a weekly amount he could be confused since he's not paid weekly.

I think he talked to someone and they told him they paid X amount and then he decided there must be a mistake because he's paying more.

CS is case by case and a lot of factors go into deciding the amount received.

[pickle0313]

Don't pay him back anything. Let the courts & child support enforcement/whoever is garnishing his wages sort it out. You won't go to jail for someone else having messed up.

[plan4fate]

I find a common misconception to be men assuming $100 a wk means $400 a month when it doesn't. I know it threw dh off at first. Most men would look at $100a week as $400 a month and $4800 a year when it is actually $5200 a year.

Either way he needs to stop threatening her about it. I wonder if they deducted processing fees and that's what he is seeing.

[Ember Rose]

I know OH takes out processing fees. That why D paid directly to her for 4 years until they made it you couldn't do that anymore. MN takes out processing fees as well he pays directly to R's mom still.

[K.A.T]

Originally Posted by plan4fate

I find a common misconception to be men assuming $100 a wk means $400 a month when it doesn't. I know it threw dh off at first. Most men would look at $100a week as $400 a month and $4800 a year when it is actually $5200 a year.

Either way he needs to stop threatening her about it. I wonder if they deducted processing fees and that's what he is seeing.

Exactly. That's very confusing for a lot of people. It needs to be made more uniform across the board. When DH was paying support the support order gave a monthly amount to be paid, however, those payments had to be made with each paycheck. So if there were 3 pay periods in one month, he had to pay extra that month. If they're going to request payments be made or garnished per pay period then they need to clarify that said amount is broken down properly. Don't give a monthly amount then put it to a weekly or bi-weekly deduction. Make that payment a one shot deal. If the amount is a weekly amount then apply the per pay period deduction. It's the lack of clarity that causes a lot of problems between the parents and generates more money for the attorneys and courts, which isn't right.

[Ember Rose]

DH is military so he's got a monthly amount and he gets paid twice a month. Thankfully they pull half from the 1st the month before and half from the 15th the month before so that all the following months every single month on the first everyone has their money and is good to go. It makes it SO much easier.

[plan4fate]

Originally Posted by K.A.T

Exactly. That's very confusing for a lot of people. It needs to be made more uniform across the board. When DH was paying support the support order gave a monthly amount to be paid, however, those payments had to be made with each paycheck. So if there were 3 pay periods in one month, he had to pay extra that month. If they're going to request payments be made or garnished per pay period then they need to clarify that said amount is broken down properly. Don't give a monthly amount then put it to a weekly or bi-weekly deduction. Make that payment a one shot deal. If the amount is a weekly amount then apply the per pay period deduction. It's the lack of clarity that causes a lot of problems between the parents and generates more money for the attorneys and courts, which isn't right.

Yup, it took me three months to figure it all out. L called and had them mail DH (while working on the road) the information so I could sit and figure it out. Because I don't/didn't work, it fell back on me to make sense of everything for both of them.


DH's is listed as $xxx.xx a week, $xxx.xx a month $xxx.xx per 5 week period. That way we know the absolute MOST we should see disappear from pays in any given month. Having it broken down (and obtaining the data on HOW they worked out how much he owed, right down to the formula with L's income) really made it easier on us to understand.

We also live in a state where it HAS to be paid through the enforcement agency at the cost of $130 a year. It causes delays of weeks at a time for L getting her money, or them not taking it from DH. Miscalculations on how much he owes, then it starts and stops (we have a rather unique agreement, as DH spends half the year unemployed, but we have Reme 50% of that time, so L waived her right to support for unemployed months, as she made more money than DH during that time and may have been liable to pay support to DH 50% of the time while he was off). They're trying to come up with a way to waive her right to support so they can stop doing it through the enforcement agency. She'll get paid faster, more regularly and no fees! (they also won't allow L to use her own checking account, it has to be a state account, with all the fees for doing stuff, which I think is just a money grab)

[Ember Rose]

OH has a debit card you have to use. I get SOME processing fees but come on.

[Keakie]

So strange for me to see how other states handle CS. Here they don't intervene or garnish unless you're in arrears or otherwise not paying it willfully. We manually write a check (usually we do it online, this month we gave her a paper check for the second half of the month because we were on vacation last week and forgot to set the automatic check up before we left) and she cashes it. I'm so sorry for all of the craziness you ladies have to deal with regarding support agencies.

[gmtejese]

Here it is automatically sent through an agency called the SDU or state disbursement unit. Illinois doesn't give fathers the chance to pay on their own, I guess.

Katie, your right! I guess he is basing this off of the fact that his aunt almost went to jail. She knew that she was being overpaid by the father. I guess his child support (or something owed to her) came out of his 401k and was only supposed to be $2500 but they ended up taking out $5000 instead and she knew about the error but still spent the money. Supposedly the judge told her to pay it back or go to jail. I don't know how much of that is true though. LOL.

I haven't given him anything and he won't show me a copy of his pay stubs (even thought it's really none of my business)