It started with a brief unpleasant exchange between myself and my ex wife. I was asking to see my son and told her that I have been taking care of my responsibilities in regards to child support so perhaps she could actually cut me some slack. I was hoping that she would lighten up a bit and, while we still hate each other, be a little more pleasant in regards to visitation. She tells me that my child support payments are “sketchy” at best and hung up on me. It took a little while to move passed the general feeling of disgust and anger to actually hear what she said. “Sketchy”? What the expletive deleted is that about? My child support payments come directly out of my checks. I get paid twice a month, and out of my less than fifteen hundred dollars per check, four hundred and eighty-seven dollars and fifty cents is garnished from each check. I love that word “garnished”. As far as I am concerned what they take is the meat, the parsley garnish is what I get to eat. But he is my son and I do not regret nor deny his right to be supported by the people who love him, and I do love my son. So where does “sketchy” come in?
My ex wife lives in New Jersey, I live in New York. The company I work for is in California. The child support order is in New Jersey. Since I live in Brooklyn, the enforcement, and garnishment order originates in New York. When I began working for this company last August, I called my case worker (actually a probation officer) in New Jersey and told her where I worked and gave her the name of the human resources person in my company who takes care of payroll. My first check dated August 31st had no deduction, as I was in California training for my position, I thought that that was kind of them and went to a concert in San Francisco with and old friend, and bought his five year old daughter a princess doll. She is quite the little princess. The deductions began on my September 15th check. As my ex and I have as little to do with each other as possible I thought that that was that. You know, one less thing…
My son is actually my ex wife’s son from a former marriage and has been calling me dad since he was four. As his biological father has never had much to do with him, I actually went to court to assert my rights as his father and to gain the right to continue to see him and ended up with full joint custody. The original custody case was in Pennsylvania where we were living when I was unceremoniously thrown out of my house in favor of a sixty-five year old rich dude who my ex seem to think was the answer to our financial difficulties , but after she lost the custody battle she moved to New Jersey. After a brief reconciliation, where we moved back in together, she again threw me out this time for a forty-five year old man who lives with his mother, and started custody battle again, this time in New Jersey. As I am now financially challenged I have little (read that as no) money to fight again. Pennsylvania denied her child support from me as she already had an order of support on Oliver’s biological in Texas (where Oliver was born). Fearing the same from New Jersey she simply didn’t mention the existing order to them. Jersey is ok with that as I didn’t object in the first 60 days. His biological father has rarely, if ever, sent a check. New Jersey granted her request for child support from me. My ex has since maneuvered, the Jersey courts and me into a tacit stalemate of custody, but since my son wishes to see me, on occasion, I still get to hang with him on the odd weekend and speak with him a couple of times a week. Everyone thinks I am nuts to put up with this, but then I can’t understand the mindset that would allow me to abandon my son.
So the question remains, where are my payments going? New Jersey has a web site, so I started at https://www6.state.nj.us/DHS_ACSES/MainController. I entered my case number, date of birth and last four of my social security number and lo and behold there was a complete history of my payments. The ones that New Jersey acknowledged anyway, for the past 6 and a halve months I have had 6337.50 deducted from my salary towards child support. According to New Jersey Records my ex-wife and son have received 2925 of that. So I called my probation officer in New Jersey apparently taking responsibility for a child is a crime in New Jersey punishable by probation. After six voicemails and a call to her supervisor, she called me right back and confirmed that she can’t do anything for me, other than to tell me if I don’t start making on time payments I’ll go to jail, lose my license, and assorted other horrors that our system of justice can come up with. She did give me the number of the payment center who can confirm if New York was actually sending the payments. I called the number Tanisha told me that I needed to call my probation officer who can tell me what I have paid. I told her that my probation officer told me to call her. She transferred me to her supervisor who told me they only get and process paper checks and have no way of knowing if electronic payments have come through or where they came from. She gave me the number of a gentleman named Dave who did the electronic transfer, both in and out, for the state who told me he thinks it would be better if I tracked the payments from their source not the destination and that all payments that have come in from New York have been credited to the account.
I sent the following email off to the Human Resources office of the firm I work for;
Suzanne,
I hope this finds you and yours well. I am having a bit of trouble with the state of New Jersey and my child support obligations. According to my records, in the past 6 and a halve months I have had $6337.50 deducted from my salary towards the child support. The problem is not that this is leaving me destitute (it is). The problem is that according to New Jersey Records my ex wife and son have only received $2925 of that.
When I called New York they said they have sent all payments received to New Jersey, when I called New Jersey they said that they have credited all payments from New York to my son’s account. I then called the comptrollers office who said I would be better off trying to track the payments forward than trying to back track. With that suggestion in mind, I was wondering if I could get confirmation, dates, amounts transfer number etc… of all payment made through payroll to New York State through the garnishment?
I would greatly appreciate your help in this matter. I don’t want to go to jail.
David
I still await a reply, so I then tried to call New York.
This is what I heard “We’re sorry all circuits are busy now.” As soon as the office hours began, all day, every day “We’re sorry all circuits are busy now.” That is, until five o’clock then you can get a recorded message telling you to call back during business hours. Okay, that was that for Albany. I tried the local office in Manhattan. The woman I got on the phone told that she can only give the information to the custodial parent, as I am the non-custodial parent I have no right to know where my money goes.
24 hours later nineteen hundred and fifty dollars, the equivalent of 4 payments, mysteriously appeared on the web site as being credited to the account. I made the rounds of calls again but no one can tell me where the payment originated from. The fact that there is still 3, now that enough time has passed, 4, payments missing seems small to them since that much money has just been given to my ex. Call me old fashion but I would like to see all the money earmarked form my son actually make it to him. I know that I am just wishing. I know for a fact that my ex has repeatedly thrown my son out of her house and taken trips with her boyfriend on my dime. But every once in a while he gets a new lacrosse stick, or the amp he wanted for his bass or clothes (although his last school shopping trip cost me an extra 300 bucks and took place in Brooklyn). So I settle for that. Well that and a meal of parsley.
