You speak as if people see this coming. If you've never been in the system, it's easy to say. I use to get all kinds of threatening letters saying that I was behind when in fact I was current, had my entire check taken when I was current but according to child support records, I had never paid a single cent for an entire year, and then of course, the burden was left on me to prove. IL child support use to be contracted out to a private vendor who for years wreaked havoc on thousands. How about the threatening letters warning me not to quit my job, because I woudl still be liable for the current amount of support, or going to talk to lawyers about your situation and they told you that they'd put you in jail? I'm not a perfect father, but I do the best that I can and provide for them in other ways besides financial support. I work, maintain a 3.75 - 4.0 gpa in school, and I'm in the National Guard. After paying my mortgage, household bills, school/books, gas, and insurance, there's not much left to pay $250 per hour for a lawyer to get you untangled out of the mess. If child support provided the same resources to non-custodial parents the same way it does to the custodial parents, then the playing field would be even. However, since it's all about money and not the welfare of the child, safety, or family well being, then us non-custodial parents have to scrounge & scratch our way through the system until we're able to come up for a fresh breath of air.
By the way, child support updated my account. It's not where it should be, but it's much less than it was before and I will eventually fix this mess. In the meantime, I've talked to a financial counselor and she affirmed my plan to fix my credit. The funny thing that happened to me today is, I had a car salesman tell me that I couldn't fix my credit without buying a car and that he was my last hope! Its going to be funny when I drive onto his lot with the car that I actually wanted.
