Dead Beat from Day One

by Donovan
(Phoenix, AZ)

I was dubbed “Dead Beat Dad” the day we separated. I thought we were friends as it was best for the kids and I took nearly nothing with me. We agreed on $200.00 twice a month and I was just able to do it. I sent her a check instead of eating half the time but we were both struggling so I felt it was the right thing to do. The first issue was when I found myself overdrawn at the bank.

The State began simply taking $200.00 out of my account without so much as a note to me. Legal in Arizona. As the checks I had sent her did not go though the court they did not count and I was already in arrears. Again it was never mentioned to me so I assumed I was okay and from now on they simply took it. Child support doesn’t come with an instruction manual. After six years of paying, I relocated to another state. Until I got set up I was sending Bank of America cashier’s checks but I now knew to send them to the court and put the case number on them. I missed a few at first but quickly got caught up and then set up a new automatic wage deduction (which turned out to be a garnishment). No matter.

I continued to live on what was left until my daughter was nearly 21. My ex wife told me that she was still going to school so the support was to continue and I naively bought it. But I was engaged and needed this garnishment off my record so I asked if I could just do a lump sum to end it. It was then I found out I was $17,000.00 in arrears! In the mid-90s Arizona assigned a new account number called an Atlas Number to my file. It took some time to get a person in the court system to explain that if the Atlas number was not on the payment it was unlikely to be credited to my account.

They could get it to her by the case number but only did the extra research when they had time which was almost never. They said they had no obligation to advise me of the change and it was my responsibility to monitor the status of my account. As it was years prior and I had no receipts I couldn,t prove I ever made the payments so it was up to her to admit she got the money. You know where this is going. She thought she’d won the lottery and has yet to concede. I was forced to choose between living alone and under her financial thumb for the rest of my life or leaving the country. No lawyer would touch the case.

I went so far as to approach a lawyer on line pretending I was the wife, admitted he’d paid but the courts didn’t know it and asked if they could get my money. The lawyer told me that if he returned to Arizona they could take his wages and possibly jail him regardless and advised me not to mention the payments received. This convinced me I was screwed. I write this from well outside the U.S. The courts can change account numbers without notice, charge interest on arrears without notice and cause any measure of stress and hardship without fear of consequence as they are a law unto themselves. Dads have no rights.