Hi,
I just want to tell everyone about the runaround we've gotten from the Wayne County Friend of the Court in Michigan.
First a background.
My daughter was born while I was 19 and unmarried. My boyfriend and I at the time were together, but broke up shortly there after. HE insisted on paying child support through the courts so no one could ever say that he didn't take care of his child. Everything was fine.
About 4 years later, we got back together and got married. He is in the service, so we moved out of state. I took my marriage certificate down to the Friend of the Court building. I was told that the case would be closed and we had no need to worry about it again.
(And this is where it gets sticky.)
Two years into our marriage, my husband was summonsed to court for non-payment of child support. The summons had my name as the plaintiff. We received the summons one week before he was scheduled to appear. We lived across the country and I was 9 months pregnant with our second child. The Friend of the Court office in Wayne county has no phone number that you can speak with a person to tell them of our situation, or ask for it to be moved to another date. We took out an emergency loan with the military and rented a car to drive back to appear. When we arrived, we told the referee, the person handling our case, our situation and showed him our marriage certificate. He ushered us off to have a review of our case.
The person who reviewed our case said that we were $100 (or so) short on what he owed in child support. But we had to pay a maintenance fee for them to keep the case open which was like $. 75 a day. She then told us of other fees we owed. All totaled it came to over two thousand dollars. We were staggered by the figure. But it seemed to work out on paper. We couldn't argue the price of fees because that is a constant, weither we knew about them or not. We decided instead to cut our losses so to speak, pay the dept, and move on with our lives. They were holding our taxes (both of ours, even though I clamed injured spouse) And we saw no other choice.
We paid the amount. (We had to get a loan for that too, but it was cheeper that paying their fees) And I made them give me a letter stating that as of this date, the amount of children on the order was zero, and the amount owed was zero, and the amount arrears was zero. We figured, we learned a hard lesson and would just continue with our lives.
Untill a year later, when we received another letter stating that they were taking our taxes due to unpaid child support over the same child. We were outraged. I had asked for phone numbers of people I could contact when we were up there last time so I wouldn't have to go through this again if I needed something. (Being out of state.) I was given 4. None of which worked.
I have called the Governors office. I have called the Department of Health and Humanitarian Services in D.C. I have been told no one can help me because they don't have my case in front of them. I have sent registered letters to the Friend of the Court. And the only reply I have gotten was a payment booklet sent out to me.
I have every piece of paper they have sent me since my daughter was born. Receipts from the payments we have made. And copies of letters sent by me, my husbands command, and a military lawyer. It accounts for over 100 pages.
I am at my wits end. I write this, not hoping someone at the Friend of the Court will change, not wanting to put someone down, or hurt a company's reputation. I write this in hopes that there is SOMEONE out there that might be able to help me.
I understand this is a government agency, and a legal court. So, I am told, I can not take legal action unless it is a class action law suit. That is not something I necessarily want to do. I don't believe this is what our government should be doing. I understand everyone down there is overworked. I want to take one more case load OFF of their working list.
I know there are other people out there who have had problems similar to mine. I DO believe something should be done. But most of all I want to stop worrying about an exorbitant amount of money that I have already paid out, and just make it end.
Please, if anyone out there has any suggestions, I would be most appreciative. I am at the end of my rope.
Thank you,
J. Morgan
Biloxi, Mississippi
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