Support Kids in Austin, Texas knew exactly how to draw in its client base. Worn out, beaten down, exhausted, financially ruined, at the end of the road, with state agencies, non compliance with court ordered child support from the non custodial parents and gave off a ray of sunshine and hope that our child support nightmare would be over. The wonderful and caring commercials put glee in worn out eyes and tired parents that wanted their individual states to back up their court ordered child support. Well out of the rainbow comes Support Kids with their supposed caring hand and emotional support only to get seduced into a web of lies and deceit.
Sure they sounded legitimate although no one at Support Kids could really answer the questions I had about the 375.00 sign on fee and the 34% fees that would be taken out of each and everyone of our child support checks for the duration of the payments. However, in their contract were the four options for breaking the contract with Support Kids and I grabbed onto number 4 which stated that if my case had come to a dead end and Support Kids was going to close my case that I could opt out of the contract. Well, that day came after claiming for months that my ex husband had no money they really could not do what they said about suspending licenses and putting liens on assets as it as beautifully lined out in the colorful brochure.
I was told by a pyramid of client relations and supervisors and managers and finally a supposed vice president that I could not opt out of my contract. Where were all the warm and fuzzies that I received when I signed on to a life contract? You see I had to write my own letter to a lawyer in the state of Texas supplying all kinds of pertinent information that I had all ready given Support Kids to explaining my ex and his assets and our ugly history. Support Kids told me that they were not allowed to speak with lawyers. Hmmm, strange... Well after going through hoops to unearth my ex husband and his assets on my own... Completely on my own, all of a sudden a lawyer comes out of nowhere to help me out of my plight. No, Support Kids did not pay for his services, my ex had too. I had all ready tried to opt out to go to a lawyer and Support Kids had denied me but out of nowhere a lawyer comes to the rescue. The lawyer tells me he works for me and for me only and long story short sends in my newly signed agreement that I worked out minus all the interest frills that I had been promised by Support Kids because low and behold it is illegal to obtain interest in Texas. Wow, shouldn't Support Kids have known this before hand?
Well the saga continues after the agreement goes through because Support Kids goes behind my lawyer and sends revocation of authorization and changes my name to Support Kids and their bank account. So, now not only have they done no work or allowed me my own attorney they continue to take 34% of every check. Now mind you I was supposed to receive those checks within 48 hours of them leaving the child support office but Support Kids continued on and on holding my checks saying that my ex was sending in personal checks when he was not, the checks were directly from Dallas County and would be less than nice on any phones calls that I could get through because they never answered a call in almost 5 years without waiting for at least 20 minutes on the phone. When you would get someone they would say the same story over and over that I had a 21 day hold on my payments even though this was not true.
When you sent an email, they might respond in 4 or 5 days depending.
In my opinion Support Kids preyed on us as unknowledgeable in Texas Banking codes and laws and had a great gig going for themselves.
With support of that statement, Support Kids according to the state of New York denied thousands of new cases because in the state of New York private support agencies can only take up to 15% of the support payments. For one call to the non custodial parents answering machine every 8 weeks I think 15% is more than enough.
Enough is enough with these people. They defaulted on a bank loan of which our child support was their collateral. It is like they lost our kids support in their own poker game. I am appalled at the state of Texas for allowing such fraudulent ways to continue when the average person is not an attorney and most of these parents could not afford an attorney to read over the minuscule print in our Support Kids contracts. Shame on them for taking food out of the mouths of babes... And their argument of well, we had to be your last resort would not hold true if states mandated compliance with other states to help parents receive their child support no matter what state the custodial or non custodial parent resides. A court order is a court order...
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