Government Shenanigans

[CrAnIuM]

Many of us have had personal interaction with our governments, either on the local level or even at the national level.

I'm looking for your stories, pictures, video and the like about YOUR experiences with the government in your area.

These stories can be good or bad or simple a thing you want to share about your locality.

I'm looking for actual government doings here, legal stuff, mandates and permits etc ..

[CrAnIuM]

I'll start !!!

Recently I needed to get my Passport for a potential thingy downrange.

Anyway I apply in the normal manner, lay out my cash for the expedited passport method go about my business thinking that in around 2 or 3 weeks I will have a fresh new passport.

Well lad de fucking da ... instead of a passport I get the letter below:

http://swollencranium.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=2541&d=1305944916


Well, I'm beside myself with anger over this. WTF? Denied? Child support arrears?


Oh hells no.



Well I call the state in question, INDIANA. I get one agency that REFUSES to tell me anything about MY CASE. And refers me to the PROSECUTOR of the county that handles my case.

BACK STORY:

I've paid child support since 2000. In 2008 I applied for an adjustment to my original agreement and had it reduced by 35%.



Anyway ... After getting the phone runaround I eventually was allowed to leave a VOICE MAIL on the prosecutors machine.

NINE days later I get the letter that follows:

http://swollencranium.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=2540&d=1305944916


As you can imagine I'm a bit taken aback by this. What the hell has happened? I've paid like fucking clock work on this thing. Even my son's mom states she has no clue what the deal is.



Bottom line:

The court system changed my CS payment by 35%. THE COURT SYSTEM NEGLECTED to tell the PROSECUTORS office that I can NOW pay X instead of the previous Y.

The prosecutors office has been counting me in arrears since 2008. It adds up to the figure you see above.


What I learned:

1. In government, One hand does not know what the other hand is doing.

2. A man that pays child support is a CRIMINAL. Even if he is on time, all the time, every time.

3. Three years of being on a federal dead beat dad list has FUCKED me out of at LEAST three very lucrative and exciting federal jobs.

4. The state could have and SHOULD have contacted me at MONTH ONE to find out why I was not paying the amount they thought I should pay. Instead they elected to allow me to go THREE years and accrue almost TWENTY thousand dollars in arrears.

5. #4 above tells me that the system sucks ass and no wonder so many kids live like shit. The state had my address, my phone number, and had contact with ME TWICE a month and NEVER told me that I was supposedly in arrears. If I think I am current, how the fuck do I know .. ya know?



When I got involved It took me all of 90 seconds to explain to the prosecutor that I was right and they were fucking inept. She checked .. and BAM, yep I am not in arrears. ( Duh )


What a crock of shit.

[Absinthe]

and...

6. Luckily you applied for a passport. Otherwise you would have never known about these so called "arrears" until the day you don't have to pay no more child support. This could be another 4 years from now and would add another ~$22,000 to the already "owed" amount.

Jeeeez

:67:

[CrAnIuM]

Otherwise you would have never known about these so called "arrears"


Indeed.

The inefficiency of the Indiana child services department is mind boggling.

[SlimSkeeter]

Two stories, and you can take from them what you will:

About a decade ago (little less) I made a HUGE mistake and took a lot of money that wasn't mine. 3 days later I returned it and turned myself in to face the charges, because I'm not that guy that just swipes shit just cuz. I was arrested, pled guilty to a lesser charge in exchange for not bogging down the court system with a meaningless trial, and got probation plus court costs, fines, and community service and time served. Fast forward to a month after I paid the last of my fees and I get a letter in the mail stating that I still owe $XXX and if I don't pay I'll be arrested AGAIN. An hours worth of phone calls later I find out that the "court costs and fines" I'd been paying didn't go towards my lawyer fees.... Mind you, my COURT APPOINTED LAWYER never stepped foot in the courtroom with me, but rather pawned me off on someone else during the first appearance and just never bothered to show at my sentencing. Be that as it may, I was still held responsible for the bill for the guy who DID stand up in court for me...even though he wasn't the one hired to do so.

Second story: I was still living at home (as in, with mom and dad) and one day we saw the neighbors dog chasing what looked to be a half starved German Shepherd around. Trying to get a look at her, I ended up tossing chunks of hot dogs to her until she came to me and as I was petting her trying to keep her calm, I look at her collar. Choke collar, no tags, no ID of any kind. Got her into the house and fed her and gave her some cold water (it was mid summer) and I started making calls. This is an expensive dog and someone must have been missing her. No dice, not even a week later.

In that week, however, this dog decided that this was her new home and we were her new family. Anyone who has ever come in contact with your average German Shepherd knows how loyal and territorial they can be. Que the neighbor dog....who tried to chase this dog once again. To her surprise, she found herself on her back, pinned down by the throat. The Shepherd was not biting down, merely showing dominance. However, in the preceding entanglement, the Shepherd apparently managed to sing her teeth into the hind quarters of this dog.

Ok, mom and dad feel this dog is a liability so we need to get rid of her. Some friends of ours were over at the time and they said they knew someone who raised German Shepherds. Took the dog, hopped in their car and went to their place to they could make the phone call. No dice, the dog was too old for their friend. So we called Animal Control from there and went about our day.

My neighbor, though, ended up taking her dog to the vet for the bite (obviously) but rather than being satisfied with the dog being gone, she informed animal control about us having the dog for a while and what happened. The next thing we know, 5 of us have warrants out for our arrest. Why? Well, our friends lived in another county. We took the dog there. That dog had a collar. THAT dog was considered STOLEN PROPERTY simply from the fact of having a choke collar on, and we were accused of transporting stolen goods across county lines, even though we put up fliers and called around town and what have you trying to find this dogs owners and having failed that, turned the dog over to the ASPCA (granted, trying to give the dog to someone else was probably not kosher, but they didn't know about that)

[KommieKat]

Wow, this looks to be an interesting thread.

I'll have to come back to this later, IF I have something, but for now all I have are immigration stories, like when I cross over into China, I have to fill out extra forms. The aduacity!

And, when I go back across into Hong Kong, they make me take off my hat so the infrared cameras can check my body temperature.
The aduacity!!

[Firestorm]

Take the Motion to Change Support or whatever the court document you have reducing the support amount is and send it certified mail to the prosecutor. I also recommned strongly worded letters to the court that granted the change without notifying the prosecutor. This is the "be nice" approach to fixing it.

Failing that, sue the courth that changed your support for the amount of income you lost as a result of their negligence. Include in the lawsuit the judge, prosecutor and everyone who handled your paperwork including the calendar clerk. Pay the fee to have them served during business hours and make sure the local press knows WHY you are suing.

The first approach, if they are reasonable human beings, will get the lien removed. If that fails, the second approach will embarass the hell out of them and get the lien released. If both fail, then I'd follow through with the lawsuit, if for no other reason than to make the little bastards think twice before doing it again.

You're not alone. I'm being sued by a state for a child that we have proven by DNA evidence is not mine. Why? The deadbeat who actually sired the child refuses to pay support and I have a pension the state wants....bastards.

[CrAnIuM]

Take the Motion to Change Support or whatever the court document you have reducing the support amount is and send it certified mail to the prosecutor. I also recommned strongly worded letters to the court that granted the change without notifying the prosecutor. This is the "be nice" approach to fixing it.


I fixed it with a simple phone call. <-- that is sorta my point here because THEY had three years to pick up the phone. I did it a day after i got the letter.

[Firestorm]

You solved it without blowing anything up? I'm....disappointed.

[Gravy]

I recently received a letter from the State Debt Recovery Office regarding unpaid toll fines over the past 2 years in excess of $200. The first fine was dated 3 months after I had sold that particular car.

When selling a car in my state, you have to submit a Notice of Disposal (I actually did this twice, both in person at my local Roads & Traffic Authority office). They were alleging that the SUV in question was still legally mine. I, being a collector of random paperwork, managed to find a photocopy of my original NOD form with a date on it. They would not accept this as it wasn't a Justice of the Peace verified copy. Fair enough. So I suggest to the RTA that they look at the name of the registration paperwork for that vehicle. They do, and they show me that it has been registered by someone other than me for at least the last 12 months - so they agree to notify the SDRO that I should not have to pay for the fines received for that particular time period.

Little did the clerk know, but I have a pretty awesome photographic memory and managed to take a quick peak at the new owner's details. It was registered to a Surf Life Saving Club in the Northern Beaches area. Can you see where this is heading yet?

I then contacted the SLSC and told them of our predicament. Being a fairly large organisation, they suggested I go to their head office (which just happens to be literally 200m from my place) and speak to their legal team and try and work out a way to sort this out and keep both parties happy. So I do exactly that. They come up with a plan to write up a notice of intent to pursue legal action against the RTA for releasing their information to someone who is not authorised to obtain it. They also state in another letter that they have been legal owners of the vehicle since prior to the date of the first fine the SDRO were pursuing from me.

Anyway, a week later I get a phone call from the SDRO saying that there was an administration error at the RTA and that they were no longer pursuing my case. I asked them what would have happened had I not done what I did to rectify this "administration error". Their reply was that I would have been summonsed to court to pay the amount owed (and if I didn't show, the Sheriff's Office would have come knocking on my front door with a truck out the front) and would have been given a bad credit rating for the next 5 years at the very least.

I've been debating whether or not to take further action on this, especially seeing the serious consequences I could have faced.

Either way, I ended up not having to pay a cent and neither did the new owners.

[KommieKat]

^^^
Fuck. Reading these cases makes me happy to be living here with the big bad commies just North of me.

[Stickman]

Not that our government is a brilliant example of a well oiled machine. But I really don't have many juicy stories to tell. The only one I've got is there was a slight typo on my birth certificate that made me a whole ten years older than I actually am. Which was funny to find out when I wanted my passport. Mind you it wasn't a big deal and my passport is correct. However damn I could have been legally drinking since I was eight. I think they may have caught on then.

In other notes of useless system however. Lets see. My last name is well German. It's not difficult to spell really. It's actually been Anglicised so it makes it pretty darn straight forward. However I still have a bank account that I have to intentionally spell my name incorrectly to gain access to because they fucked it up. I recently won employee of the month (bullshit corporate nonsense in my books) and got my award with my name spelt incorrectly. This probably offended me more. Because the whole thing is that they 'care' about their employees but apparently not enough to spell their fucking name correctly.

Otherwise interaction with the government is minimal. I prefer to keep it that way. My father was a CEO for local government for pretty much all my life so I got to see enough of the shit he put up with to learn that I really didn't want to work for a government agency.

[CrAnIuM]

I'll start !!!WTF? Denied? Child support arrears?

Well I call the state in question, INDIANA.
As you can imagine I'm a bit taken aback by this. What the hell has happened? I've paid like fucking clock work on this thing. Even my son's mom states she has no clue what the deal is.

What a crock of shit.


NOW today ... they state I am OVERPAID. And the Ex is getting the run around this time.


Fucking clowns ....

[Firestorm]

NOW today ... they state I am OVERPAID. And the Ex is getting the run around this time.


Fucking clowns ....

I've had California fighting over a $58 overpayment for about...two years now. The send the refund check, I send it back, they resend, it's beautiful. Your tax dollars paying around $2500 so far in man hours over a $58 refund. Makes me smile every time I mail the damned thing back.

[proper stranger]

The other side of the coin...
A few years back, a man came knocking at my door. He said he was running for mayor, and would sure like my vote.
He told me of his big plans for the city. I listened politely, nodding in all the right places. Just wishing he would shut up and go away.
I don't pay much attention to the local government, so it came as quite the surprise when he told me who he was running against. It turned out to be an ex neighbor from many years back. One who I had put in the hospital long ago for trying to "touch" my daughter, who was about 6 years old at the time.
I told him the story, and that he could count on my vote. He asked if he could put a sign in my yard, and I agreed.
He took the information I had given him and used it in his campaign.
Turns out that my shithead ex neighbor had quite the thing for little girls.
Of course the guy I had talked with won in a landslide. About 2 weeks after he took office, I got a call from his secretary, who said the new Mayor wanted to see me in his office. An appointment was made, and when the time came I headed off to his his office, wondering what he would want to see me about.
When I got to his office he thanked me for my support and sent me down the hall to the city planner's office. I was greeted with a smile, handshake, and a home improvement grant from the city.
I put on a new roof, redid my bathroom, and fixed some plumbing problems. All because I put a beatdown on some pervert's ass, half a life time ago.
The man is no longer mayor, but my house still has all the great improvements. And now everyone in town knows about the pervert.
I must say, I was pretty happy with my local government at that time!

[Deadly_Toxin]

Besides my relatively recent dealings in court I haven't had too much experience with deh governments.

But I do think it's stupid that I had to go into court, waste my entire morning waiting so I could stand up, say my name and birth date and have Duty-Council adjourn my case to a month from now so I can plead guilty. Why I couldn't just receive my sentencing then instead of wasting time and money is beyond me. Stupid.

[Grim_Legion]

my unit was disbanded in shame after our new government took over, they rewrote our history, battles we won (Quito-Canvaal) was rewritten and our government celbrated victory with Fidel. fuck the government, and fuck the people that support them.

[funeeman]

My state. We have a balanced budget amendment so we cannot burrow as a state to fund programs. If the money isn't there we either cut the program or raise taxes. For the past 6 years we've had a "no new tax" Governor. Between 1/3 and 1/2 of the state budget goes to Health and Human Services and Child Protective Service and its employees. In an effort to save, it was decided we could do a complete overhaul of the system and go from assigned case workers (each handling 40-80 cases) to universal case load where people call an 800 # and basically everyone is in a data base. You might be talking to someone 300 miles away on the other end of the state, but hey. . it would allow them to phase out 275 employees who average 30-40 g's a year plus benefits. Well. . .. they contract 3 companies to take over the in home visits and child placements at hire wages (but obviously there was a savings because they didn't have benefit costs, workers comp insurance, unemployment insurance, building expenses, yada yada yada.) who in less than 6 months figure out they couldn't do the job at the rates they were getting. Two quit servicing the state. Instead the remaining company to do the job they would need rates that would bring the cost up to the level it was running the state before. Plus. . .since everything now has to be done on the phone or online. . they've had to pay for welfare folks to have phones and internet to give them "access". We're very rural so internet (dial up) in many areas costs $70 per month. On top of that when someone does get through. . . they have to explain everything every time so there is no personalization. Basically the client service is worse. We ended jobs for hundreds of people who had given decades of their lives to that field and work and outsourced them to out of state employees. And we didn't save a dime.

[Reggie]

I bow down humbly in the pserence of such greatness.

[Titty]

Yeah, these lurkers sure do add some insightful comments. I'd never suspect they're bots.

[funeeman]

My state. We have a balanced budget amendment so we cannot burrow as a state to fund programs. If the money isn't there we either cut the program or raise taxes. For the past 6 years we've had a "no new tax" Governor. Between 1/3 and 1/2 of the state budget goes to Health and Human Services and Child Protective Service and its employees. In an effort to save, it was decided we could do a complete overhaul of the system and go from assigned case workers (each handling 40-80 cases) to universal case load where people call an 800 # and basically everyone is in a data base. You might be talking to someone 300 miles away on the other end of the state, but hey. . it would allow them to phase out 275 employees who average 30-40 g's a year plus benefits. Well. . .. they contract 3 companies to take over the in home visits and child placements at hire wages (but obviously there was a savings because they didn't have benefit costs, workers comp insurance, unemployment insurance, building expenses, yada yada yada.) who in less than 6 months figure out they couldn't do the job at the rates they were getting. Two quit servicing the state. Instead the remaining company to do the job they would need rates that would bring the cost up to the level it was running the state before. Plus. . .since everything now has to be done on the phone or online. . they've had to pay for welfare folks to have phones and internet to give them "access". We're very rural so internet (dial up) in many areas costs $70 per month. On top of that when someone does get through. . . they have to explain everything every time so there is no personalization. Basically the client service is worse. We ended jobs for hundreds of people who had given decades of their lives to that field and work and outsourced them to out of state employees. And we didn't save a dime.
Here are just two of the many articles that show how big of a failure this thing is for Nebraska. Part of whats hitting the fan now is the fact that several key people spoke out and identified problems before we switched and they were ignored. They based their decision to move on models from a few states on the east coast. Never mind one of the concerns was that Nebraska was very rural and the models were in highly populated states.

http://www.owh.com/article/20110724/NEWS01/707249884

http://www.owh.com/article/20110804/NEWS01/708049909

[CrAnIuM]

Indeed.

The inefficiency of the Indiana child services department is mind boggling.

Oh my yes ...

And here we are six months later and I'm being once again HARASSED by the child "welfare" system of Indiana.

Long story..short:

1. In may I was supposedly $16000 behind in CS.
2. No, I was not.
3. I fix it and then for June's payment I am told that I'm OVER PAID by a certain amount. And the system will NOT refund it to me or pay it to my son's mom because it does not reach a certain threshold. (2x CS month amounts)

4. Now .. in NOV I'm being told I'm in arrears for the amount I was told I was overpaid in June. A garnishment has hit my retired military pay for the full monthly amount of CS.



to recap ..

I'm $16000 in arrears .. oops no I'm not I'm ~$400 over paid ... oops No I'm not I'm ~$400 in arrears and a criminal because I violated a court order.



Sigh ... My son turns 17 today. I can finally see some light at the end of the tunnel.

[Josie]

Jesus.. O__O

[Zeabot]

Sigh ... My son turns 17 today. I can finally see some light at the end of the tunnel.
Sorry Cranium. Child Support is the most fucked up system ever. (okay, not literally, but it has to be up there.)

[CrAnIuM]

Child Support is the most fucked up system ever.

The fact that my case in handled by the same legal section that deals with drug dealers, rapists and all other criminal miscreants is the most frustrating part of this.

And hearing my son's mom talk about this case they treat her like shit as well. Rude, and unhelpful even to the custodial parent.

[Firestorm]

My son turns 17 today. I can finally see some light at the end of the tunnel

Don't count on it. My two oldest are 19 and 20 and I'm STILL getting fucked with by the state of Washington. Isn't it ironic that debtors prison was abolished over a century ago, but not paying child support, which is a civil matter, gets you jail time and yet if the agencies make a mistake they get nothing, not even sanctions. I can't count how many hours of my time I've spent dealing with "agents" from the Washington Child Support Bureau, court appearances to show "proof" of payments made when they can't, etc.

Keep your chin up, maybe the kid will get married and relieve you of it all.

[CrAnIuM]

Don't count on it.

I'm not even upset about 'paying support'. In fact if I were paying direct to my former spouse I would be happy happy over the deal.

As far as paying goes I'll be supporting as long as it takes to get him to 21 or through college. Or to emancipation if he chooses that himself.

And you are right, when a busload of single moms are paraded around the congressional hearing room and then used as an election pawn by crooked snake rat bastard politicians we get a system like we have here.

Sure, I can fight it. I can hire another lawyer and get it fixed for me but NOTHING will come of it other than a corrective computer action. No one will lose a job, no one will get a negative counseling, no news agency will run a story about how I and others are treated.

But news papers and politicians fall all over each other in order to get a pic taken with poor disheveled single mothers with an arm load of babies.

And I say mothers because a woman with kids is the poster child for family crisis.

[proper stranger]

The fact that my case in handled by the same legal section that deals with drug dealers, rapists and all other criminal miscreants is the most frustrating part of this.

I can understand that.
I have been through the system myself, with good intentions, and was treated like I was a criminal.
In court, I told the judge I was a student with no job or money at that time.
He responded by telling me I had better get a job and quit school if I couldn't do both..then proceeded to hand me a monthly payment so large that I could have worked two jobs with overtime and still not be able to pay it.
So, what did I do..I sent in whatever I could each month.
Luckily I avoided going to jail(I was threatened with that more than once)...however, the interest just kept and keeps going higher and higher.
Now I owe more in interest than I ever did in child support.
I will be paying this for the rest of my life...the interest adds more to the total each month than my payments subtract from it.



%Edit%
I forgot to mention the part where they slapped a lien on my house and vehicle.

[Josie]

Now I owe more in interest than I ever did in child support.

God damn. And my ex gets away with paying the absolute bare minimum.. being deployed.. all the while, me and the brats have nothing. I can't even fork over the rent.

But he's sitting on a pile of dough.

Yay!!

[CrAnIuM]

God damn.

The Soldiers and Sailors relief act protects uniformed troops against unlawful and/or aggressive collectors.

Unfortunately this has a side effect of shielding dudes who are less than fair to their spouses.

In this case you are actually better off if he pays NOTHING as this is a violation of the Uniformed Code of Military Justice and he can be reduced in rank or dishonorably discharged for it. <--- All of this takes time of course, usually many months.

Still, in almost ALL cases an Active duty troop is compelled by UCMJ to obey civil and criminal law and a court order found in your favor for support does NOT have to be served to him. See your state's Child whatever service and they can serve the document directly to DFAS. <--- Happened to me THREE times without having been served a single sheet of paper... and ONE of them I was in a combat zone.

But you have to have a SUPPORT order, not just a divorce decree.

[Josie]

serve the document directly to DFAS.

Hmm. Thank you.