Maintenance Enforcement wrongly labels man a deadbeat dad
Darren Richards says others are likely falsely accused too
A Nova Scotia man who spent months wrongly labelled as being in arrears in child support payments says he’s worried others are likewise wrongly accused.
A CBC News Investigation into court-ordered child and spousal supports in Nova Scotia showed those orders are nearly $65 million in arrears.
Darren Richards was in that pile because of an accounting confusion on the part of Maintenance Enforcement, the government body that enforces payment.
Richards prides himself on paying his bills on time, and that includes his child and spousal support payments.
In fact he got in trouble because he sent a double payment in December 2012. "Then they would have it for Christmas. That's why I did it," he explained.
But in August, the Dartmouth man got a default notice from Maintenance Enforcement. It warned him he was $2,300 in arrears.
They said he hadn’t made the January 2013 payment; in fact, he had paid it in December. His former wife agreed that it had been paid in full and there were no arrears.
But Maintenance Enforcement said he had fallen behind. Richards wrote to politicians and bureaucrats.
He built a spreadsheet to clarify the math for Maintenance Enforcement.
"They still couldn't understand the concept that everything balances,” he said.
Promise to better train staff
Nine months after the December payment, a letter arrived from the director of Maintenance Enforcement acknowledging he was right.
She also apologized and promised more training for staff.
"If it's happening to me, it's happening to other people. And I don't want it happening to anybody, especially if I'm not deadbeat. I don't want to be labelled that,” Richards said.