With the holiday season now upon us, parents here in Texas, and across the country are relying more than ever on court-ordered child support payments. However, thousands of parents in Kentucky are currently feeling left out in the cold thanks to a series of major banking glitches that left them without their child support checks.
According to reports, officials with the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services recently alerted County Attorney Offices across the state that JP Morgan Chase — the state’s primary banking establishment as of September 2011 — bounced over 700 checks to child support recipients.
To make matters worse, news outlets are reporting that the state’s Child Support Enforcement Unit — the agency in charge of processing all child support payments — also informed County Attorney Offices that JP Morgan Chase recently performed a serious file transmittal error that caused double-posting of almost 3,000 child support payments across the state (posting dates of November 25 and December 1).
Here, they are cautioning that JP Morgan Chase may have simply recalled the double-posted funds without providing child support recipients with any type of notice.
“An error of this magnitude is simply unacceptable,” said Henderson County Attorney Steve R. Gold. “JP Morgan Chase’s recent failures have resulted in recipients unavoidably bouncing checks and racking up insufficient funds fees, which is particularly outrageous during the Christmas season.”
Many county officials are encouraging parents who recently received a child support payment — check, electronic transfer, debit card credit — to contact the state’s Child Support Enforcement hotline before spending any funds to verify the status of the money.
The state is currently working with JP Morgan to Chase to solve the problem, but many local officials remain understandably outraged.
“There would never be a good time for this happen. It’s just unacceptable to make a mistake like this,” said Gold. “[No resolution] will be soon enough for the thousands of children across the entire state who have been affected by this failure.”
Stay tuned for more from our Ft. Worth family law blog …
To learn more about child support arrears or post-divorce issues, contact an experienced and skilled legal professional.
This post is for informational purposes only and is not to be construed as legal advice.
Source:
The Courier Press, “Banking error fouls up child support checks” Dec. 2, 2011
