Child Maintenance Service Reviews 

Feminist fraudsters

I’m disappointed that 1 star is the lowest I can give. Firstly. If they tell you they’re going to call you back. Don’t ever get off of the phone, they never will. Was told I’d have an outcome to my complaint within a couple of days and here we are nearly 4 weeks & 20 odd phone calls later (each time being on hold for roughly 30 or 40 minutes) and to no surprise the call handler knows nothing of what I’m on about, I find myself apologising to whoever I’m on the phone with for my clear frustration as it’s never meant to be taken out directly on them.
I’m 30 years old and severely dyslexic (someone else is writing this review for me) Trying to use the online portal is like trying to read Mandarin to me. I have been on collect and pay since December 2021 and not once have I been made aware that I could change back to direct pay (AFTER 6 MONTHS) and stop these ridiculous fee’s incurring every month. To put into perspective thats 4 and an half years of overcharging me which they have admitted too. every time I call, they can’t find the information from the previous call.NOT TO MENTION, I told them a few days after my second child was born, yet 13 months later they still hadn’t updated their records meaning I was still being charged more… The lady I have just spoken to was disrespectful and claimed they’d done nothing wrong despite the fact I’ve already spoken to a manager who has admitted to wrong doing and human error on the CMS’s behalf. If there was ever any slight hope that they’d do things correctly that has completely disappeared. I’ve never in my life dealt with such incompetence and sheer disregard for what this might be doing to people. If the shoe was on the other foot they would chase and chase for money. Not to mention they clearly copy and paste their letters. Using the same abbreviation’s like ‘u’ instead of ‘you’ that give’s me such faith in such a professional organisation. The Child Maintenance Service is a joke and I’m sorry to anybody else in the UK that has to deal with them, I truly feel your pain. Something needs to be done. Dad’s im with you ❤️

Childmaintenece was Ment to be in place to protect women and children of abuse, but allow the financial abuse to continue years after!! My children have had years of the paying parent either not paying ,paying what he thought he should or not on time and now it's been 5 months since since they got any maintenence . Letters never makes sense totals constantly change , nobody seems to know the answers .NOT FIT FOR PURPOSE

This service isn't fit for purpose. They do not calculate payments correctly as they use historical information and not real time information. This leads to the complaints procedure which takes up to 12 months to be processed and then to a tribunal which for me was successful almost 2 years down the line. They don't work in a timely manner which is ironic being a GOV organisation. If you owe money to any other Gov Dept, they are very quick to chase and charge you fines etc.
You can't get through on the phone wait hours / even those confident navigating their way around the portal etc it still doesn't answer your questions. When you do get through on phone case workers can only ask for your details and then have to pass it on to someone else - it's completely stressful and frustrating.
They charge more than VAT to deduct from earnings - 24% for admin charges - then they dont do what they say they will do. Tell you it's reliable and avoids complications and missed payments - no it doesn't it's an absolute joke. People have financial commitments and this impacts massively on livelihoods - absolute joke and needs a complete overhaul. Awful service.

Absolutely disgusting. Do not take all facts into consideration.

Just received my yearly letter from these jackasses.

It’s really quite amusing that these inept morons are still saying Ive underpaid my weekly commitment even though my bank statements clearly show I’ve never missed a payment nor underpaid by any amount, yet they still state I’ve underpaid but this time it’s by a completely different amount… even more amusing that it’s a lower amount than they stated last year…

In fact I’ve actually been overpaying for the past year because the eldest is now nearly nineteen and in full time work…

Please please please make an issue of this and I’ll see your inept corrupt lazy bum’s in court where I’m sure they will just love to see my bank account payments and your continuing arse hat behaviour!

Simply not fit for purpose. I divorced about 15 years ago and even though my 2 kids lived 50% with me I had to pay to my ex but never received any payment from her. 3 years ago my youngest, who is now 18 and in 6th form, moved in with me 100%. I made a claim but have not received even a single penny. The CMS say they're working on it but I doubt I'll ever see any payment. Considering they have the power to deduct from your salary and even bank accout their only excuse can be they only harrass men. They took me to court 3 times and each time the judge threw it out.

Useless! Should be renamed Criminal Mismanagement System. They do not care about children's welfare. They do not care about the stress and friction they create between parents. They do not care about anything parents might be dealing with. It's a corrupt, antiquated system that doesn't work. WE NEED CHANGE!!!!!!

I wish we could give NO stars. I feel I have to review what is a disgraceful, incompetent, uncompassionate service, which was put in place to help children with errant fathers. My step son isn't such a father, he pays to maintain his son, but is part of what appears to be a profiteering corrupt service. He has been paying by deduction of earnings but as his company has changed hands, (his job remains the same), he has now been told to pay by standing order for 6 months, at a cost which goes to CMS. My step son quoted the law which stipulates that the payer can opt for deduction of earnings, but all he has got back is notification that because the HMRC have said no, they can do no more. We have worked out that the CMS actually owe my step son £2500 for erroneous information in their useless system. I have personally heard his call to the operator and all she could say is "sorry" sorry doesn't cut it when my step son (who has battled with mental health problems), is near to exhaustion due to the stress of this government department's profiteering. We aren't convinced that the money he pays goes towards my grandson's upkeep. I would like for someone to put in place that the payee needs to show proof of where the money is going. One government department just DOESNT speak to the other and in the middle are good dads and mums who are being shafted, sometimes towards being suicidal. This HAS to stop. We are in the process of contacting the ombudsman on Form SSCS2. These people HAVE to be taken to task. My stepson loves and supports his son but he also has bills to pay and the stress is, literally, killing him

A four minute automated voice message that you can't skip, and which repeatedly asks you to use the online service web chat. There is no online web chat. Finally, you are asked for identification details via another automated service, then cut off after 5 minutes without even getting to speak to a human. And then, after a further 25 minutes of waiting, the person at the other end is hopeless.

A Paying Parent's Account of Life Inside the CMS Machine
Nobody tells you, when the Child Maintenance Service first makes contact, that you are entering a system capable of dismantling a person completely. Not just financially. Not just legally. Psychologically. Existentially. There are paying parents, men and women, who have not survived their experience of the CMS. That is not rhetoric. That is a fact that has been raised in Parliament, documented by charities, and left largely unaddressed by the government that runs this agency.
To understand how a bureaucratic service pushes people toward suicide, you have to understand the particular cruelty of what it does and how it does it.
It begins with the calculations. As a paying parent, you are assessed on income figures that are frequently wrong, outdated, or stripped of legitimate context, pension contributions, unavoidable deductions, periods of reduced earnings. When you challenge these figures, you are met not with engagement but with process: referrals, timescales, holding letters, and eventually a decision that often simply restates the original error. You are not heard. You are processed.
Then comes enforcement. A Deduction of Earnings Order can be applied to your wages without warning, taking amounts that bear no relationship to what has been agreed or assessed, leaving you unable to meet your own basic costs of living. Rent, food, utilities, all become precarious overnight. And when you raise this, when you explain that you cannot survive on what remains, the answer is more process. More waiting. More silence.
Simultaneously, you are expected to maintain your relationship with your children, the entire stated purpose of the system, while being financially gutted by it. Many paying parents describe the particular anguish of wanting desperately to be present for their children, to pay fairly and willingly, while being treated by the state as a debtor to be pursued rather than a parent to be supported. The system does not distinguish between the absent, wilfully evasive non-payer and the engaged, struggling parent trying to do right. Both are processed identically.
For those who also face false or exaggerated claims, or who watch the system being weaponised by a former partner to extend conflict, the psychological damage compounds rapidly. You begin to feel that the state has decided, institutionally, that you do not matter. That your distress is irrelevant. That your children's relationship with you is not a priority, only the extraction of money is. And when a person feels simultaneously financially destroyed, institutionally invisible, and separated from their children, the conditions for a mental health crisis are not just present, they are manufactured.
This is not speculation. The charities and others have documented repeated instances of paying parents in acute psychological crisis directly attributed to CMS related pressure. Parliamentary questions have been raised. Ministers have offered sympathy and little else. The system continues unchanged.
What is required is not compassion as an afterthought. It is structural reform: an independent appeals mechanism with real teeth, mandatory safeguarding checks for the mental health of both parties, an end to the punishing fees that make "Collect and Pay" an instrument of financial ruin, and a fundamental cultural shift within the CMS that recognises paying parents as human beings with rights, not simply revenue streams.
Until that happens, the CMS will continue to be an agency that, for some of the most vulnerable people it touches, does not merely fail, it destroys.

Just been told that the arrears that I was told to pay last December at the end of my maintenance of £50.50 which i pay at £5.05 a month direct pay to my ex is now £78.35 and there coming after it regardless. How do can I pay if CMS are just making numbers up without asking me if I have prof of payments and they just put the phone down on me and ended the call without giving me a valid reason

CMS are just stealing money

Iv reported a change of income 21 weeks ago (long term is 12 weeks or more) while waiting for a back operation before i can rethrn to work. 4 times i have uploaded my pay slips proving my income. HMRC have given them information about my income which is on my profile. Each time they have rejected the fact my income has changed and when asking why they said a computer makes a decision automatically and they cant understand why the computer isnt recognising the information they have. For 3 weeks iv been told twice the 'case manager' will call me.. ill at this rate ill be dead before they do. Iv been left with next to nothing to live off or provide for my 2 other children because a computer does their job for them. Theyre a disgrace.

Even when your complaint is accepted by an Independent Case Examiner (ICE), this is in response to a request for an update on timescales made on 29th March 2026…..

Dear Mr xxx,

Thank you for your email. Your case is currently in a queue awaiting allocation to an Investigator.

Cases are allocated to investigators in order of the date they are received at this office, this ensures fairness to all complainants.

Your case was received by our office in November 2025. We are currently allocating cases to investigators that we received in August 2025.

It is difficult to say when your case will be allocated as this will be dependent upon the complexities of the cases investigated ahead of yours.

We appreciate your patience whilst it is awaiting allocation.

Kind regards
Independent Case Examiner’s Office

Corrupt system designed to extort money.

People have committed suicide as a direct result of CMS accusations and loading accounts with false arrears.

Despite winning an Independent Case Examiners review they refused to remove the arrears.

They had to pay me £250 in compensation which I eventually got from them.

Corrupt, terrible communication and controlling company to extort money. Needs dismantling and holding to account.

All i can say about this service is disappointing,all they are bothered about is getting money for the person claiming,if you ring them and finally get through which takes ages they tell you to go online,so waste of time,and finally done with this thank goodness feel for people who are having them chase you!

CMS appear to be prejudiced and take lies as facts without any validation or checking.

Have been both the receiving parent and the paying parent and in both situations the rules just didn't apply to the other parent, and I was left with threats and difficulties and expectations that I couldn't meet - when you complain CMS hides behind "time" (min 45mins hold time per phone call??!!) of process, and then breaks their own process.

Have successfully taken CMS to court tribunal three times, now onto my fourth time with HMCTS.

The number of "administrative" errors are incredible - as others have said this government "service" is serving the very people it purports to not.

As a receiving parent with refusal from the paying parent, CMS pretend to go get it, but in practice do nothing. The 25% charge for paying and 5% charge for receiving is appalling waste of a child's benefit.

As a paying parent, when you say you cannot afford the payments, they guide you to online support advice (meaingless and pointless box-ticking), rather than have a reasonable grown up conversation about paying what you can afford - a PAYE income doesn't mean it's available to send to the receiving parent.

It's broke

they ruin your relationship with your kids never listen to the man side my ex Anna is on benefits don't work wants money for her life I was feeding my 18 year old daughter 3/4 days a week she didn't want to stay with me as she not a kid had to stop as I could afford it after 109 pound a week was taken out and couldn't afford my bills while she lived it up really when I refused wot happens threatened with court and passport taken off me and driving licence sort your shit out so unfair

Unfortunately I have to score 1 as zero not option. The child maintenance service is abhorrent. This vile government department is unlawful and corrupt to the core. These scum bags are renowned for inventing arrears on cases When challenged on this they are unable to provide any evidence. However they then place individuals on collect an attachment of earnings. They have caused thousands of fathers to commit suicide and forced into homelessness due to the above. Cause parental alienation. This abhorrent service needs to be dismantled forthwith

I have 2 children full time alone. I also have 2 that don’t live with me. The situations are identical, but the treatment of me as man compared to me as a full time single parent, a quiet frankly disgusting and financially abusive. Changing shared care when you’ve been advised there are no changes and there’s no proof of any changes is shocking. You adsive me as a parent that concent from both parties or proof such as documentation is required. But as a man you’ve done this anyway with no concent and no proof and I’ve even assured you there no conversations about changes. Shocking being on both side and having a clear experience of these alarm double standards. Guess I’m left to move a priory dept to UC to block it. 🤦‍♂️☠️