THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, July 21, 1994 TAG: 9407210077
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E6 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARY JANE FINE, COX NEWS SERVICE
LENGTH: Long : 105 lines
AS ANTIHEROES GO, these guys are a bit of a hybrid - part detective, part repo man, plugged into the electronic highway and quick to get results. Critics warn of too-high prices and too-low monitoring. But private child-support enforcement companies are tracking deadbeat dads, and that's enough for lots of folks.
Take, for example, Barbara Aumack. The Lake Park, Fla., woman, now 36, arrived in Florida in 1981 with her marriage in tatters, her year-old son in tow and her faith intact regarding her ex-husband's willingness to support their only child. Her faith was misplaced. After two months and despite a court order, his $200-a-month child-support checks stopped coming.
For 11 years, Aumack lived on her waitressing wages and relied on state caseworkers to find her absent husband. Then a friend told her about Child Support Enforcement of Austin, Texas. Four weeks later, the company found her ex-husband in Arizona. Her checks began arriving in October, minus CSE's 33 percent cut.
``I'd rather have the whole amount,'' Aumack concedes, ``but if it wasn't for their service, I wouldn't have any check at all.''
``We're the last resort,'' CSE founder Casey Hoffman says of private firms like his. ``People who come to us have already been to the government and private attorneys.''
The burgeoning popularity of companies such as CSE - reports estimate up to 100 new companies in the past three years - is testament to an overwhelmed child-support system and the overwhelming frustration of custodial parents.
Florida, after all, managed to collect only 17.5 percent of its child-support obligations ($347 million out of $1.9 billion-plus) in fiscal year 1992-1993. And that was down from 22.1 percent the previous year. Those figures are typical of collection efforts across the country.
But enthusiasm for private child-support companies is hardly unanimous. Critics point out that the field is new and still unregulated, an open invitation for scams. The number of private child-support collection companies is ever-changing, and many shut their doors before earning application fees that typically range from $75 to $150.
``They're vultures,'' says Geraldine Jensen, founder of the Ohio-based Association for Children for Enforcement of Support. ``These people are profiteering at the expense of children.''
But ``when there's not even a slice of bread, two-thirds of a loaf is better than no loaf,'' counters Massachusetts child-advocate Susan Brotchie, referring to the one-third cut such companies charge. ``To me, it is new-found wealth.''
Although they disagree on specifics, Jensen and Brotchie both are adamant on one point: Caution is essential.
Marketing tactics by some private companies illustrate one reason for concern.
``Cash in on the multibillion-dollar child support industry,'' screamed the headline of a flier from the Child Support Collection Agency of America, which went on to promise details about ``the hottest new money-making oppor-tunity.''
The Houston-based agency, which has changed ownership - and tactics, too, according to new owner Bob Lindsey - also used to offer franchises to would-be entrepreneurs.
``Child support is not by any means a get-rich-quick business,'' says Lindsey, who bought out his former partner and calls his reconfigured agency Child Support Enforcement Specialists. ``You have to have a long-term commitment.''
Lindsey says he still offers ``business opportunities'' to agents, who work on a commission basis.
Investigators track down absent parents through computer data bases: Social Security records, credit bureaus, driver license records, union membership rosters, property records, change-of-address lists. (State child-support caseworkers have access to many computer records but are limited by time and interstate techni-calities.)
``It's very difficult to hide,'' Lindsey says.
``Finding them isn't really our problem,'' concurs Hoffman, who says his investigators find 85 percent of their targets and persuade about 60 percent to pay something. ``It's what we find.''
What they find are excuses. The most common: animosity toward the custodial parent. ``Unresolved personal issues between the parties provide the excuse not to look at the needs of the child,'' Hoffman says.
In descending order of popularity, Hoffman listed other reasons his investigators find for nonpayments: stinginess (``a me, me, me kind of guy''); second families (``They rationalize, `Hey, I've got these kids to take care of' ''); just waiting to get caught (``It's amazing. And sometimes they pay the whole amount; they have a trust fund set up''); and hard times (``They're out of a job'').
Some cases fit more than one category. Susan Roberts and her ex-husband both left West Palm Beach after their 1980 divorce. By 1986, he owed $12,700 in child support. During those years, she said, he remarried, had at least one more child and quit his job several times when confronted with demands to pay up.
Finally, in January, an acquaintance told Roberts about Hoffman and CSE. By April, her husband was extradited to Oklahoma, where he faces charges of felony child abandonment and nonsupport. Although Oklahoma officials conducted the extradition and will handle the trial, Roberts says she has no objection to Hoffman's taking a third of whatever money she receives.
This month, Congress is beginning hearings aimed at finding solutions to the child-support system's problems. Lawmakers have promised bipartisan support for comprehensive legislation drafted by women in the House.
``This is welfare prevention,'' said U.S. Rep. Patricia Schroeder, D-Colo.
KEYWORDS: CHILD SUPPORT
by CNB