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CSA refunds Leeds dad 1p
AFTER a lengthy battle with the Child Support Agency, Tony Nelson couldn't believe his eyes when he received a letter telling him he was entitled to a refund.
He was less thrilled, however, when on closer inspection the enclosed cheque was for ... ONE PENCE.
Tony, 44, from Armley, Leeds, said: "I had a quick look and saw all these noughts and thought 'brilliant'.
"Then I looked a bit closer and saw how much it was actually for. It's just a joke isn't it? I'm not sure I'm going to spend it. I don't know whether to blow the lot on women, booze and fast cars or put it in the bank and live on the interest!"
Tony had been involved in an ongoing row with the CSA for some months when the cheque arrived last Saturday.
He had paid several thousand pounds over a 10 year period for the upkeep of his daughter Leigh, now 19.
She left school and started work three years ago, but a few months ago, the CSA wrote to him telling him he still owed them over 600 which he arranged to pay in installments.
He said: "It seems I had overpaid them by 1p.
"I just can't believe they would bother to send that as a cheque back to me.
I can't imagine how much was spent on paying the wages of the person to do the admin, then getting the cheque printed and posted. It's not worth the paper it's printed on.
"If they had rung me and asked them, I would have told them to keep it."
To add insult to injury, the CSA cheque came on the same day Tony received a letter from his bank telling him his debit card had been cloned and he was 650 out of pocket.
Tony, a windscreen technician, said: "I opened the bank letter and realised I'd have all that on my plate to sort out. Then came the cheque and I thought, I'd had a stroke of luck - until I read it, that is."
Tony has now framed the cheque and it has pride of place on his mantelpiece.
He added: "No one at work believed me until I showed them. One of my mates even took a photocopy of it because he said his friends in the pub would never believe it either."
A spokeswoman for the Child Support Agency said: "When an over-payment of child maintenance is made we have a responsibility to refund the non-resident parent in full.
"Ultimately this money belongs to the individual and not to the Agency."
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Weather for Leeds
Saturday 11 February 2012
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Temperature: -2 C to 1 C
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