Child Maintenance Service Reviews 

I found the Child Maintenance Customer Service phone line waiting time to be too long. However, I got through to a very professional and helpful advisor who went above and beyond. Her name was Leanne and I believe her accent was that associated with Liverpudlians. If management see this please thank her for her help!!

Awful company, you would expect more as its run through the gov.uk. Each time you phone expect to be on the phone for the very least an hour. Calculations are continuously wrong and letters sent out are copied and pasted with wrong information on. Takes 3 months to set up collect and pay. And in this time how are our children supposed to eat!

The people who work for children maintenance should be ashamed of themselves do nothing to support the child

I have spent best part of this morning on hold waiting to speak to one of your child maintenance representatives only to get through to someone after 40 minutes.
The moment ‘Reece’ answered and asked for my name, I replied “sorry I can’t hear you, could you speak a bit louder please” he hung up the phone!

This is a frustrating situation for parents anyway and your customer service being poor doesn’t help anyone.

Absolutely unacceptable

It's not child maintenance , it's financial abuse by automation with no accountability !

Biggest scam ever, full of liars in that office. Tell you they have received confirmation from HMRC how much i earn and its £5000 more than what's on my HMRC account, constantly changing how much im supposed to pay and then send me bills for underpayment. People in that office need sacking

I am still waiting for a full and comprehensive breakdown of the so called "Arrears" that I have spent at least 2 years trying to chase up and yet you are still unable to give me an answer. The website does not have and section where it is easy to contact a member of staff. The arrears on my account are unlawful and you have done absolutely nothing to address my concerns.

Fraudulent company. Only operate using child benefit. Don't apply common sense. All about financial explotation.

How is this even allowed!

"The Child Maintenance Service calculates maintenance based on a paying parent’s weekly gross income. Gross income is calculated before deducting income tax and national insurance"

So they base payments to be made, on more than you actually earn! When paying 40% tax (which isn't taken into account) this makes a huge difference!

They are an absolute joke, zero consideration for your own house and bills they won't even look at income vs outgoings. But as long as the other parent can afford theirs with your money, all is good.

Even when in 50/50 care and pay half for everything, they still make one parent pay the other! How does that even work when it's 50/50.

Honestly, I feel sorry for all the people going through this.

I agree with paying for a child but it needs to be fair and based on what you are paid after tax and NI and it should consider outgoings to! If it's 50/50 no payments should be made it should be down the middle (activities, uniform etc should all be half)

How this place is allowed is beyond me.

Then you've got some parents who pay zero and get away with it.

The whole thing is a joke

Child Maintenance, I don’t understand why you don’t help and support the receiving parent.

I have been missing payment for June and even though the other parents circumstances have changed, this is unacceptable that I have to wait for some time for my payment. I didn’t receive payment for May and this is truly unacceptable. Almost two months of no payment and it clearly seems that you allow the other parent to provide whenever they can. I don’t understand this service.

If you’re looking to apply for child maintenance, in most cases they don’t help and they don’t investigate or take into understanding for the full-time/receiving parent. By my experience, I am still very disappointed with this service.

Child Maintenance, what does it take for you to understand that how this service works isn’t helping many parents at all. You are supposed to help and support the receiving parent as well and you clearly don’t.

I have been patient and understanding and I won’t stay silent anymore.

Change your service, let’s do better.

Should be called mothers maintenance service or the mothers & DWPs harrasment service.

I have my children 50% of the time during all school holidays including half terms. I additionally have them 5 nights out of every 14 days during the school term and additionally another 2 days but not nights per month equating to a total of around 43% of the time I am also single father caring for my children.

I am paying for all their school uniform, school holiday activities, shoes, trainers, clothes, coats and haircuts on top of child maintenance weekly.

Mother every 2-3 months puts in a new claim of "unearned income" demanding that I need to be paying more. Each time all my earnings, bank statements and pay slips are sent, with child maintenance service constantly re opening the case and demanding I send in the same documentation sent before.

It is borderline harrasment at a minimum at this stage and as a father that is not only providing and paying for my children I've simply had enough of such a one sided service that only caters towards the receiving parent.

Funny that the system works whereby the mother has them around 53% of the time and is able to claim child tax credits, child benefit, universal credits, child maintenance payments whilst also paying for the bare minimum towards the children. Where is my support working as much as I can whilst also being a single dad on my own for the other 43% of the time?

The system is ridiculously outdated, and only caters for the receiving parent (usually mothers).

Absolutely disgusting attitude from child maintenance from the start that follow a black and white rule book that seems to be unable to comprehend the principle of common sense.

But I imagine that getting a % of all money paid by the paying parent is the incentive for them to harrass and try to work alongside the receiving parent to get as much as possible out of the paying parent no matter how unequal the whole system is.

I opened a claim with the Child Maintenance Service after 16 years of raising my child entirely alone with no support from her father. I provided information about his current location (Cheltenham) and employment status. Despite this, I was told CMS “can’t find him” and that my claim will be suspended for a month. This is completely unfair and a disgrace. The system is failing single parents and letting absent parents off the hook. It feels like I’m being punished while the person who abandoned his responsibilities gets away freely. Unacceptable.

Hardly supportive. I live in a household that on both ends. I get mugged off and so do they. Payee gets away with everything and hudni act all the time.. where my partner has an ex partner who only wants the money..

Constantly contact and every single time get told a different outcome and the wrong information. Doesn't matter what you are the receiver or the paying you get mugged off by the party who knows how to play the system. Actually train everyone the right way so people get told the correct information... and apparently the (HMRC) isn't the trusted source for your income and tax! LOL

The worst cost of over £130m a year to abuse dads.

This agency just needs to change its name to Mothers Maintenance Service and stop lying claiming they do it for the best outcome for the kids.

This empowers mums to abuse kids for a quick buck and to get at their ex because they can..

Equality act? what equality act. CMS rips up the laws. fact..

Incompetent staff. In 5 years I’ve not received a payment. Bailiff action multiple times and all of them failed. They seem to care more about the paying parent (who doesn’t pay) than the full time single parent and child. They do everything they can to avoid taking useful actions such as taking passport/Driving License away etc because they’re so lazy. I don’t understand how it can take so long for anything to be done.

Embarrassing to see that an a government department that is responsible for the well being of children and their families is rated so poorly, I’m guessing that this is because like myself so many people have had or are continuing to have a terrible experience. The CMS have the power to destroy people’s well being and future and the complete lack of trust that nearly everyone you speak to has with them is a disgrace. Completely inadequate incompetent waste of time of time that they are. I have absolutely nothing positive to write about them other than the hold music that most people will have listened to now on their useless phone system is more bearable then the rest of the rubbish that you are going to hear when you finally get through to them.

I'm convinced that this service is useless and the UK Government is doing it's best to maintain broken families so the benefits system can keep going.

These CMS people play with people's lives and do nothing to actually help their situation let alone try to get a hold of them on the phone. I haven't seen my son in almost 6 years and I've been paying CMS all the while.

I just HATE this, these toxic women this corrupt Government schemes, I give up!

If I could give the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) zero stars, I would. Dealing with them has been one of the most stressful and mentally exhausting experiences of my life. Despite making every payment and informing them of my change in circumstances during unemployment (which they acknowledged in writing), they continue to claim I’ve missed payments.
They’ve shown a complete lack of basic logic, accountability, and compassion. Every interaction feels like shouting into a void while they pass around incorrect data like it’s a game. It’s like they’ve outsourced their calculations to a broken calculator and their customer service to a wall.
CMS doesn’t just make administrative errors—they actively destroy the mental health of people trying to do the right thing. I’ve had to chase them multiple times to fix mistakes they caused, only to be gaslit by their own internal contradictions.
Their Trustpilot reviews are not exaggerated. This is a toxic, broken system that punishes both paying and receiving parents. It makes co-parenting harder, not easier.
CMS: You need reform, oversight, and a serious reality check. People’s lives are not just reference numbers and automated letters. Sort yourselves out.

Run by a bunch of morons, you need to call on average 15 times before you get through, and when you do get through you are told the wrong information continually. I believe these people have the iq of a tin of baked beans. Idiots but then again look at the state of our government.

I’m finding this company terrible and wonder what they are actually paid for. They openly discriminate against victims of domestic abuse who are left with ptsd. They are clueless of the effects it leaves on you or how to be understanding and helpful. They refuse aiding collecting or even looking at evidence that proves their decisions are based on lies - I feel. Unbelievable!. Leaves me feeling they condone corruption.