Local business owner helps parents collect child support
6th March 2017 · 0 Comments
By Charmaine Jackson
Contributing Writer
Editor’s note: This story originally published with the former name of Simone Spence’s company, Child Support Services. It has been update to reflect the new name of her company, Don’t Get Mad Get Paid, LLC..
For nearly 20 years, assisting mothers with pursuing back child support has been the sole mission of Simone Spence, president and founder of Don’t Get Mad Get Paid, LLC. According to her, the United States has a total of $116 billion in back child support.
“We live in a society that promotes #deadbeatculture, the system was never designed to collect from errant fathers who were completely able but unwilling to pay and hasn’t quite put the necessary resources into making collections possible and last, it really isn’t a priority. Let’s face it, if these same people owed Uncle Sam $50,000 or $100,000, would they get away it with? The government would find a way to collect that money – seizing their accounts, cars, house and underpants, if they had to,” Spence stated.
Due to a back child support battle with her ex-husband, Spence vowed to aid mothers to get money owed to them.
“I got married right after college, had my first child a year later and when my marriage did not work out my ex decided to stiff me on child support payments,” Spence stated. “I figured out how to get my money and I started helping other moms to do the same and I have been doing it since then. I want to help millions of moms to collect their past due support because they need someone on their side.”
Catering to mothers, who are usually the primary caregivers, Spence has especially become privy to “locate absent parents, locate hidden income and assets belonging to an absent parent trying to hide them and how to effectively garnish wages, bank accounts, and place liens on personal and real property, if necessary,” per her Web site, DontGetMadGetPaid.com. Spence contends back child support can drastically improve the quality of life for a child, including covering the cost of extra-curricular activities, school tuition and basic essentials, such as food and clothes.
Spence’s website is a do-it-yourself digital platform to assist mothers with collecting back child support arrears. A subscription service, the site provides a list of services, as well as a wealth of information, including child support consultations, blogs, webinars, and articles addressing any topic concerning child support.
Spence says the digital services will be fully available in June.
The digital route, compared to the traditional route, has its advantages. Spence says cost and peace of mind are two of them.
“Family Law attorneys are not debt collectors and will refer a mom back to the courts or to Child Support Enforcement for an enforcement motion. This does not help a mom to collect money and this is one of the reasons why there is $116 billion in past due support in the states ($1.3 billion in Louisiana),” Spence stated.
Spence says her subscription service is a fraction of the cost, with fees as low as $100 per month for document preparation, skip tracing and forensic accounting, among other services.
To cover the peace of mind, Spence created a proprietary online wizard, named Athena, after the warrior goddess of law and justice. Designed to cater to the busy mom, “Athena will locate the other parent, locate his income and assets so that collections are possible, aggregate the forms and motions that a mom needs for her particular case, send them to her for her signature and then mail them on her behalf,” Spence stated.
For the mom who wants to opt out of collecting back child support to cover everyday costs, Spence advises to consider opening an account, depositing the money there every month and giving it to the children when they turn 18.
“I mean really – I’ve put one of my children through college already and college tuition is no joke,” Spence stated.
This article originally published in the March 6, 2017 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
