From: lang@stars.gsfc.nasa.gov (F. L. Lang, NASA/GSFC, (301)286-4424)
Subject: More on FIND DAD (LONG article from Washington Post)
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.4-b1  
Keywords:  FIND DAD, child support, 
Organization: NASA/GSFC-Laboratory for Astronomy and Solar Physics
Distribution: usa
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1992 12:00:00 GMT

The following article appeared in the Washington Post, page B1, on Monday, 
April 13, 1992.

(Note: The Washington, DC, area comprises not only the District, but Northern 
Virginia and parts of Central Maryland.)

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Company Makes It Its Business to Get Overdue Child Support

By Sandra Evans
Washington Post Staff Writer

The Television ad pushed all of Kathleen McDonald's emotional buttons.

"He loved you.  Then he stopped," read the white-on-black letters flashing on 
the screen.  "He adored the kids.  Then he stopped.  He promised support.  Then
he stopped .... We'll find him.  And we won't stop."

"I called them right then and there," said McDonald, a 36-year-old Sterling 
mother who had been trying for two years to collect court-ordered child support
of $465 a month from her estranged husband, David.

The number she called last month, 1-800-PAY-MOMS, put her in touch with Find 
Dad America Inc. and its subsidiary, Find Dad National Capital Area, new 
businesses working out of a town house in Fairfax County.  She was one of the 
first to sign up for the service, which will cost her 25 percent of anything 
they collect.

"It's worth it," said McDonald, who has grown increasingly frustrated with 
Virginia child support enforcement officials who she says tell her -- when they
bother to call back at all -- that they cannot get her money unless she finds 
her husband herself. 

The company, which opened March 16 with a whirlwind of radio, television and 
print advertisements throughtout the Washington-Baltimore area, is essentially 
a collection agency, but with a twist:  It specializes in tracking down absent 
parents and getting them to cough up cash for their kids.

Similar businesses have been popping up here and there across the country, one 
sign of the seemingly intractable problem of getting parents to pay 
court-ordered child support.  Children Support Services in Laurel 
(1-800-296-KIDS), a division of Mid-Atlantic Collections Inc., appears to have 
been the first in this area.  It opened about seven months ago and now has 
several hundred clients, according to its president, Dennis C. Bannon.

But none has been as ambitious as Find Dad, with its blitz of advertising and 
visions of going nationwide.  Initially targeting the Washington-Baltimore area
and its millions of dollars in outstanding child support debt, Find Dad says it
got calls from 32 states and from as far away as Germany and Ghana in its first
few weeks of business.  Thousands of parents who are owed millions of dollars 
have called.  About 30 people already have returned the lengthy application 
forms, and Find Dad collectors have begun looking for the missing parents, 
officials there said. 

"We have hit here an emotional, societal issue," said lawyer Michael L. 
Weinstein, who founded Find Dad America Inc.

Jacqueline Hopewell, a Find Dad collector who used to work for the Northern 
Virginia child support office, said the volume of cases plus government 
bureaucracy often prevent the state from collecting support efficiently.  State
collectors may have as many as 3,500 cases at any one time, and they have to 
complete paperwork for every action taken, she said.

"The private sector can do things more efficiently than the government," 
Weinstein said.  "We are doing the job they are supposed to be doing."

Harry Wiggins, Virginia's director of child support enforcement, countered that
the government has all the computer resources that private companies have -- 
and more -- but acknowledged that companies that can concentrate on only a few 
cases may be able to do better at tracking down delinquents.

"Part of my hesitation [about private companies] is that they are getting a 
percentage" of collections, including money that would have come in without 
their help, Wiggins said.

Although about 6 percent to 8 percent of custodial parents are fathers, mothers
still constitute the majority of those owed child support.  Thus the name of 
the business, Weinstein said.

Find Dad, in offices off Little River Turnpike, opened with two investigators
to find nonpaying parents and three collectors to look for ways to get the
delinquents to pay, plus clerical and administrative staff.  It also hired as
a consultant Betty Murphy, a longtime child support enforcement watchdog and
lobbyist.  Calls to the 800 number are answered by operators working for a
telemarketing company in Cincinnati, who transfer information to the Fairfax
group.

The company says it cannot work for people who have received Aid to Families
with Dependent Children because any collections would have to go to the state
to reimburse it for the AFDC payments.  Find Dad clients pay no upfront fee,
but they agree to pay a $25 application fee, 25 percent of collections and any
legal fees they agree to -- all of it to come out of collections.

Terry C. Legum, a lawyer and president of Find Dad National Capital Area, said 
he hopes Find Dad can negotiate and absorb low legal fees in cases when it 
takes delinquents into court.  But, he said, the company has to keep the door 
open for a payback on unusual legal expenses.

The national child support delinquency problem is wide and deep.  Only about 
half of all parents get the full amount of child support they are owed, and in 
1989 alone $5.1 billion out of $16.3 billion owed went unpaid, according to 
U.S. Census Bureau figures.

Kathleen McDonald and others say they are tired of waiting.  Filling out Find 
Dad's forms recalled all the old pain:  His leaving her when she was eight 
months pregnant with Ian, now nearly 3; his returning and playing a devoted-dad
role.  His telling her to quit her sales job and then taking off three days 
later.  Now, she said, he owes thousands in past support.  Attempts to reach 
David McDonald, 33, were unsuccessful.

"I've had to rent out rooms, watch children, and clean houses," said Kathleen 
McDonald.  "That'show I'm barely making it."

[Accompanying the article is a picture with the following caption:  "Kathleen 
McDonald, 36, with her 3-year-old son, Ian, and a wedding photo of her and 
David, her estranged husband."]

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*        Rick Lang         *             \input flame_ignore.tex             *
* lang@stars.gsfc.nasa.gov *          \input standard_disclaimer.tex         *
*     Custodial Parent     *  What do you get when you multiply six by nine? *
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Xref: sparky alt.child-support:1049 alt.dads-rights:649