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N.C. investigates child-support collection agency from Nevada
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Published: November 13, 2008
RALEIGH
North Carolina's attorney general and the State Bar are investigating a Nevada company that offers to help collect child support in return for a one-third cut of the monthly payments.
Some parents told the Raleigh News & Observer they thought the company, Child Support Services of Wake County, was a government agency. One customer said she signed a contract with the company that would have cost her more than $10,000 in lost child-support payments. The local government agency that handles child support would have charged her no more than $25.
"I feel so stupid, but I was totally lied to. I was scammed," said Paulette Turlington of Raleigh.
Authorities in three states have had complaints; hundreds of clients in Florida contend they were cheated. The company and its owner, Stuart C. Cole, have been ordered to shut down in Florida. Georgia authorities are also investigating the company.
Cole did not respond to telephone messages, e-mail and a letter asking for comment from the newspaper.
Cole surfaced in Florida about three years ago, soon after he was released from five years in prison for mail fraud and money-laundering involving construction firms along the East Coast. He still owes more than $800,000 in restitution to the homeowners he defrauded, according to federal court records.
North Carolina has a network of government-run child-support agencies that are authorized to help. They can collect only a one-time $25 processing fee.
But in Wake and Mecklenburg counties, online telephone directories show the private company's number.
That's what happened to Turlington this summer. She looked for a way to increase the $650 monthly child-support payment for her two teenage daughters that was negotiated in 1999.
The first listing that came up on the Superpages online phone directory was Child Support Services of Wake County. When Turlington called, the woman who answered promised fast results. Turlington said she was faxed a form she was told to sign to allow a case manager to begin work.
It was a four-year contract that would let the company keep 35 percent of her monthly payment as a fee, regardless of whether they increased the payments. After she faxed back the contract, the company's staff quit taking or returning her calls.
Then Turlington's former husband, Mark Snyder, got a letter from Child Support Services of Wake County ordering him to appear at an address in Raleigh for a "review" of his support. The address was a UPS store.
The letter also offered the option of avoiding a hearing if Snyder called a toll-free number. When Snyder called what he thought was the county's child-support enforcement office, the woman who answered advised him to redirect his monthly payment to the company.
"I didn't want to go to jail," Snyder said. "I know I have an obligation to my daughters."
Soon, Turlington's checks stopped coming altogether.
Turlington hired an attorney, who alerted the state Attorney General's Office. An attorney there told Child Support Services of Wake County to void Turlington's contract. The company complied.
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