I would tend to say yes, as child support payments are intended to support your own children, your adopted children, or children for whom you are a legal guardian. There is a moral issue here, unfortunately. The actual father of the child or children is the one who should be contributing to their support. It is their father who actually owe you the money and it is possible the courts would see it in this light. If repaying all of the money at once is a financial burden for the mother, it might be better to defer repayment or to ask only for reasonable payments to be made so as not to cause additional hardship. If their father does show up, in person or by wallet, he has the responsibility both to pay ongoing support for the children and to repay you the money you have contributed to their support in lieu of him.

If you ask me, this is one of those questions that has no good answer. Technically, I agree with Red John. It is really the true biological parents that owe you the the refund. The father for helping to create the child in the first place and the mother for telling you what ultimately turned out to be a lie to get money out of you. If the mother knew that you were not the father, then that makes it even worse. However, there is another consideration here that I think is more important then the money. What about the child? In paying the child support, you accepted the roll of father regardless of the fact that the child is not genetically related to you. You in effect adopted the child. You don't say how old the child is. So, I am going to assume that the child is not yet fully grown, but is old enough to be aware of what is going on. What are you going to do about this child who has been calling you father? Are you just going to abandon him/her? Are you going to put him/her through the trauma of thinking that daddy doesn't care for him/her anymore? Depending on the age of the child this can be absolutely devastating to their self-esteem. Is it fair that you got tricked into raising a child that wasn't yours? Probably not. However, it is also not fair to the child to suddenly abandon him/her after years actually being his/her father. (A father is a man the man who actually raised a child. The guy who helped create the child is just a sperm donor.) So what you really have here is a decision to make. You could be selfish and say let the hurt of the situation govern your actions and abandon the child or you can be a real man and say, "it doesn't matter that the child is not genetically yours. I love him/her and am going to finish raising this child." Of course, if you have never taken an active roll in this child's life, even when you thought it was yours, then the above probably doesn't matter. However, it speaks volumes about your character that you would physically abandon a child that you thought was yours. *************** "Grandma Roses: I agree, but the mom may have made an honest mistake - many women don't know exactly when conception takes place" The fact that the mother didn't know who the father was tells us something about her. Assuming that the child isn't a product of a raped, then the mother was being promiscuous. Therefore, she knew that there was doubt as to who the father was. However, she apparently didn't reveal this fact to the poster of this question. That was patently unfair to him. The issue of paternity should have been sorted out at the child's birth, not some number of years after the fact. Had she done so, they wouldn't be in this situation in the first place. BTW, if the child is the product of rape, then I think that abandoning him/her at this point would be that much worse because you don't want a child living with that kind of guilt.

The other answers are wrong in the state of Pennsylvania. Once you have taken on the role as the father and financial provider of a child you are legally obligated to continue to support that child. I was a reporter and covered a story in which a guy seperated from his wife and found out their kid wasn't his and in fact his former wife was living with the father but he still had to pay child support.

Red John is flat-out right, he should not have to pay anything, unless the boyfriend (or friend of the mother and child) chooses to become a financially responsible father.

We just had a case in Australia where a woman knowingly took child support payments for quite a number of years, where the man was not the father. He took her to court, and she was ordered to repay every cent. The precedent is there.

The fact that there is a need for a paternity test points to a life that is not organized. Don't worry, I am not better, but I see was I have seen before. I going to guess that you might take a look at finances for more refunds from other sources. Your statement "payments refundable" is legally incorrect, payments of child support is not your money. It is money that belongs to the kid, and some adult besides you is going to bat for him. No is born wise. So you paid your kids money. If you had doubt if it was yours, you should have not paid. By the time they tag you paycheck, the test results are back. Worst case is you file at a small claims court for the money is my answer. Other legal avenues cost money to get money.

What is wrong with the guys these days, do a secret DNA test if in doubt for a second. A tiny effort for 18 years. it is 6 figures .