I knew it was too good to be true. I told Manchester City Council I was moving, they issued a final bill and closed my account, and then a little while later sent me a cheque for the amount I’d overpaid. Fair enough.
Except today they’ve sent a “final demand” for &ukp;85 for no clear reason and a demand that I pay it by the 16th September (the notice having been issued on the 9th, giving me “7 days” – ahahahahaha, right) to pay it or they get a court summons issued. And their phonelines close at 5pm because they’re lazy fuckers and letting people contact them at sensible times is just too much like a fucking good idea.
GAH. This is fucking ridiculous.
I had similar trouble with them…
I am sure that some people require threats of courts summons to get them to do anything. Its a shame that it cheapens them however.
Richard – that’s all well and good, except I had no reason to believe I owed them any money at all, and the first thing I heard from them was I had 7 days to pay up or face court action. It turns out that yes, they’d fucked up and refunded me too much money – but I had to go out of my way to phone them to find that out; no polite letter saying ‘oops, we’ve cocked up, can we have some money back please?’. No, they went straight in for unexplained threats of legal action.
I’m sure, if I was bothered about it, I could have let them take it to court and fought it, but frankly it was easier just to pay them back what they’d overpaid and clear it up that way. I’m very glad I don’t have to deal with them any more.
I wasn’t suggesting you were in the wrong at all!
I think that the council has the belief that everyone in Manchester is a chav and treats them accordingly. But there never learn cause I can’t see the council changing from red to yellow (or even blue) any time soon.
Also it was probably their fckd computer program that did it.