Wheel clamping ineptitude
Exeter Council, inept time wasting bastards

A couple of years ago I lived at a nice flat on the Quay side in Exeter, a mere 400 yards from the delights of Warehouse nightclub (as it was called then) and in full view of the lights of Pizza Hut, oh the luxury. The flat was a privately owned flat rented from a landlord who had bought it from someone who had lived there before who himself had bought it from the Council. The surrounding buildings were/are council granny type flats. Within the first couple days of moving in made sure I had a fully valid parking permit for the off road courtyard so all hunky dory.

Anyway I lived there for about a year, go to leave and drive away and lo and behold a wheel clamp on my shiny motor and a rude demand for £50 + VAT to release my vehicle otherwise it’s going to be towed that evening to prevent me from committing criminal damage removing the clamp, with the privilege of paying £180+ VAT instead for the tow away fee.

Much surprise as you can imagine since my parking permit (valid until 2008) was clearly on display on my dashboard. I had parked ever so slightly wonkily but couldn't believe the parking Nazis would be such bastards, so I phone the number on the card to get the guy to come and remove it as it’s one big misunderstanding. He turns up and “no mate can’t take it off without payment.” Hmmm well I’m not paying, I said, because I have a valid parking permit.

“No you don’t they’ve been changed, look”. So sure enough I go and look at my neighbours’ cars and as if by magic all their permits are different. Of course I had received no prior notification of the change so cue even more confusion.

So he gives me a number for the council and I phone up and demand to speak to someone in authoritaaaa about this. Sure enough after having idiot FM broadcast at me through a series of retarded call operators eventually I speak to the manager of the department who deals with such matters (Hazell something, her name escapes me, but I will edit it in when I remember) and she says that the Council sent out letters months ago notifying about a change in the permit system and any that were returned to the council she had hand delivered in person so categorically EVERYONE knew about the change of permits so basically said I was clearly lying when I said I hadn’t received notification.

Didn’t get anywhere so tried to appeal to the clampers’ sense of humanity, HA! No dice. Of course the guy was a complete jobsworth twunt with nothing better to do than revel in other people’s misery. So I phoned back this woman from the council who happened to be on her way to near my place anyway so by a miracle of miracles she appeared shortly in person! So even a phone call from her, the manager of the department that contracts out the clampers, didn’t get the car unclamped. In the end I was 3 hours late for where I was going and had to pay the £50+ VAT release fee since I didn’t want to be out of pocket by £200+. Bunch of complete arseholes.

So afterwards I try and get to the bottom of it. After many angry phone calls I find out that the letter had been addressed to a previous resident, the chap who had bought the flat off the council about 5 years previously. Why they sent it to him is a mystery since I had to take proof of ownership of the vehicle and 2 items of proof of living at the flat to get the permit in the first place so they had all my details on the system. Since it was rented accommodation we got mail for around 5-6 previous residents, none of whom we had forwarding addresses to. So the mail ended up having Return To Sender scrawled on it and dropped in the nearest post box. Half of it had no return address so I imagine got binned. The mail from the council should have had their franked address on but this one didn’t, and I actually found the letter in question in the flat which looked hand delivered but being addressed to someone else I couldn’t legally open it of course.

So I phoned back the bitch at the council who said she was very sorry but could do nothing. What do you mean, nothing?! This has cost me 3 hours of my life and £58.75 and probably knocked a few years off the end with the stress. Bunch of absolute nutsack sucking useless twunts.

So here started my letter campaign. I sent a letter every week for about 6 months to this woman, eventually she either quit the department or passed it onto someone else who actually gave a rat’s ass. When this other manager heard about it I got an extremely apologetic letter back and a cheque from the council straight away.

What takes the absolute piss is the fact that the resident’s permits are free, yes FREE!! So it wasn’t as if I was dodging paying it. I pay council tax now I am no longer a student, and I wouldn’t mind so much if I saw the money going to something useful, like fixing the roads or clearing up the shit hole that is the alley behind our house since people put bins out too early and the cats destroy the bags. No instead a couple years ago they did a complete refit of the Council Offices in Exeter. Cunts.




SJS.

PS: We even had a debt collection letter for a previous resident once, who we knew had moved to Greece but had no address. I saw what it said through the window on the envelope and called the number. Instant pickup, instant explanation of where the guy had gone. "No worries mate, we'll stop sending you the letters." Awesome, job done. The debt collection amout was for £8.87. How fucking petty.
(Stanlington Jobsworthy Smythe Last skived off work on, Fri 27 Jul 2007, 14:55, Reply)