the city of edinburgh council must die because they are coercive motherfuckers
you pay your council tax. usually at the end of the month. that's ok, you've been doing it that way for years - then you simply forget (doh) to pay july '07's bill (because of not being at home for the best part of 3 weeks) ...

thing is, edinburgh council has decided it had a cashflow problem, so won't tolerate people paying "late" (ie late in the month when it falls due). ooh no. so 21st april passes by and out comes a snotty letter. you pay. you were going to pay anyway. may is ok, then in june you get another snotty letter after the 21st. in july, payment totally escapes your mind until the Very Last Day Of The Month. but it's still paid - notwithstanding the super-nasty final notice you got when you were away, demanding the rest of the year's bill in one go - over £500.

So you call them ... and the placid bloke at the council explains that the only way you can prevent the full might of the scottish legal system coming down on your head with extreme prejudice is to agree to a direct debit ... despite being self employed and not having a regular salary ... which makes DDs pretty hard sometimes ...

so you set one up and the placid bloke at the council says 'what date of payment would you like?' ... so you ask for options ... and he gives you the last day of the month ... which means:

1. if you pay your fucking tax in the last week of the month on any two months, you will then get a scary "give us all of it" demand if you do it a third time (please note - this involves council tax that is actually *being paid*)

2. your choices are then utterly subordinated to the needs of the council: pay us everything or let us lift money from your bank account by DD

3. the DD you agree to actually means *later payment* than you were in the habit of making anyway as (apart from one forgetful holiday month) the bill was generally not left til the last working day of the month anyway

so all this bullshit has succeeded in edinburgh council getting money from me later than it otherwise would, me having a DD to cater to that i didn't want, and a threatening letter lying unread on my doormat for two weeks because i wasn't even here

grindy machine fuckercunts
( writerblock ... embedding disabled by request on, Wed 1 Aug 2007, 20:51, Reply)