Cars, Cops and Bailiffs.

[Stewart]

Its on BBC1 now. Harsh. Thats all I've got to say.

These 2 bailiffs (1 of which was a spotty kid - thought they were supposed to be big blokes) knock on this door, and tell this woman that when she was helping her disabled father out of the car the other day, she was parked futher than the allowed 50cm from the curb, and as such she has to pay £500+ in fines.

If she doesn't pay they are taking away her stuff, including her dog to sell at auction.

Beloved family pet taken away and sold against your will, because you can't pay an obscenely large fine, for the vicious crime of parking a few centimeters more than allowed from the curb, while getting a disabled man out of a car? Do we live in England or North Korea?

What is this country coming to?

Also, can I add, I'm not a violent person, but if someone knocked my door, demanding loads of cash or he'll sell my dog, for something like that, I'd chew his face off. And be well within my rights to do so.

[joshwa]

I hate this country.

Obviously it's worse in China ie. hi mr and mrs x, we've come to knock your house down, so we can build some new stuff, if you complain, the government will beat you up.

But I'd rather live somewhere nicer than Britain, namely N.Z. eh? or Canada, eh?

Bailiff's are the worst - you owe £125 for some stupid crime we made up (car being parked too far away from curb) - you now owe us £500 because we've had to come to your house, oh and ps, tomorrow morning we'll pretend to knock on your door, then steal your car, then charge you more to release your stolen car. Since when was stealing cars, and blackmail legal?!?!?!

[Steven W]

I hate bailiffs. The fines on these TV shows always seem absolutely ridiculous.

They should have shown the video where that guy picked up the bailiff and dropped him on his head. I'm glad someone stood up to them. He ended up paying 1,500 for a fine that was originally £40 - taking the mick!

[Gordy]

Yeah but if he had just paid the thing in the first place it wouldn't have cost him that would it...

If you ignore fines what are they supposed to do?

I didn't see the first bit with the dog so I can't comment on that.

[dave87]

The bit with a dog was a tactic to stop her winging and get her to pay up - the interview afterwards showed that...

[Ferral]

I owed the local council £32 from the council tax last year, this came about from my wife not changing her name soon enough when we first moved into our current house and the council billing me personally. Got various letters from the council saying they were in error and a recalculation for the year was being done and we went about life as normal paying the £100 per month for the council tax.

September last year, day off with my feet up. Jacobs Bailiffs came knocking at the door with a fine for £230 for the £32 that had allegedly been recalculated by our local council. Needless to say paid it within a week or so as soon as I got paid.

However at the time it was quite distressing, big burly intimidating bloke (takes a lot to intimidate me, quite big myself). Came in and listed items from my home. He listed 42" Plasma, DVD Recorder, all of my DVD's, both PC's, Fishtank with Livestock, Coffee Table and kids TV out of back room. All that for an initial mess up by the local council for £32 and them slapping a further £200 on top.

Half the time things like this happen because of local councils not doing their jobs properly and slapping fines on people for the errors they have made. Then not sending out letters or anything else letting people know monies are owed.

Takes us back to the times of the Saxons etc where debt was taken to the extreme, they call this progress.

[greenalien]

June Tabor did an excellent song called 'The Devil and the Bailiff McGlynn' - here's the lyrics...

The Devil and Baliff McGlynn

[Rave]

However at the time it was quite distressing, big burly intimidating bloke (takes a lot to intimidate me, quite big myself). Came in and listed items from my home. He listed 42" Plasma, DVD Recorder, all of my DVD's, both PC's, Fishtank with Livestock, Coffee Table and kids TV out of back room. All that for an initial mess up by the local council for £32 and them slapping a further £200 on top.

Well, you made a big mistake letting him in. Without a court order/warrant or whatever they have no more right to enter your home than anybody else. Just stand your ground and tell them to leave. If they do actually have a court order they'll bring a policeman along to help them enforce it, as I understand it.

This is the most important thing to know about bailifs, so I'll say it again: Don't let them in.

The people who lived in this house before us seem to have left a trail of debts all over the place. I'm still wondering if the bailifs will show up one day (but I'm not worried about it). A council bailif came round once after someone else's unpaid council tax, but left again once my wife showed him that we lived here now and we were not the people he was looking for.

[[GSV]Trig]

Nobody gets in my house without me letting them in.

PowerGen screwed up our lekky bill, they tried to come read the meter, during work hours so obv me and the missus were out, we rang them up and gave them the meter reading, they didnt believe the reading we gave them so they sent someone out again, during work hours, so again we rang and gave them a reading, which again they didnt believe, eventually one of there guys got in and took a reading but after that and before they'd "recalculated" our bill they sent the baliffs round.
6 big blokes and 2 vans according to my dad who was next door at the time, luckily we were out but to say I was less than impressed when I rang them up and told them so, fashist robbing ****ers....

[directhex]

I hate this country.

Obviously it's worse in China ie. hi mr and mrs x, we've come to knock your house down, so we can build some new stuff, if you complain, the government will beat you up.

the interesting one lately was a forced abortion for a woman who was shown to have gotten pregnant before she got married.

a 38-week abortion.

ick

[chuckskull]

MY mum had a load of problems with these last year. Electric company decided a small semi could use £900 a quarter in electric. Luckily I was there, when she called me, they were trying to shove the door open with her still standing in it, obviously thinking she was alone in the house. Luckily I'm a big bloke and own a big dog, which was enough for them to back out of the door, for me to slam it in their faces and tell them that I'd be letting the dog out if they didn't get off the property immediately (he wouldn't harm a fly, but you wouldn't know that from looking at him).

I honestly believe that if I wasn't there my mums place would have been ransacked for a bill she didn't even owe.

It's not just the bailiff's that are at fault either, the electric company had already admitted on the phone that the bill looked erroneous and told my mother not to worry, that they would look into it, when she got the final reminder she was told again to ignore it that, her normal direct debit would be fine until the bill was recalculated, but they of course had no record of this when confronted about it.

Also if you do end up in a situation like this go to your local Citizens Advice Bureau, they were excellent with my mum and had them backpedaling and apologizing in no time, a highly under-rated service IMO.

[chicken]

The problem is that the bailiffs have to come across as heavy-handed to get people who genuinely owe money to pay up.

The council/utilities company/etc pass on their debts with no way of the bailiffs being able to tell if they are erroneous. You tell the bailiff they're wrong and they can't check so they assume you're lying, otherwise they'd waste countless hours for people who do lie.

The fault lies in the organisation that calls them in in the first place. These people should be held accountable for more than just a mere apology for a clerical error if they have got it wrong because of the impact they can have on people's lives if they're not strong enough to stand their ground.

[badass]

It would be nice if the scum that work for debt recovery companies had a different name to the people employed by the courts to collect debts :nod:
Two different kinds of epople IMO.
The first type are known for using intimidation, forcing their way in illegally and lying to people to get money off them, whilst the others are far more pleasant people that are far less confrontational and bullying.

[Dorza]

A few years ago some guy (have no idea who he is/was) owed money and when the authorities couldn't find him, they went to his mothers address to ask for his location. What did she tell them...that he lived at my address (cheeky ****er). Our house was under surveillance from the bailiff's for a few weeks after which they ended up trying to get into our house, but my mother wasn't having any of it. They simply would not believe that the person they wanted 1) didn't live at our address and 2) never had done since my parents are the first occupiers of the house. It took weeks to sort it out. It ended with them being very embarrassed and writing a very lengthy apology to my parents and my mother in particular. Scum thats all they and that guys mother are to me.

[M0nkeyb0Y]

Fishtank with Livestock,

You were keeping cattle in a fishtank?!

[JIM_BOB7813]

Did you see the guy with the Lexus? Both the bailiff company manager and his sidekick went round his house to oversee the recovery guy lift his car away and charged him £900 for the pleasure.