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Just dug today's post out from under my collie, all happy to receive a parcel from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
wychwood (thank you! yayyy!!!) and old-school Doctor Who DVDs from Blockbuster, and... there's another envelope. It's from Dorset Magistrates' Courts, and the little plastic window in it shows a letter printed in red.
Well, that can never be good. But it's been six years since I broke any laws (or at least, since I last got caught). I'm not scared.
The letter's to tell me that they're issuing a warrant for my arrest and sending bailiffs round to seize my belongings if I don't pay them £482.51 in fines within seven days.
I don't have a font big, red or startled enough to convey the amount of WTF that's going on here. I haven't been ignoring court letters or anything. I haven't had any. In SIX FUCKING YEARS. If there are any unpaid fines, I've gone through the last six years blissfully unaware of their existence, and apparently so has the Magistrates' Court computer system.
Once upon a time I would have panicked and gone into instant denial. Hidden the letter unopened, pretended I hadn't received it and acted all surprised when they issued the warrant for my arrest and turned up to take me and my furniture away. But this is the new, improved, reformed Liz and she does the sensible grown-up thing. She phones the number at the top of the letter, quotes the case number, and gibbers in panic at the nice lady on the other end of the line.
Between us, we found out what had happened. Six years ago I was fined for (among other things) driving without a valid license, or insurance, or something. (Don't expect me to remember. Even if I could remember those days in detail, I really, really don't want to.) The fine was set up to be paid automatically out of my benefits, which is what happens when you don't have any money. Because there were several fines, they were set up to be paid off little by little one after the other.
Except apparently, their hamster died some time between one fine and the next, and the payments that should have happened automatically six years ago never did. I have no idea why. I have even less idea why it took them this long to notice. The good news is that, according to the lady I spoke to on the phone, if I turn up at the Magistrates' Court and point out that the unpaidness of the fine is due to their administrative fuck-up, I should at least be able to pay this off at three quid a week for the next thirty years, and maybe, just maybe a faint possibility of being let off paying it altogether. Court date's May 31st. Don't anyone let me forget.
bloody arseholes.
wychwood (thank you! yayyy!!!) and old-school Doctor Who DVDs from Blockbuster, and... there's another envelope. It's from Dorset Magistrates' Courts, and the little plastic window in it shows a letter printed in red. Well, that can never be good. But it's been six years since I broke any laws (or at least, since I last got caught). I'm not scared.
The letter's to tell me that they're issuing a warrant for my arrest and sending bailiffs round to seize my belongings if I don't pay them £482.51 in fines within seven days.
I don't have a font big, red or startled enough to convey the amount of WTF that's going on here. I haven't been ignoring court letters or anything. I haven't had any. In SIX FUCKING YEARS. If there are any unpaid fines, I've gone through the last six years blissfully unaware of their existence, and apparently so has the Magistrates' Court computer system.
Once upon a time I would have panicked and gone into instant denial. Hidden the letter unopened, pretended I hadn't received it and acted all surprised when they issued the warrant for my arrest and turned up to take me and my furniture away. But this is the new, improved, reformed Liz and she does the sensible grown-up thing. She phones the number at the top of the letter, quotes the case number, and gibbers in panic at the nice lady on the other end of the line.
Between us, we found out what had happened. Six years ago I was fined for (among other things) driving without a valid license, or insurance, or something. (Don't expect me to remember. Even if I could remember those days in detail, I really, really don't want to.) The fine was set up to be paid automatically out of my benefits, which is what happens when you don't have any money. Because there were several fines, they were set up to be paid off little by little one after the other.
Except apparently, their hamster died some time between one fine and the next, and the payments that should have happened automatically six years ago never did. I have no idea why. I have even less idea why it took them this long to notice. The good news is that, according to the lady I spoke to on the phone, if I turn up at the Magistrates' Court and point out that the unpaidness of the fine is due to their administrative fuck-up, I should at least be able to pay this off at three quid a week for the next thirty years, and maybe, just maybe a faint possibility of being let off paying it altogether. Court date's May 31st. Don't anyone let me forget.
bloody arseholes.
