9 ms·
Nothing has changed since this happened to me, in reverse, in 1996. 18-year-old me had an account with the Halifax, then a building society. One week, £50 appe
by jen729w 7y ago
Nothing has changed since this happened to me, in reverse, in 1996.
18-year-old me had an account with the Halifax, then a building society. One week, £50 appeared in this account. I knew it wasn't for me, and didn't want to spend it as I knew I'd have to give it back at some point. (I'd asked my girlfriend's dad, a lawyer who worked for the Crown Prosecution Service, if I could just keep it. He compared it to someone parking their car on my driveway. They shouldn't leave it there, but that doesn't mean it becomes my car.)
I wrote – on paper, in an envelope – to the Halifax. They said they'd do something about it. They didn't, and a month later another fifty quid arrives. This went on for a few months, from memory. When they finally sorted it, I pointed out that another bank (HSBC?) was, at the time, offering a £25 'sorry, we screwed up' payment. I suggested that they might like to send me £25.
The manager wrote back and told me that as 'no inconvenience or cost was incurred by me' as a result of this error, he didn't see why he should give me £25. Looking back, this event shaped how I feel about corporations, about how the 'little guy' is treated. I was fucking furious, so I meticulously detailed all of the costs, including my time at the minimum wage of the day, and put them in a letter. I mean down to the cost of the envelopes, the stamps, and the landline calls that I'd made. Everything, itemised. It was beautiful.
I called and got the manager on the phone. I explained my stance, and read through each line of the letter I was about to send. "Do you agree that this was a cost incurred by me?", I asked after every line. He couldn't disagree. I think the total was somewhere around £60. I finished the call by saying that he'd be getting this detail in the mail, and that it wasn't a letter this time, it was an invoice. Then – oh man, I remember this – I just hung up on him.
They sent me a cheque.
- tantalor 7y agoYou didn't have to do that work, it was your choice, hence you were not entitled to recompense.
- thereisnospork 7y agoTo continue the analogy: If someone parks in your driveway, while you don't have to tow their car, you are entitled to recompense for towing costs.
- burpsnard 7y agoAn unexpected gift
- mattkrause 7y agoIn some places, it is! When I was in college, someone kept leaving their car in our driveway, in a spot we had rented to a now-irate third party. The police wouldn’t tow it, but a friendly cop clued me into the procedure for claiming “abandoned” property. I filled out some paperwork, paid a $10 fee, and the cop came back with some giant “abandoned?!” stickers that he pasted all over the car. If no one called the number on the stickers within 72 hours, the car would be mine. Alas, at hour 70, a woman came out and started furiously scrubbing away the stickers, so I just missed getting a car. On the plus side, she never parked there again and the rent money from the parking spot covered our cable and propane bill until we moved out.
- EGreg 7y agoCan you share the procedure with us? Do you have a link?
- mattkrause 7y agoThe exact procedure and requirements vary from place to place. Search for ‘claim abandoned vehicle [your state]’
- refurb 7y agoWhy wouldn’t they tow? Most places I’ve lived are happy to tow if you can prove it’s your property and the vehicle is trespassing.
- mattkrause 7y agoThe city wouldn’t tow from private property, and a towing company wanted to talk with the actual property owner, not some kids subletting from some other kids, and he was impossible to find.
- retrac 7y agoWhat else are you supposed to do? Ignoring the deposit isn't really an option. It can cause a number of problems, and the problem will only get worse with time. For one thing, the tax man will notice a large enough deposit and start asking questions. Which means you'll have to prove they aren't your funds, probably with expenses involved. It could also screw up eligibility for means-tested programs. It also means you can't close the account, since you need to withdraw the funds to do so, but withdrawing those funds would leave you exposed to a charge of theft. There's unavoidable headaches and potential expenses here.
- ellius 7y agoIf anything, the amount of shadow work foisted on customers has increased. Somehow it's a norm to have to go through a bunch of bullshit to have errors corrected and often just to get halfway decent service. It's obviously worse in industries without meaningful competition, but society in general seems to put up with it and assume that's just the way it is.
- tehwebguy 7y agoYes - it is not illegal or even unlawful for a doctor, an insurance company, a utility like a power / phone / water company to send you a grossly incorrect bill and cause you dozens of hours of work to get them to see THEIR mistake. If our Internet cuts out and I have to call in to get it fixed I calmly but firmly let them know that I must be fully credited for the day, pro rata. They always have beef with this and tell me that “normally they don’t do X or Y unless A or B”. I tell them that I fully understand their position, but my position is this: “When I hang up this phone call it will either be because you have credited me for the day that my service failed and I had to do your company’s job debugging it, or because I have terminated my service. The choice is yours but those are the only options.”
- DataWorker 7y agoThat’s how I wound up reverting to DSL service for a year. The invisible hand can’t grasp monopolies.
- sdenton4 7y agoI've toyed with the idea of putting up a personal ToS detailing a $50/hr charge for time spent on hold, and then sending invoices to companies which treat me to crappy customer service antipatterns...
- milankragujevic 7y agoThat wouldn't work in my country. I tried it. They told me to sue them, so at least I got a response. It's a big ISP who left me without Internet from 27.04. to 12.11.
- refurb 7y agoTake them up on it! Small claim court usually has minor fees to file a case. Most examples I’ve heard had the company settling before it even went to trial.
- milankragujevic 7y agoThat is what I will do. Mainly because I had to pay for the service for the months it didn't work. If I didn't, they would've sued ME for not paying. (in case of a complaint of the bill, you have to pay average of 3 months previous bills. In fixed bill scenario, you pay the same, and the law is useless in that case)
- EGreg 7y agoI am surprised. They could have simply sent nothing! And then their reps would simply say “I do understand what you’re saying sir, and I apologize, but I don’t have that ability.” I mean, you actually got some director on the phone and he listened to you? Only in the 90s... :-)
- wrboyce 7y agoThe minimum wage that was introduced in National Minimum Wage Act 1998 and came into force in 1999?
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