Council Tax Twuntdom
Posted: Tue 1 February, 2005 Filed under: Customer Services, Weirdness 1 Comment »One of the joys of moving is getting to deal with whole new levels of bureaucracy when it comes to Council Tax. (for non-UK readers, ignore this post, and simply read it as “Fuckwit cunts, can’t organise a piss-up in a brewery, rant rant, can’t find their own arses with both hands and a flashlight, seethe, seethe, sweary sweary, tossers” and be done with it) Not only do you have to register with a new council, and see what things they can screw up (council tax seems to be a great initiation and benchmark test into just how shite and disorganised a council truly is) but you have to talk to the old council in the place you’ve moved away from, and try to a) convince them you’ve actually left, b) state repeatedly that you are NOT staying within that council’s borders, and c) try to sort out whether you’ve over or under paid the council tax account, and thus try (in my case) to get a refund out of the tightfisted fucktwunt’s coffers. This is nowhere near as easy as it sounds.
Currently I’m now on my fourth letter to Tameside, and about the eighth e-mail. They’ve refused to believe I’m moving, they’ve then charged me for next year’s council tax, denied they’ve ever received the letter to which I’ve just read the reply, and finally said “Oh yes, you have moved. Silly Us. Why didn’t you register it on the website?” “I did. You lost it.” “Oh.”
Eventually, today, the final bill arrived. It’s a wonder of council workings and weirdness.
Amount due 01-Apr-04 to 28-Jan-05 £621.88 Less Disabled Relief 0.00 Less discount at 25&percent; 01-Apr-04 to 30-Dec-04 -£140.59 Less Transitional Reduction* £0.00 Less Council Tax Benefit £0.00 Less exemption relief** 31-Dec-04 to 28-Jan-05 -£59.52 Total Amount Payable £421.77 Payments made -£460.00 CREDIT -£38.23 * I have no idea what this is **I have no idea about this one either
Now, according to that, I’m owed £38.23 by the council because I’ve overpaid by that much. But they’ve listed it as a credit of negative money – which, in English, translates into “You owe us”. I’ve emailed them to ask which it is, and why the language they use is so convoluted and – frankly – fucking wrong.
I can’t wait for the answer on this one. Can you?
The use of the words credit and debit can seem quite confusing to an end consumer — particularly as businesses regard the meanings of them to be the opposite of what a consumer would regard. When you as a consumer think you are in credit, you see it as money that is owed to you (and you see that as a positive thing). Whereas, the business views credits as liabilities — money that is owed to someone else (and therefore they see it as a negative thing) — hence the amount shown as a negative.
It can be quite confusing sometimes, and a bad invoice layout often only adds to the confusion. What you say is quite correct — normally a negative credit would be a debt (some money that is owed to them) — so it really should say something like “Account Balance”. But if they did that, then some thick twonks wouldn’t be able to tell whether a negative balance meant that they were in debt or credit — so they try to clarify it, they change the prompt to say credit, but then forget to remove the negative sign.