Since sometime in February, I have been attempting to pay a pair of parking tickets that I accidentally aquired when parking in Napier City on December the 24th (which I assumed was a holiday, whereas it is actually a normal work day).
I paid (3 days late) the two $10 parking tickets. This was because they had sent the reminder notices to my old address, and my old flatmate had failed to forward them. As they had helpfully informed me that they would fine me a further $30 for each ticket if I paid late, I sent the Parking Department a cheque for $80. I rather hoped that this would be the end of the matter.
In the meantime both tickets had indeed collected the $30 fine, however I (intermittently) received correspondance from the District Court threatening me with further finage should I not pay. For various reasons I have found myself paying these new fines a few days late on a regular basis. Some of these included them sending new reminder notices to my old address, despite me finally updating my car registration with the aim of actually receiving correspondance that was intended for the owner of the car.
Most interestingly, the tickets have somehow ended up with different reminder notice schedules, with one ticket acquiring a final notice on the 9th of June, while the other (received half an hour later originally) had a second to last notice on the 16th of the same month.
I eventually sent the District Court a cheque (for $140) on the grounds that this would help somehow. I wrote my new mailing address a number of times on the envelope and cheque itself. They accepted and cashed my cheque, and sent me back a cheque for $60 for overpayment (I have no idea how they arrived at this number, nor whether this has stopped both tickets or merely confused one of them and cause the other to send my mail to an entirely new address). I rang them to confirm that there were no outstanding tickets.
Today, I received my original $80 cheque and the original notices back with a small handwritten note explaining that I had written the incorrect amount on the cheque and could I please correct the amount (presumably to $20) and resend. I can only assume that they could only cash the cheque for the original $20, and not the further $60 for the fines for late payment. As I have since closed this account, I sadly cannot comply.
I could cry.
I am seriously considering sending both the City Council and the District Court a collection of cheques in different denominations so that they can figure out exactly what I have to pay and rip up (or send back) any unrequired cheques.
I am also reminded of the dial soap correspondance (which is more evocative than anything I can organise here). http://home.uchicago.edu/~rascalzo/arch/palace/library/humor-misc/bathsizedial.html
Posted by carla at July 14, 2003 11:41 PM