Day 25: An authority in(competence)

A debt collection agency have been sending us threatening letters for a while now, for four months, in fact. We've been calling them week after week, trying to get to the bottom of the problem.

They said that Harrow council had passed the debt on to them. We asked what the debt was? After several weeks, we were told it was due to non-payment of council tax. We checked our receipts and found no gaps in our council tax payments. We asked which payments had been missed and had to wait several more weeks to get an unsatisfactory answer. We had a receipt and a reference number, given by the council, for the payment in question. We asked the agency to contact the council again with the reference number we had provided and had another few weeks wait until it was discovered that we had paid our council tax for the period in question but that it had been paid late which had broken an agreement between the council and ourselves.

We were confused as, by this time, the agency were sending us letters questioning where I had moved to (I'm still at the same address) and threatening to seize my car (neither my wife or I drive) if payment wasn't forthcoming. A letter also claimed that a bailiff could turn up at any time to seize property equal to the value of the debt. This was very worrying as the actual amount we owed was growing due to various charges we had incurred. What?

Enough was enough. Time to take the bull by the horns. We made an appointment to speak to an advisor at the council, armed with every piece of paperwork we could find regarding our council tax payments and fired a shot across their boughs that halted them in their tracks. We could prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that we had made a payment for the period in question and we could prove that the money had left our bank account and been paid into the council's bank account on the date we had always claimed it had. To top that, it turns out that, once the council had checked it's records (for the umpteenth time), we had actually overpaid our council tax!

Now all we need is for the council to effectively contact the debt collection agency and stop them from harassing us regarding this nonexistent debt. Considering my previous experience with Harrow council, I won't be holding my breath.