Remember when Airtricity, my electric company, turned the power off to my apartment? And then two months later they had a solicitor send me a threatening letter to pay the 147 Euros the previous renter owed them. I was very mad.
People advised me to ignore any letter that were addressed to occupier or some such, and did not have my name on it. That doesn't work, though, because they had two accounts pointing to the same apartment: One was mine, and the other was the delinquent one. If nobody responded to their mail, they would turn the power off again: no more blog writing for me!
So, I sent them, and their solicitor, an email followed by a registered postal letter in which I demanded (by return post) a letter of appology, a confirmation that my account was in good standing, stop of all mail to this address that was not intended for me, and 150 Euros in credit to my account for all this harassment and all the hours I lost dealing with them. I said that if they didn't do that, I would hire a solicitor of my own and it would cost them more, if I added that cost to the hours of work I had lost.
I came up with the 150 based on the 147 they wanted me to pay and my (under) estimate of what it would cost to send registered mail. I threw that in to make it more serious. What I really wanted, was for them to straighten out their records and leave me alone.
Nothing happens in Ireland by return post. But, while we were on vacation, I got an email response apologizing for the mixup and a promise of a 150 Euros credit.
Today I got the latest bill, and it shows 150 Euros credit as a good will gesture. This has never happened to me before! Maybe I should go back to school and learn to be a lawyer ;-)
Way to go Rolf! Score one for the forces of truth, justice, and accurate paperwork!
ReplyDeleteI think you're just unlucky about everything in Ireland. The buses always came quickly for us when we were there, but you said they were really unreliable. I think the mail is probably fine too. You're just being dramatic ;)
ReplyDeleteI seem to recall that you also made some money after getting knocked silly by a car while crossing Paseo. If you want to play lawyer, I'll gladly loan you my office (and my license to practice law), and I'll go over to Ireland and pretend to train for Ironmans!
ReplyDeleteI don't think I'm unlucky; things are actually working out quite well. But there are some annoyances. Like the 38 bus going only every 30 minutes on Sundays, you just miss one, and then the next one doesn't come. You, and other people stand there for 45 minutes, with no idea when the next bus is supposed to arrive.
ReplyDeleteI did get some insurance money after the accident, but I didn't think I had much of a case here. Mike, I didn't know it was that easy to get a license ;-) Other than training, you would also have to do some IBM work; I don't think they care much about my training, and want something else for their money/