Christ am I pissed! And I can't do anything about it 'till monday!

The BBQ Pit
1

On January 5th of this year I went to the office of a local paper that specializes in publishing legal notices. I paid $75 for them to publish a legal notice for 3 consecutive weeks. I paid the fee the day I ordered the service. I received a receipt. Part of the deal is, after the publishing they mail you an affidavit certifying that you published your notice.
This paper published the notice for 3 weeks. Fine & dandy.
But I never got my affidavit sent to me. I called them. They insist that they mailed it. I confirm my proper address with them. Theres no reason I shouldn’t have gotten the affidavit, but shit happens. They promise to send out another affidavit. I never get that. I need that affidavit to show the judge. I call them up. They insist they sent me the second affidavit. Again, I confirm that they have my complete and correct address, including zip code. I always get all of my mail. There is no reason i shouldn’t have received it this time. So I tell them I’m coming there in person to pick up a copy. They say fine, it will be here in the morning waiting for you. I show up the next morning to pick it up. Not only is it not ready, it took an hour for them to print one up! My court date was in 2 hours!:mad:
I go to court, do my thing, the judge asks for the affidavit, he keeps it for the file, I win the case, once again everything is fine & dandy. That was March 5th of this year.
Today, Saturday June 9th, 2001, I get a registered letter from the newspaper. It’s a past due notice claiming I never paid the $75 for the notice to be published, and if I don’t pay it they will sue me in small claims court for it. :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad: What the fuck is wrong with this world. Can anyone do their job right? Is gross incompetence the only thing Americans are good at? Why the fuck are they sending me this for a notice that was published almost 6 months ago? I have a receipt! My business with them was finished months ago. What is wrong with these idiots? Had they not pissed me off with the missing affidavits I wouldn’t be ranting, but can this paper do anything right? Of course, their offices are closed until monday morning, so I can’t do anything about this now…

…except rant to you guys!:smiley:

2

No.

3

Shit on a stick, pkbites. You got some real yokels on your hands there.

One thing I would not do is bring the original receipt with you to the offices. Make a photocopy. With your luck (or their conniving) they’d get the original receipt off you and “lose” it. Then you’d have to go through the bank and any number of other hoops of fire to prove your check had been written and cleared.

And don’t stop at the receptionist. Insist you speak to the mental giant that actually signed off on the letter. Preferably with the goon that tracks overdue accounts sitting next to you.

Best of luck!

4

I tend to lick my lips in hunger when presented with these little scenarios. I’ve had em, we all have.

First of all, give Olentzero a fresh cinnamon bun, because that’s a fucking great bit of advice. Xerox the receipt, copies of the original legal notice AND ALL THE PAPERS that pertain to the judgement. Leave the originals at home.

Then, call first. You can get past the receptionist, AND middle management in 30 seconds. In a VERY upbeat voice, explain that there’s been such a series of little mishaps on their part, that you just got off the phone with the Attorney General’s Office for the state you are in. They had some excellent suggestions for you, but they did recommend that you just call the nice people back ONE MORE TIME, and see if maybe they could unravel their mess without taking you to court wrongly.

Make sure you have the telephone number and street address of your local A.G.'s office when you make this call. NOTHING makes small-time shitsuckers more nervous than realizing that while they may be able to threaten MOST of the populus with frivolous lawsuits- and do a bad job at the job they were paid to do on TOP of that- there are some people they won’t get to cower in the corner. You are indeed one such person.

Just tell em, " Hey I figured I’d do what the nice lady at the Attorney General’s Office asked me to do, before I met with them face to face about you". See, a private person making a threat of lawsuit is one thing. A corporate entity is harassing you by doing so. You have a dropkick case here and they KNOW it. And if indeed this company DOES extort money with false threats of lawsuits, then the A.G. really WOULD wish to know about it :smiley:

They will hop to, rescind- IN WRITING- to you their threat of suit, and kiss you goodbye. Trust me. Works every time. And in turn of course, you have NEVER threatened them. Just remain very upbeat and friendly, and keep saying, " Well, they just thought it might be best for all if I just tried one more time by phone to have you work out your mistake, and not have it go any farther". You never said WHAT " farther" means. :smiley: :smiley: :smiley:

Twice I’ve actually had to speak to the A.G.'s office about problems similar to this. Remember, they are YOUR public attorney. And before the well-learned attorneys here at SDMB jump my bones ( Grin ), I’m not saying they are our Public Defenders Office, there for the free picking all the way through a legal proceedure. They are employed by taxpayer dollars. Get your money’s worth. Their knowledge of real and fakey lawsuits, and your rights, is staggering. Don’t hire a shark at $ 250.00 an hour before you find out if the A.G.'s office really does have something constructive to say to you.

YMMV, by state of course. Then…there was the time I wound up on the telephone with F.B.I. ( Of course, that did involve America Online :wink: ) What an interesting life…

Cartooniverse

5

So I called them this morning, ask what the hell was going on. They tell me they have no idea as they wouldn’t have run my legal notice before I paid for it. So what’s with the threatening letter I ask. The supervisor is dumbfounded. He looks up my name on his computer. “Sez here you paid in full on January 5th.” So why did I get a letter threatening to sue me if I didn’t pay it again?

:confused:SILENCE:confused:

“Um. I don’t know sir. Even if you did owe us money we wouldn’t wait 6 months to try to collect. But we don’t run any ads until they’ve been paid for, so you shouldn’t ever get a letter like that.”

So I’m told to just ignore the letter, there must have been an error, I do not owe any money, just forget the entire thing. Fine. But getting a letter threatening a law suite still pisses me off. Get on the ball, Daily Reporter of Milwaukee, Wisconsin!

6

cranking up the Laurel & Hardy theme song

Glad to hear things seemed to have worked out on their own. It’s a pity they seem to be the only game in town when it comes to running legal notices.

7

Hmmm. Are you sure the letter was really from the newspaper? It seems like it would be a reasonably effective scam to get a six months old copy of the newspaper and send out bills to everyone who published legal notices. I bet in most cases people (e.g. law firms) would just pay up rather than have to deal with it.

8

If you can get them to do it, have them write you a letter stating that you are paid in full and do not owe them anything.

Since the last written communication from them is a collection letter, I’d want something newer in writing stating that I’m in the clear.

9

We like the way you think, Finagle. Your member name befits you. Congratulations, you now own 60% of “Springtime For Hitler”. :smiley: :smiley: :smiley:

Takes a scam to know a scam, I always say.

Cartooniverse