Council Muppets

I love how incompetent my housing office is.

Last year I had an arrears balance on my rent account, so I setup a direct debit to pay the rent and the arrears. At the time of setting it up, it was agreed to pay extra each month to clear the back rent and once cleared the direct debit will reduce down to it's normal level.

Fast forward to earlier this year, I had cleared the arrears but they still took out the rent plus the extra I was paying. There wasn't much I could do at the time as I was in India with work, but wasn't to worried as I knew that it just meant the rent was paid up a bit further in advance.

When I came back from India, I decided to change the account the rent was taken from, as I had setup a separate account just for my bills and the rent was the only thing still being taken from the original account. At the same time, it meant I could get my credit balance lowered as it would mean no money being taken in April.

So I cancelled the direct debit and waited for the payment date to pass and went back down the housing office and set the direct debit back up and left the rent money in the new account ready for them to take the payment.

Now, I was expecting the payment to be taken on Tuesday (Due to the bank holiday) but yesterday I received a letter from the housing house saying that they will be making a home visit on Tuesday because of unpaid rent, because although the direct debit is setup again they won't be taking a payment until June and that it is not acceptable not to pay anything in the meantime.

This just made me laugh because there I am with the money sitting in the bank account waiting for them to take it, which they won't because someone cocked up and set it up for June, the hadn't even sent me a letter confirming it was set up and when the money would be taken.

So instead of sending a letter saying that the direct debit was setup for June and that they will need me to make a manual payment to cover May, they are going to waste their time and money making a home visit for when I am in work.

So the first thing I did after reading the letter was to log online and make the payment, matter resolved as far as I am concerned. I hope that the weather is nice for when they make there wasted visit.

I do wonder what their next cock up will be!!!