If You Don’t Return This Form I’ll Screw Your Credit Rating
Tony Horne risks losing his house, his credit rating and his Next catologue because he isn't on the electoral roll.
17 Oct 2011, 11:00
Knock Knock
In the modern era, as with the home phone and with snail mail, I don’t tend to answer. Generally, it’s nothing you want and the people you want a relationship with are already in touch on your phone - unless, it’s a Blackberry, of course!
There she stood, with the weapon of the Nanny State era – the clipboard.
‘You haven’t returned your electoral forms,’ she berated me like a Head Mistress.
‘I haven’t got time for this,’ I replied, and went to close the door.
At which point she thrust me a fancy card – God knows how much these cost to print in their thousands? – and then left me with her parting shot.
‘If you don’t, it will affect your credit rating.’
WHAT?
Is that the same way that if I didn’t return the census form, for which I have yet to see any results (not that there is any money to pay for anything) I would receive a fine of £1000? I read the card. If I don’t register, I may not get credit - I can currently get about £100,000 worth, a mortgage - I have one and I don’t think in the current market the electoral roll will be an issue, a bank account - had one with the same shoddy bank since 1987; a contract mobile phone - I have two; a catalogue - a fucking catalogue?!
What a shambles and a poisonous vacuous threat. Imagine my devastation at no longer paying for the Next Catalogue – a publication you spend money on to browse something someone else is selling to you. That’s genius. What conceit to attempt to deprive you of a house when that very council will benefit from you doing so. And a mobile phone – well we all know someone dodgy who can get you one.
Now, before you pile in on...
a) The right to vote
b) People dying for the vote
c) Some people not having democracy in the world and what a wonderful thing it is
d) Some countries making it law to vote
e) Anything else
...Clearly, you have a right not to vote too, and this would be made so much easier, of course, if the last line of the ballot form simply said “None of the above – they’re all smug bastards”. Sadly, that option isn’t yet available. That, though, isn’t the point.
Firstly, any “business” like the Royal Mail who attempt to canvass/survey/deliver during the day needs to raise its game. Listen up you need to work from 5pm to 10pm. Ocado get this but not the Postal Service, who waste hours putting a card through your door, failing to realise that most people still have jobs which are always at the time they knock. So, lady, don’t ring my bell at 11am, and Mr Postman, come back tonight.
But then that’s the second point – she had hundreds or thousands of these cards printed. The threat was already in her hand. She, like me, didn’t want the door answering either. Her job was not to make notes on the clipboard – that was her symbol of power – it was to leave the note through the door to scare in the same way that when you are in, you sometimes see the postman just slip the card through anyway without even knocking!! It’s the modern game of Knock Down Ginger or Knock and Run, or whatever you used to call it as a kid.
And that’s the main point. Regardless of your politics or your apathy, do Warrington Borough Council really have the right to suggest that my credit rating will be affected by not returning an electoral form to them when they know everything about me anyway through my kind Council Tax donations which I still charitably send despite my annoyance at their services and when they will probably send me a further reminder anyway?
It’s probably in electoral law somewhere to return this form, and my friend tells me that his credit rating has already been affected by not registering in the past but if that’s the law, change it, because I don’t really think you can threaten someone with removal of a catalogue if you don’t send back a form to which they already know the answers. Goodness, I’ll be banging on about my human rights next.
Has this muppetry happened to anyone else?
The author
Tony Horne
Network Broadcaster for UTV Media, Ghostwriter of “Bodyguard – My Life on the Front Line” with Craig Summers and “Tango 190” with PC David Rathband.
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Comments (4)
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FFS. Stop ranting and complete the form.
17/10/2011 11:44Great article Tony, and yes it us indeed ludicrous.
I am not even sure if I filled mine in.....
17/10/2011 13:50So does that mean I can't get anymore credit?? Well my husband will probably be pleased to hear that, and even more pleased if they take my Next directory off me!
The reasons you have to fill the form in, despite your assertion that they know everything about you already, are many, including:
@ You may be liable to council tax but not eligible to vote in General Elections (by virtue of being a citizen of another EU country)
@ The Data Protection Act prevents Council departments using information collected that wasn't for the purpose they wish to use it (those people who, years ago, decided not to register to vote in the hopes of not paying the Community Charge, were barking up the wrong tree: the register was never available to Community Charge enforcement officers for this reason).
@ You may NOT be a council tax payer (i.e. a student) but still eligible to vote. How would the Council know you even existed unless they asked at your address?
@ It is the Law. You must register to vote. You don't have to vote, but you should be on the books to do so if you choose to.
@ Despite computers tracking you everywhere, we're not yet at the point where the population would be all that impressed with Councils putting all the pieces together to identify us. And, besides which, can you imagine the hoohah when they inevitably started issuing voting cards to cats and long-since dead people?
18/10/2011 17:13Cogito - wise words...sometimes you do hear of dead people getting council tax bills which always amuses me...equally Florence, the three-legged cat over the road is someone I respect more than some of the trailer trash I see out there, but yes, I hear you!
18/10/2011 18:54Bit harsh on the old next catologue though!