£1,300 fine paid in pennies refused

[Spinal]

It gets better...

Wheel clamper gets brought to court, and loses the case... he gets fined £1,300 and tried to pay in pennis... a shopping basket full! The payment gets rejected!

£1,300 fine paid in pennies refused
A city council refused to accept a supermarket trolley holding almost half a tonne of pennies from a wheel-clamper as payment for a £1,300 debt.
The shopping trolley, which requires three men to move it, was delivered in a van to trading standards offices in Birmingham by wheel-clamper Gary Southall.
The 48-year-old, from Digbeth, Birmingham, had hoped that the pennies would pay legal costs he owes to the city council after a court action in January.

http://news.uk.msn.com/odd-news/article.aspx?cp-documentid=14352431

 

[KillerHERTZ]

The trouble with that is, the cashiers office who deal with the payment are the victims here and they have nothing to do with the parking firm...

 

[Spinal]

How are they the victims? They (quite rightly imo) refused the payment - from what I know 1&2p coins are legal tender up to 20p or so...

I think the victim will be the bank teller who will be asked to convert that into £20 by the clamper so he can pay his fine

M.

 

[flango]

Thats Interesting, We have just been debating this one in the office and how much coinage a shop legally had to accept, so I ran this past Mrs F who has a lot of legal knowledge in this area on advising councils and housing asscociations. She reckons Birmingham City Council may be breaking the law by not accepting it, and came back with the following.


The answer to this question is simple. Shops can accept as much or as little as they like.

All the people who have said that "it is legal tender so they have to accept it" are wrong.

The only situation where ANY money has to be accepted is as payment for a DEBT.

Purchasing an item in a shop is a contract, the seller can legally attach pretty much any conditions they like with regards to what they will accept as payment. They are under no obligation to accept any type of currency at all, nor to give change.

This is clearly stated as a £1300 debt so the council should have accepted the coins as in paragraph 3

Shame there's not more background on the story but all the net articles say they same.

 

[Howard]

Hopefully they'll refuse too and the dirtbag will be left with a grand in pennies he can't spend ...

Good.

 

[crockers]

Oh well off to the Arcade..................

 

[KillerHERTZ]

How are they the victims?

The casiers have to 'cash it up' log how many 1p's and 2p's etc then it goes to the bank.

 

[Sp!ke]

If they refuse payment of the debt (in pennies), then he might now have legitimate grounds to not pay it at all since his offer of payment was refused.

 

[momomo]

The casiers have to 'cash it up' log how many 1p's and 2p's etc then it goes to the bank.

Surely that is still part of their job description....

 

[KillerHERTZ]

All im saying is that the people who will have the most grief in this, have nothing to do with the issue in the 1st place.

 

[flango]

If they refuse payment of the debt (in pennies), then he might now have legitimate grounds to not pay it at all since his offer of payment was refused.

Thats why we wish there was more info, by this refusal he might get away with it completely or if he is really nasty turn it around and sue the council for non acceptance

 

[Spinal]

Thats Interesting, We have just been debating this one in the office and how much coinage a shop legally had to accept, so I ran this past Mrs F who has a lot of legal knowledge in this area on advising councils and housing asscociations. She reckons Birmingham City Council may be breaking the law by not accepting it, and came back with the following.


The answer to this question is simple. Shops can accept as much or as little as they like.

All the people who have said that "it is legal tender so they have to accept it" are wrong.

The only situation where ANY money has to be accepted is as payment for a DEBT.

Purchasing an item in a shop is a contract, the seller can legally attach pretty much any conditions they like with regards to what they will accept as payment. They are under no obligation to accept any type of currency at all, nor to give change.

This is clearly stated as a £1300 debt so the council should have accepted the coins as in paragraph 3

Shame there's not more background on the story but all the net articles say they same.

Just had a look at the Royal Mint's website:
http://www.royalmint.gov.uk/Corporate/facts/coins/1pCoin.aspx

The 1p coin is legal tender for amounts up to 20p.

M.

 

[st4]

Thats why we wish there was more info, by this refusal he might get away with it completely or if he is really nasty turn it around and sue the council for non acceptance

Common sense the clamper has sent payment in this way for badness and to get £1300 worth of 1p's will have gone to significant trouble to do so. As its a debt, the council have to take it, and he'll know it, and its kinda funny.

The people @ banks who have to count it out will probably have to do Overtime due to the laborious nature of this task, not so bad for them as extra money (I'd count out pennies for extra money)

 

[Spinal]

Common sense the clamper has sent payment in this way for badness and to get £1300 worth of 1p's will have gone to significant trouble to do so. As its a debt, the council have to take it, and he'll know it, and its kinda funny.

The people @ banks who have to count it out will probably have to do Overtime due to the laborious nature of this task, not so bad for them as extra money (I'd count out pennies for extra money)

Couldn't they just weight the coins? or use an automated counting machine, as used in casinos?

M.

 

[flango]

Just had a look at the Royal Mint's website:
http://www.royalmint.gov.uk/Corporate/facts/coins/1pCoin.aspx



M.

Thats a really strange statement by them isn't it. I thought a coin had to be legal tender not an ammount of coins? What if you have 21p all in 1p coins is that not legal tender? or would 20 of them be legal tender and the other one not. Will consult the oracle

 

[davidjpowell]

Don't banks charge for accepting change in some instances nowadays?

 

[robert.saunders]

We had a 'customer' pay a £60 penalty charge at our offices one Friday evening, he attempted in 5p pieces.

I was asked by our reception team if this was ok and I said I wouldn't accept the payment in 5p pieces, but would he mind waiting while I check something out

So, I asked the team if they would mind counting the money, and they said fine; considering it was 4.50pm and we closed at 5.00pm

So, we went back to the 'customer' and said yes on this occasion we would accept it but he had to be present and witness our checking the coinage. He then baulked at this but I said he was obviously prepared to pay but I had to have his receipt issued and all his coins counted, so really he had no choice but to wait....

He left around 45 minutes later after much huffing and puffing about being delayed & held up, and he was most put out as we also advised him he had overpaid us by about 30p so we ended up giving some coins back to him along with his receipt... And my team did this without any complaint or payment; ironically he did receive another PCN a few weeks later which was paid by card

 

[popuptoaster]

Im sure the banks will have no bother sorting it out, they'll know how much it should weigh and it'll get sent off to where ever the machine is that stacks it up and wraps it them lil paper tubes.

 

[st4]

Couldn't they just weight the coins? or use an automated counting machine, as used in casinos?

M.

Probably - I never thought of it, so really apart from the transportation it doesn't then inconvience very many people if he pays by pennies.

 

[Spinal]

Probably - I never thought of it, so really apart from the transportation it doesn't then inconvience very many people if he pays by pennies.

The only reason I thought of that was that last time I was at the fair in China, we bought a few automated cash-counters... but the diffence is these would also count bills - not just coins...

We just had to present 1 bill of each denomination, and they would calibrate the machine; it even rejects bills that it feels are false, and has a little UV light built in... fantastic tool; and for just under 200US it was a great find!

M.