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Original poster

A right good Rodgering and the £500 service charge...

299 replies

Hiphopapotamus4 · 21/05/2017 07:53

Sorry for not coming back sooner with an update. To be honest I was a bit creeped out that more than one of you had looked on Rightmove at every single house for sale in the entire county. I mean, there are literally thousands, who has the time for that?!
But also I didn't want to be like the Victorian safe poster and some of you did offer some helpful suggestions so I am back.

The bad news is, this is looking more like a scam. The council don't have any record of it and the local landowners and parish council know nothing either.
Roger called a street meeting and the 10 houses that pay agreed that a "man from the council" had come round years ago to explain what it was for and they have all paid it since. The other house that doesn't pay and us are much newer to the street which explains why we don't pay and neither of our solicitors mentioned anything when purchasing.
Some of them have a direct debit set up and some of them send a cheque. The bank details and address are different to the council tax ones Sad
Roger has reported this to the police and I'm awaiting further updates from him.
Some of them want to keep paying it because they are convinced it's real and don't want to get behind on their payments. Two of them think we are just kicking up a fuss to try and get out of paying it Confused

The general consensus at the end of the meeting was that it might be a scam, but it might not be. I'm convinced that it is Sad

Sad news all round really (but Rodger did come and now my lawn with his new mower!)

OP posts:
DartmoorDoughnut · 23/05/2017 08:13

Almost missed the update! Hope you and Roger can get to the bottom of it all, glad you got your lawn cut too!

BarbaraofSeville · 23/05/2017 08:19

missdebaroo

Estate agents will only go on what the seller tells them, there will be a disclaimer to this effect in the listing somewhere. It will be the solicitors that find out about charges and any other issues or conditions when a house sale goes through.

In the OPs street, it sounds like there are a lot of elderly residents who have lived there for many years and there has been a very low turnover so only a couple of sales since the Service Charge man came round.

Perhaps the person who the OP bought her house from was ill or passed away so wasn't able to give the information for it to come to light then?

Also if you go back a few years, it was a lot easier to open a bank account with false ID, or change details easily, before all the money laundering regulations came in. If it is a scam, I do hope they catch the perpetraitor(s) but I wouldn't hold much hope of recovering any money, that's probably long spent by now.

cabbage67 · 23/05/2017 08:41

Well done OP. Have you considered changing your name to Miss Marple?

Dairymilkmuncher · 23/05/2017 09:23

How many years has this been going on? I hope their insurance or bank accounts can refund some of the money for it's a scam Confused

BlueInveritas · 23/05/2017 09:27

Thank you for the update. So sad that these folks refuse to look further - the psychology is so odd.

buzzmoon · 23/05/2017 09:30

Thank you for the update! How long have they been paying??

bellabasset · 23/05/2017 09:55

Well done for checking this charge. I understand that people are worried about going into debt, but perhaps they should stop all payments temporarily. They could write out cheques and keep them held by one of the residents. Then see if they have any reminder notices.

What I find slightly surprising is you mention payments by dd, and my understanding is that banks do a thorough check on any account before they allow this priviledge. DD payments are protected by the dd guarantee so if anyone has been paying by dd they may have some form of redress.

You can google the account details to check the payee, as a pp said, and I would have thought if this has been done in the name of the council they will want be concerned about any scam undertaken in their name.

welovepancakes · 23/05/2017 11:38

You can google the account details to check the payee
Not necessarily, due to data protection

BarbaraofSeville · 23/05/2017 11:46

What you probably could do is set up the account as a payee on internet banking and then it should give you the name of the account holder.

You might have to send them a token sum of a penny or maybe a pound for it to show up.

QuinionsRainbow · 23/05/2017 13:11

you mention payments by dd, and my understanding is that banks do a thorough check on any account before they allow this priviledge.

That didn't stop TV licensing from starting to take money out of our bank account uninvited! When we'd already paid for a year's TV license, being done for additional monthly instalments didn't go down at a well. We got the money refunded, but no word of apology from either the bank or TV Licensing for the stress caused and time wasted in dealing with it. It was almost as if it was our fault.

wowfudge · 23/05/2017 13:33

A lot of people don't understand the difference between a DD and a standing order. They just think that any payment set up to go out of a bank account regularly is a DD.

WeirdAndPissedOff · 23/05/2017 13:34

For the direct debit itself banks don't really check that often. However any company wanting to accept Direct Debit has to go through very strict checks, and even more so if they want to administrate it themselves.

So if it really is Direct Debit rather than Standing Order, it's more likely that it is genuine. Or at the very least there may be quite a trail.
If it does turn out to be fraudulent and is a direct debit, your neighbours will be able to do something called an "indemnity claim" I believe. However I'm not sure how far back this goes.

peukpokicuzo · 24/05/2017 00:24

Wow!
Thanks for the update op.

Just please please please when this thread fills up make sure you create thread #3 before this one reaches 1000 so that there can be an easy link to the next thread. It was really difficult to find this one.

NiceCuppaTeaAndASitDown · 24/05/2017 07:53

peukpokicuzo, you can hardly blame the op for that!
Blame the people who kept pointlessly bookmarking once the thread was in the 990s.
I get that some people say they can't just watch a thread, but it's pointless to bookmark a thread that's about to overflow.

Esspee · 24/05/2017 07:57

I do hope it is not a scam (sorry OP). Older people are so vulnerable. I have an elderly neighbour I take to hospital visits and he has started buying Krugerrands as an " investment". I have tried to make him see that he is being ripped off by scammers but he is adamant that he is not. I managed to get him to cancel an order to have all his perfectly good Windows replaced but goodness knows what else he has been drawn into. I

ShotsFired · 24/05/2017 08:24

Many years ago I moved into a flat where I paid service charges. I was interested to see a charge for "maintaining the water fountain" appear on the charges breakdown.

There was no fountain.

It still took me several months and constant chasing to get this removed off the bill. Presumably the other residents had all been happily paying it since the year dot?

Nowt so queer as folk.

angryladyboobs · 25/05/2017 20:21

@Hiphopapotamus4

Any news?

Stormtreader · 26/05/2017 10:07

I feel like sadly it must have ended up being a legitimate charge, otherwise the OP would have come back with more excitement.

kaitlinktm · 26/05/2017 10:10

But even if it is legitimate, I wonder what it could be for?

BlueInveritas · 26/05/2017 10:20

MAybe the OP didn't want to end up in the FUCKING DAILY MAIL as a MN Mrs Marple when she exposed a years old criminal activities.

You there, OP?

Dodie66 · 28/05/2017 13:34

Any news?

FoxTeaParty · 30/05/2017 12:31

Nooooo not another "Victorian safe thread" ShockGin

BunsBumpBlur · 30/05/2017 13:36
YoloSwaggins · 30/05/2017 14:18

Hang on, so the house for sale with a £500 service charge - what was THAT charge for?

Surely that can't be a scam, because estate agents are selling it with the charge attached? Or is that because the owner selling it thinks the charge needs to be paid? Surely he would have to tell the estate agents what the charge was for?

velvetcandy · 30/05/2017 19:21

This is so disappointingAngry