I moved in with my partner in December last year, and did the usual mass mailing to people, including the council tax office, telling them that I'd moved in with my partner etc etc. He pays his council tax by direct debit (no discounts or owt), so you'd think it would be easy to just cancel my account and leave it at that.

I received a letter in April telling me that I'd overpaid on my previous address (Yippee!! :clap: ) and to send them the voucher thingie to claim the money back.

A couple of weeks later we got a bill, in my name, for our current address. Phoned the helpline and waited (as usual) for them to return my call. Apparently, although they'd received my letter, they'd decided to cancel my partner's direct debit and transfer the account to me. I was assured they would reinstall his name on the account, redo his direct debit, and then asked if I wanted my name on the bill as well. The girl seemed quite surprised when I said 'no'. :hihi:

So...we got another bill through in my partner's name, telling us that it was being paid by direct debit. All sorted, yeah?

Wrong! This morning I got another bill, in my name again, with a different reference number, for this address!! :rant:

Yet again it's impossible to get through on the council tax phone line, and they've taken my number, telling me that it could be Monday before they phone back.

I've complained through the online complaints form on the council website, and I'm going to love to hear what their excuse is this time!

And no, I still haven't received my refund for my previous address. :(

Originally posted by Eleri
...Yet again it's impossible to get through on the council tax phone line, and they've taken my number, telling me that it could be Monday before they phone back...

Don't expect an answer Monday, it's a Bank Holiday.

Oh flippin eck I'd forgotten that....I wonder if anyone's informed the girl collecting people's numbers about that? :D

Originally posted by Eleri
Oh flippin eck I'd forgotten that....I wonder if anyone's informed the girl collecting people's numbers about that? :D
Prob'ly not, they're obviously just being as "efficient" as usual. :D

Good luck anyway. :)

i know how you feel Eleri, im going through it with them myself.
weve been in this house since febuary but still havent got it sorted. i asked for a benefits form thing as i was told maybe i was entitled so when they first sent me a bill i sent it back saying i had asked for a form and was waiting for it. the next i knew i got a form and a summons on the same day grrrr , i tried ringing totally impossible so i wrote them a letter back telling them how totally unfair i thought it was that i recieve a summons on the same day the form came.
still waiting for it to be sorted out. im sure they carry off like this just to make it awkward :suspect:

Their incompetence knows no limits

Originally posted by raine
Their incompetence knows no limits



Oh it does.





It's just that those limits have not (as yet) been achieved!:rolleyes:

Well, I have to admit, I'm can recommend using the online complaint form. (although I can't get rid of the sneaking suspicion that someone on the council tax staff read my forum posting and went to check the complaint emails ;) )

I've just had an email apologising, saying they're going to look into the matter and get back to me, and telling me they've reinstated my partner as the payee of the council tax in our household. Oh, and they're going to pay me my refund. :D

Makes me glad I've got access to the internet, though. Could have been waiting a long time without the net. :(

They are completely useless at that place.
When we moved into our flat a while back we recieved a letter saying we had overpayed in tax or something so they sent us a cheque for about £500+ . WOOOWWW!! We couldn't wait to go down to meadowhall and treat ourselves as we never do.
Then about 2 weeks later we recieved a letter saying that we owed them money?!!!!
I couldn't believe it! We found out that the cheque they had sent us was a mistake!!!!! So we had to pay it all back!!
We have no money and £500 we had to pay back. I cried I was so unhappy and stressed with it.
I thought they should of let us keep it as it was their mistake and it wasn't our fault.
I just wanted to go down and show them a lesson or 2.
The thing is when we was trying to get this sorted they were no help at all.
Also to top it off the payments were a right mess and they would only let us pay so much a week which we couldn't afford. I couldn't believe it. I hope this happens to nobody else!!

Can't anybody get anything right any more? I got home and there were three bills on the mat - council tax, electricity/gas and phone/internet. Each one was wrong.

I'm writing stroppy letters now. :suspect:

Can the Sheffield Tax office get anything right ?
Of course they can !
They once got something right in 1975 and let no one forget it !

My bill tells me that for more details I should refer to the leaflet enclosed.

I think you can guess what my complaint is :loopy:

It took 4 months of incompetence from the council tax office to get a £500 rebate when me and my housemate moved out of a house we were renting and both went off to new (different) places.

They were going to send a form out. They told me that three times on the phone that it would be sent out. Never turned up.

Then, a random number of phone calls later, they said they needed a letter saying that we wanted the rebate to be unsplit, and paid only to me. Both of us had to sign it. There was no mention of this in the previous 3 phone calls.

I scribbled the letter on a piece of paper, got my ex-housemate to sign it and then took it to Howdon house in person. I was pretty angry at that point so I told the nice lady that I wasn't leaving her desk until I got my cheque. She eventually convinced me that it would take a week to get a cheque out to me and that I definitely would get it.

The cheque did eventually turn up.

It's like trying to get blood out of a stone.

I HAVE BEEN WAITING SINCE AUGUST 14TH 2004.

They have sent me a bill for me AND the apartment above us 22a (im 22) and asked me to go to court for not paying the one on 22a in december, i was told even if i claim its not my fault if i dont go i have to pay court fees, had to take the day off work and go, after they said fine and asked me to only pay for mine (acted as if they where doing me a fav).

They STILL have not sorted it out for me dispite having every pice of information they need, no explanation at all, every time i call i get told they are looking at it.........for 10 MONTHS.....i assuem they are reading a page a month.