Mr Angry pays taxman with five wheelbarrows worth of loose change There are supposedly two certainties in life – death and taxes – and while we've never seen death by wheelbarrow, Nick Stafford from Cedar Buff, Virginia, has sorted us out on the latter. Stafford had got into a dispute with the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and, seemingly displeased by how difficult it was to contact the …
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Pennies and tuppences are only legal tender for amounts up to 20p, precisely to stop shit like this.
Because I know you are all fascinated by this, 5p/10p are legal tender for amounts up to £5, 50p/20p are legal tender for amounts up to £10, and £1/£2/£5 are legal tender for any amount.
I did once write my university 100 cheques each for 50p once, to pay a £50 cleaning "fine" which had unilaterally been applied to each person on my floor because they couldn't work out who trashed the kitchen. It would have cost them >50p to cash each one, so they didn't...
Although cheques written on large plywood sheets can be perfectly legal and accepted. As I understand it, there is no obligation to actually accept them. Kind of a reverse of the coins where large quantities are not strictly legal tender but could be accepted.
As I understand it, there is no obligation to actually accept them.
I think that banks are legally required to accept written instructions from their customers, the whole reason cheques were invented was to avoid the hassle of having illegible requests written on the back of a napkin, piece of bog roll, or whatever else came to hand. Even so, if you write it down & sign it I think (but IANAL) the bank has to process it.
Makes me wonder what will happen if their plans to put an end to cheques ever happen, since they
ll still be bound by the legal requirement to accept written instructions.
The first act was the Bills of Exchange Act 1882. Cheques have never been legal tender and banks are not obliged to process written instructions unless it is by a means agreed in advance, that the customer has funds and that the bank is satisfied that there is no fraudulence involved. There were further measures introduced in 1985 to prevent fraud which established some of the features of cheques which would be required for them to be considered "valid instruction" for UK banks. These features have been expanded upon ever since, and there is even a non-standard paper cheque unit at the central clearing house for dealing with foreign cheques and weird-arse shit. It was around 1999 that a legal statute was passed whereby the pieces of paper didn't have to be actually hoiked all over the country in order to have their value transferred. I'm not sure how the pieces of paper felt about this.
"Makes me wonder what will happen if their plans to put an end to cheques ever happen, since they will still be bound by the legal requirement to accept written instructions." - Banks aren't stopping ACCEPTING cheques, they are stopping ISSUING them. Specifically many banks don't issue a check-book unless you explicitly ask for it and even then they wont give you a cheque guaranty card, so no-one will take them. Cheques are problematic for banks, since they could be cashed at any time in future. It's an unexpected debt.
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"Cheques are problematic for banks, since they could be cashed at any time in future. It's an unexpected debt."
Cheques are a debt for the issuer, not the banks - the bank just won't pay out on a cheque if you don't have the funds available, plus they will charge you generously in the process - it doesn't affect the banks either way.
The other point is that there's no difference in randomness of money flow between a cheque or a bank card - either is likely to be used at random times to suit the convenience of the depositor - or at least that's how I use mine.
not any time in the future - banks only accept cheques dated no earlier than 6 months.
It's not an unexpected debt - the account holder knows the money will become due and the bank will not clear the cheque if there are insufficient funds (or an overdraft).
I have paid in a cheque to a UK bank on a wooden board, specifically the end from a box of onions (I think it was onions). My late lamented mate Steve was having some kind of disagreement with his bank, and they refused to issue him a new chequebook, even though he had funds in his account (I forget the details - it was a long time ago). So, anyway, we made as good a replica of a standard cheque as we could, except it was quadruple size and on this crate end.
When I went to pay it in the lass behind the counter said "I can't take that" until I pointed out the card number was written on the back. So she called over a superior, who briefly glanced at the ceiling, and said fine, accept it.
Subsequent developments were that they issued a new chequebook, and Steve got a lecture from an acquaintance at the bank who told him what a damned nuisance he was because the wooden cheque didn't fit into any of the various trays and boxes they had for handling cheques.
RIP Steve Dyer
Although cheques written on large plywood sheets can be perfectly legal
And cows. I seem to remember there was a case involving a farmer to, in the days when it cost more to slaughter a cow than the cow was worth, wrote a cheque on the side of a cow.
At which point, the cow became SEP.
You can however pay a debt with a novelty 10' plywood cheque.
Or, in fiction at least, a negotiable cow.
Every time I try to recount this tale, it ends up reading like a made up story because of all the details it requires for context, but short version is, I had to get out a loan to pay off my alcoholic mothers rent debts when I was 18 (having been trying to 'manage' them - I lived in the house so she might not have given a toss about eviction, but I bloody did - since I was 13).
Suffice to say I had a bank manager who was sympathetic, a rent officer who was sympathetic, and the rent officers boss, who was, decidedly, not.
The bank manager agreed to the loan based on the fact that I'd been managing her bank accounts too, to an extent (just not legally - this was a local bank, for local people!) so he knew I wasn't taking the piss, and he let me know that he had a whole stock of shitty, dirty, barely legal - but legal - £5 notes that he'd been avoiding using for cashiers as they were such a fiddle to handle. It'd be a real personal favour to him if I could help him use them up.
So, yes, I crippled myself for a couple of years with a £2000 loan for a debt that wasn't mine, but it was worth it. The rent officers manager had used my case as an exemplar of his 'tough love' approach (IE pay the whole fucking lot now, or get evicted, regardless of context or history) and so came down to meet me and accept payment personally.
The shit eating grin dropped rapidly when I emptied a carrier bag of 400 loose, dirty £5 notes over the counter.
"Well, I'm pretty sure that's it. You said you wanted to count it. Off you pop. And don't forget, the girls here tell me policy is to count it twice, so do set a good example!".
Glorious. But not as glorious as my rent officer (truly a good lad who had bent many, many a rule for me) 'accidentally' dropping a pile of folders on the counter (relating to 'our' case) and blowing pretty much every counted note off the table. Just as his boss was finishing counting for the second time.
Oh, and the mother? She died three months later.
She always did have a shitty sense of timing...
The conclusion is, this is how I learned about limits on legal tender - because otherwise a wheelbarrow or five of pennies (or possibly 50ps, because shiny) would have been right up my street.
Anon, because this is - I'm told - still local legend in that (very 'local town, for local people') council housing department even the better part of twenty years later.
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I did once write my university 100 cheques each for 50p once, to pay a £50 cleaning "fine" which had unilaterally been applied to each person on my floor because they couldn't work out who trashed the kitchen.
They probably thought having you write out the university's name, the 50p amount, signing your name then writing "NOT NEGOTIABLE" on the cheque, 100 times, was punishment enough.
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I have to agree. My first thought was that the guy is a bit of an ass.
However, as anyone that has been on the receiving end of any kind of bureaucracy knows, it's easy to get very worked up when dealing government dickheads. Rational thought goes out the door when trying to deal with some of these people.
Anyone who works for pretty well any Government Department has a lobotomy where all traces of Common Sense are surgically removed.
This is Mandatory for any US Federal/State/County/City department. They only know how to follow the rules to the letter. They will not divert from these rules no matter how silly they are.
Most offices provide a soft pad screwed to the wall for clients to bang their head.
"Well yes, mainly because if you work for a government department and apply common sense rather than the letter of the rules sooner or later some idiot and his a******e lawyer will start a lawsuit and your neck will be on the block."
What happens when the lawyer simply sues on the grounds of interference BY playing by the book (IOW, using the letter to defeat the spirit)? Sounds like they can get you either way.
Sorry Phil, a common mistake, like people confusing light-years with speed rather than distance.
Whbs aren't a measure of wealth but rather a measure of frustration or angst.
Usages:
* He was so rude to me, I hope the next guy pays with 2 Whbs!
* These #£&+ mosquitos are everywhere. Every time I get one another starts buzzing. It's like 7 Whbs.
* Is it so hard to put your phone on silent at the theatre. May the parking ticket machine return her 400 mWhbs in change.
Being from the US, I feel it my duty to enforce my own, non-scientific standard of measurement.
I present, the "hoard": https://www.littletoncoin.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Display|10001|29555|-1||LearnNav|Famous-Hoards.html
Examples:
1 Carson ("CChrd"): 8,261 Carson City Silver Dollars = US$8,261
1 Bonehoard ("BNhrd"): 300,000 Buffalo Nickels = US$15,000
etc...
"He did not win the case, although he did manage to get the taxman's numbers."
From the Bristol Herald Courier (Bristol, Tennessee and Virginia. Think NASCAR)
"On Tuesday, a judge dismissed the lawsuits at the request of the state when a representative of the state’s attorney general handed Stafford a list of the requested phone numbers in the courtroom. The court also did not impose penalties on the DMV and its employees, which could have been between $500 and $2,000 per lawsuit if the employees had “willfully and knowingly” violated public records law."
The guy lives about 60 miles north of me. I caught the tail end of a radio interview with him this morning.
The DMV wasn't fined since the judge dismissed the case after he received the requested phone numbers. His tax liability stayed the same, and I hope that the DMV is a little more responsive when a phone number is requested. Otherwise, somebody will pay their taxes in mixed coins.
"Think NASCAR"
No thanks! NASCAR is merely ice hockey on wheels; the fighting is more interesting than the actual event. If racing is entertainment, NASCAR is like the circus clowns act.
Now BTCC, THAT's real racing! It's like a destruction derby with nicer cars. No opening for you to make a pass at the corner? No problem, just barge though and make one! These drivers can do more than just "hit the gas, and turn to the left sometimes!"
Glad this asshole bothered to pay his taxes and not just refuse. He drove down to the DMV office on a public road, hopefully not destroying it in anger on the way. Other people get to use the roads too, and they are not all angry assholes who can't manage to follow instructions. If you see him, tell him "fuck off" from me!
"No thanks! NASCAR is merely ice hockey on wheels; the fighting is more interesting than the actual event. If racing is entertainment, NASCAR is like the circus clowns act."
Then please enlighten me how NASCAR drivers negotiate Sonoma or Watkins Glen International (both road courses) with nothing but left turns. Anyway, NASCAR is looking into more road course races but has plans set for several years ahead of time due to existing commitments. There's also an issue that road courses are not as engaging for the live audience (not as big an issue for TV audiences), and like any business NASCAR has to keep paying attention to the audience: thus its focus on keeping things competitive.
The article mentions that it took 11 driods from the DMV 4 hours to count the coins. With a little math, that works out to $68/droid/hour (I'm rounding here). Being as this was "overtime", and with generous government labor contracts, and given overhead, (lights, taxes, etc.), one can easily assume that the government lost money on this transaction.
So, opening up all the rolls of pennies (50/roll) was more than a waste of time, it was a waste of valuable taxpayer money as well. Common sense would have dictated that the DMV should have taken all these rolls down to the local bank (they most likely originated there anyway), and said "DEPOSIT PLEASE" and let the bank handle the problem.
Sadly common sense in a government agency doesn't exist, so they did it the "hard" way. (*SIGH*).
So, this may not at all be correct but, I was under the impression that "paying for stuff in a shop" is different from "settling a debt".
When you stand at the till and they say "that'll be £11.63 please" then there are limits on what they are required to accept (which, as noted in comments above, are actually surprisingly small so often bigger shops will be more lenient) so you can't give them 1163 pennies and then shout "you're discriminating against me" or whatever if they refuse. This isn't "settling a debt" because you don't owe anything because they haven't given you the goods yet.
But in a restaurant, for example, you are "settling a debt" because at the end of the meal they have given you the goods and so you do now owe them recompense for that. I and thought, perhaps wrongly, that there was a different set of rules about what they were required to accept in payment of that debt. i.e. that they can't refuse to accept because you want to pay a £5.10 bill with 51x10p, for example, because it is actual money of the correct amount and you are legitimately attempting to settle the debt.
Of course all of this is covered by the general observation that life would be so much easier if everyone on both sides of these transactions just resolved to "not be a dick about things".
Which reminds me of the time I donated several years (and Kgs) collection of coppers to the work charity collection and said "You do have one of those coin counting machines don't you?" to which the response was "Yes. But's it's broken. But that's OK because we've got an intern!".
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