Moral victory

I'm sure you have experienced getting some kind of fine, or at least seen the anger it induces when someone you know gets one! Well, I've had two kinds of fines in the last couple of months, and somehow I've managed to fight my corner enough to be able to get let off for both of them! The first was a fine for not having a ticket on a train journey, and yet I'd already paid for the ticket in advance. It was a stupid mistake on my part, but I didn't think it was fair that I was made to pay an extra £57 for a journey I'd already paid £22 for. I spoke to a woman who worked for the company after my journey who was incredibly rude to me, and explained in no uncertain terms that I wouldn't be getting my money back, but gave me a form to send in to their customer services department - just in case! I'm so glad I wrote that letter (which was full A4 sized!) as they then wrote to say they would be sending me a cheque to reimburse me for the full amount of £57!

My second fine was a parking ticket in my local high street. I even checked that I wasn't on a double yellow line before I went into the bank, but technically I was, even though the lines looked as though they were scrubbed out. I was in the bank for around 20 minutes, closing my account which had £44 in it, and the parking ticket was £40! I was so furious that I'd even checked that I wasn't breaking the rules, and I got a ticket anyway! I went back to the scene of the crime later that afternoon to take photos of the non-existent lines (as you can see here - I was parked to the left of those 'lines') and again wrote a letter to the council including those photos to illustrate my point. I got a letter through a couple of days ago to say in that instance, they'll let me off!

So what I'm trying to tell you good people is if you find yourself having to pay a fine, but you believe you have a good enough excuse, definitely write a letter to contest it*. You never know, you might be able to get out of it! I've learned my lesson now, and will be more careful in future, but at least I know I have a way with words if I get caught out again!

(* - or you could try what Jack Bauer did on 24 and say the reason you don't have a train ticket is because you're trying to stop a suicide bomber!)