Letter To Correct A Billing Error: Fill & Download for Free

Many years ago I took my Cortina into the local Ford dealership for its yearly MOT test. Not a big deal as I had already checked the car thoroughly in my own lockup. As my father had an account with the garage and I was working late the service desk was closed when I picked up the car I simply collected the keys from a salesman and drove home. Next day I collected the paperwork and they said they would send me the bill in the post.About a week later the bill arrived and it stated they had to renew all four sets of brake shoes. I immediately phoned the garage and queried the bill asking them to check if it was for the correct car. I then wrote a letter to the garage requesting they check the bill sent was for my car and if they had made a clerical error. Almost by return post I received another letter written in a very nasty way threatening legal action if I did not settle the bill immediately. I wrote back saying “I will see you in court”.In Scotland we have a system called Small Debts Court where a local magistrate rules on cases of a minor nature. I duly received a letter giving date and time for the hearing. I was quite looking forward to my day in court.The magistrate queeried why I had chosen to represent myself without a lawyer being present and I replied that I didn't think the case justified the expense. The lawyer acting for the garage opened by presenting a summary of the facts. I was asked if I disputed any of the statement made by the garage and I replied No. I accepted everything that the lawyer had said. I then presented copies of the correspondence between the garage and myself. So far it looked like an open-and-shut case. I was refusing to pay what was clearly due.That was when I asked the magistrate if he was familiar with the technicalities of motor car braking systems. He replied he was but if any technical points were beyond his understanding he would stop proceedings and seek expert help. I then presented the bag of worn-out brake shoes left in my car as per the garage’s normal procedure. I explained I was a qualified mechanical engineer whose hobby was rebuilding cars and I often took part in car racing. Several months previously I had fitted a much more powerful engine to the Cortina and also upgraded the brakes to Disk Brakes all round. Disk brakes do not have brake shoes. I had a bag of worn-out parts which could not fit my car. I refused to pay for work which couldn't have been done to my car and moreover showed that the mechanic had never even looked at the brakes.The magistrate didn't laugh but he was smiling broadly as he declared “Case Closed”.

I moved out of my home state 18 years ago when I got married. I had ran a small consulting business as a sole proprietorship and had an account with the state department of revenue so that if I ever sold anything taxable in the course of my business I could remit taxes. I had the account for about 5 years and never sold anything taxable. It wasn’t a big burden. Every quarter I had to file a return, which consisted of sending in a small form with all zeroes on it.When I moved out of state, I sent in my last form along with a note that said simply “I’m moving out of state, please close my account. Thank you.” I thought nothing more of it.Five years later we started the process of buying another house, and during our financing I got a copy of our credit report. I was surprised to find two negative entries regarding judgements against me. After digging, I found that I had been sued in my hometown by the state department of revenue and they had two default judgements against me, each for a different amount of around $550.That was odd.So I called the department of revenue and asked who their lead counsel was. I got him on the phone. I have the ability to remain calm even when pissed, thankfully.I gave him the case #s and he looked them up and found the problem. I hadn’t turned in my statements for the first two quarters of the year after I moved, so they had billed me those amounts (around $550) and then sued me when I didn’t respond to the bills. Since I didn’t show up in court, they got default judgements on each.I first let him know that I had moved out of state and had included a note making this clear when I moved. I then asked where the amounts that I supposed owed even came from, and said “it looks like a computer just made those numbers up.”He assured me that, no, it wasn’t a computer making them up. Instead, it was calculated based on my prior remittances.Me: You do know that all of my prior reports were for $0 and I had no remittances?Him: Oh.Me: I program computers for a living. If the computer was actually basing it on my prior remittances it would have come up with $0.Him: Yeah….Me: So the number that it says I owed was made up by a computer program.Him: (sheepishly) Yeah, I suppose so.Me: And it’s odd to me that I was charged random amounts for two quarters and then it stopped. Why is that? Why isn’t it still making up numbers that I supposedly owe?Him: Well, after two quarters of not receiving reports the computer closed your account.Me: That’s nice, but it’s two quarters too late. I now have fraudulent charges on my sales tax account that have led to false information on a credit report.Him: Now, wait a minute, there’s no fraud involved. That word has a special meaning in a legal sense.Me: Yes. Let’s think about this. What do I actually owe the state?Him: Apparently nothing.Me: You are correct. And yet someone in your organization has - and mark my words carefully - falsely claimed in court that I did owe something.Him: Well, we thought you did.Me: Why? Because your computer made up a number and you believed it without doing any research of any kind? You had my phone number. Did anyone call to see if I was still there? Did you send a letter?Him: Well, no, we just file the lawsuit and depend on service.Me: And, the result of service? Look, we both know the answer here, don’t we?Him: (sigh)Me: Are you familiar with the federal legal structure around credit reports, specifically the penalties for providing false information that ends up in a report?Him: Somewhat.Me: Good, then this will be easy. You will first go back to the court in my hometown and do whatever it takes to get the judgement reversed, whatever. I don’t know much about that, but when someone asks them about the cases we’re talking about the answer from the court is going to be “we don’t have information about that”.Him: I don’t know if we can do that.Me: Do what you can, then. Find out. Second, you will write a letter to each of the big three credit reporting agencies referencing these items, and I will be cc’d on this letter. You will mention your position as lead counsel for the _____ state department of revenue, reference the case #s, note that they were made in error and that nothing is owed and nothing ever was owed.Him: Okay.Me: Finally, you will send a letter to me. The letter will state that your computer made an error which resulted in these charges, tell me what steps you took to resolve this problem and will state that I owe nothing to the state of _____ and never have.Him: Okay, that sounds fair.I received the letter two weeks later, along with copies of his very nice letters to the credit reporting agencies and an extra “to whom it may concern” that I could use any other place. I called a buddy who works for the court back in my hometown and found that the attorney had indeed called and said that case had been filed in error, but I don’t know what came of that. I didn’t care since nobody was trying to collect from me.

Image: Close up of the frankly gorgeous White House stationery. It is produced by Crane & Co. which has been producing the official White House stationery for decades and doing government printing work, including currency, since the Revolutionary War. [1]First, a fairly low-level White House staffer will read your letter, making a record of its subject matter and your position on that subject matter so that someone will know that the President got 2315 letters last week on the Farm Bill, 73% in favor of his signing it and 27% against. If the letter is from someone of particular importance or says something particularly interesting, it may get bumped up to a mid-level or even senior staffer. Unless you are the Pope or the Governor of Maryland or write a letter that is remarkable in some extraordinary way, the President will NOT see your letter.Within a few days of your letter’s delivery to the White House, a perfectly lovely reply will go out on beautiful White House stationery with a gorgeous White House letterhead (the dang thing is almost suitable for framing) and signed in blue ink (to stand out from the typing and cause you to think a human being signed it—it was probably signed by an “autopen,” though, or digitally printed on the page). Anyway, it will go something like this:Dear Mr. Schmendrake:Thank you for your very well-informed letter of August 23, 2018 to President Trump regarding the Simon-Garfunkel Music Copyright Amendment Act of 2018 just passed by Congress and now on the President’s desk for signature. The President asked that I write this reply. [Not specifically, of course, but it is this staffer’s job to write these replies, and she got the job from the President, so the President did ask her to write the reply . . . see how that works? Of course, as word processing and heuristic form letter generation improve, a greater proportion of these replies will go out over the “signature” of the President rather than of a staffer.]The President has carefully considered the appropriate action to take now that the bill has reached his desk. It is no small matter to him that the Act passed both houses of Congress supported by large, bipartisan majorities. The President also understands the legitimate concerns of those people who favored the bill and whose livelihoods are threatened by offshore pirating of US produced music. If the bill had not imposed such draconian penalties on our trading partners for the actions of its citizens that may be beyond the government’s control, there is no doubt that he would sign the bill.Unfortunately, however, given that those draconian penalties are part of the bill, it is his unfortunate duty to preserve the United States’ trading relationships with its key trading partners by vetoing the bill, which he will do within the next few days.Thank you very much for your interest in the bill and for taking the time to write to the President. Please be aware that he places a high value on the input from citizens such as yourself and that expressions such as those contained in your letter are always welcome.Yours very truly,Amanda SchtafferAssistant to the Associate Staff Policy Coordinator for Domestic CommerceI encourage you to pick a subject of some interest to you and write to the President about it. I’d bet real money that most people couldn’t tell the content of my letter from the genuine article. I’ve written a total of about a dozen letters to several different Presidents, and have received replies very similar to the foregoing. I’ve also talked to White House staffers about how citizen letters are handled. Anyway, this is the best address to use for your letter:President Donald TrumpThe White House1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NWWashington, DC 20500[Updated on May 21, 2018 to include photo of White House stationery and caption, as well as to note that more letters will go out over the signature of the President in the future.][Updated on March 29, 2019 with to correct a spelling error, make a few stylistic and other non-substantive changes, and to change the name of the President.]Footnotes[1] Presidential Stationery | Annie Dean