Credit Rating - court fine with collections unit ?

[MoatMaster]

Very good chance, regardless of who chases you, they will list it with baycorp...and you are stuck with it for 5 years. Unless you have very high equity & excellent income - expect that to cause major headaches if you want to borrow more from yr bank.
Cough up the money as a noose around yr neck for 5 years is a far higher cost to pay.

[Rolf]

I'm interested in why you or your wife don't want to pay? Sure it's annoying and an expensive mistake to make, but why is it only the threat of courts, bailiffs, bad credit etc. that can make you consider to pay? Where's the moral here?

Having the government chasing unpaid fines is just ultimately costing the rest of us taxpayers more. I don't understand why people can't just play by the rules.

[brokerman]

I am NOT saying that this is the case here but as a Pom moving here 4 years ago I was, and still am, surprised at the cavalier attitude a lot of people have regarding fines and money in general. 'She will be right' maybe used to cut it but in todays world that's gone.

[Bluekiwi]

I'm interested in why you or your wife don't want to pay? Sure it's annoying and an expensive mistake to make, but why is it only the threat of courts, bailiffs, bad credit etc. that can make you consider to pay? Where's the moral here?

Having the government chasing unpaid fines is just ultimately costing the rest of us taxpayers more. I don't understand why people can't just play by the rules.

She wants to pay it, I dont.

The principal for me, is that this is an unjust fine.

Maybe $200 for forgetting, but not $2,000 for an honest mistake.

You could commit all manners of criminal offences and crimes and get less than this.

For genuine fines and people like boy racers racking up huge amounts of fines, it sticks in my craw as well that these people dont pay.

[captaincrab]

Am inclined to agree with you. It does seem disproportionately harsh. Maybe because road user charges are a Tax and we know what the govt is like when it comes to taxes....

[Davo36]

BK, I feel for you on this.

Is the $2000 all fine? Or is it backdated RUC as well?

The fine system seems to work if you're an honest person i.e. if you are a decent person who pays their bills, then you will end up paying your fines too. If you're a low life loser who never borrows money for anything, rents a house and so on, then it doesn't matter to you.

The thing is people like you have to pay your fines so that the justice system can employ people to spend their time chasing the toe rags and possibly eventually letting them off.

The other day I had to pay $54 for registration on a scooter I sold. The rego had expired for a month or so before I sold it. The government doesn't miss out on their money though, even though it wasn't registered or being used, I got a bill in the mail for the rego cost from when it expired to when the new owner filled out the form to transfer it into his name. And then 10 days later I got another letter threatening to have the debt listed with BayCorp. So of course I paid it.

Now all of this pales in comparison with what local councils charge these days...

[Bluekiwi]

Yes I have made arrangements to see the fines people.

The RUC itself was about 1k as I thought I would do a 20,000k lot

Yes the fine $1,947

The police woman said this would be a shock to us when she told us, but that if we got it up to date we could write in and get off.

Then the Infringement Bureau said it was outside their jurisdiction and that only a judge could review the size of the fine.

After preparing my submission to have a court hearing the District Court Registrar and a Police Prosecuting Lawyer both told me that Judges never ever reduce the size of the fine.

I was angling for it to be reduced to a smaller sum or go for Community Service.

Maybe I can go the exorbitant step of paying it off at $1 a month.
But even that grates on my nerves.

[brokerman]

Yes I have made arrangements to see the fines people.

The police woman said this would be a shock to us when she told us, but that if we got it up to date we could write in and get off.

The Copper that stopped my wife said the same, 'try to plead you are new to the country and didn't know type thing they said'. Forget it, they do not reduce the fine and if you persist Baycorp will be adding an entry you really don't want.