Why do people feel so comfortable lying to councils?

"We'll call you back" must top this list.

In my experience this tends to result from the resident being a shouty, aggressive and insulting jerk who won't accept no for an answer so the call centre operative tells them this to get rid of them. The tone and manner of the complaint is sent to the relevant department who look at it and think, why would I want to call this person only to receive the same abuse.

I tend to deal with those types of people by sending a letter or an e-mail as there is still an obligation to make contact but I do understand why some people are put off making that call back when they strongly suspect all they'll be dragged into in a torrent of how much council tax the person is paying, how we are there to serve them and how useless councils are rather than an genuine want to discuss the issues at hand.
 
My favourite council must be the Democratic People's Republic of North Tyneside. Never have i encountered so a woeful collective of human beings.
Their traffic management is legendary. There are three main roads in to the commercial centre of north tyneside. The council in a moment of sure genius decided to...completely close one. Reduce another to a single lane. Reduce the final one to a contraflow traffic light system. Well played. Well played. It was taking people from my office up to two hours just to get out of the car park, even if they left work as early as half three.

That's why people don't like councils and lie to them. Ineptitudes like that.
 
Depends which council. Wandsworth is a great council but right next door Lambeth is dreadful, due to lack of funds apparently. You could write an essay of examples for them.

I don't deny what you say but saying "Councils (implying all of them) are willing to lie to us" because you can cite some bad ones isn't logical.

It's like saying OCUK must be crap because you had a bad experience with a competitor.
 
People will lie because they have no respect for the council. People have no respect for the council because they are **** a lot of the time. I have had issues with them a number of times because they simply can't be bothered to take the time to read emails. I waited for 3 months for them to get round to refunding my council tax and finally a cheque arrives with both my name and my housemates on it. You can't cash that at any bank unless we happened to open a joint account in both our names.

I had emailed a number of times to make sure the cheque was addressed to me yet they still cocked up and I had to wait another few months along with another 3 - 4 emails.

We lived on a road that had cars parked on the pavements either side so you couldn't put a bin out without blocking the entire pavement so everone put it in the opening for the properties front gate. Every now and then the postman or someone delivering junkmail would push it back into the front garden a few ft to get past. Apparently that extra two foot meant that we didn't want our bin picked up.

With the crappy 2 week collections if you missed it you had 4 weeks till the next one.

There is a reason people complain about councils.
 
I remember the days before wheelie bins where bin men would come in to your shed and take your bin out before emptying it and putting it back.
and ofcourse it had no wheels and was metal
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wow the lid ain't on and he's only gone and taken it anyway
probably scared if your bin isn't by the road because it might have a spider on it
 
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I remember the days when the bin men, actually did go and collect the bin from the side of your house or where ever. Lift all the bags from it, then throw them into the lorry..

Pffft. Bin men these days have never had it so easy........
 
maybe because for the amount of council tax we pay the bin men should just do what we pay them for which is collect rubbish bins regardless if they are 1 foot in out of where they say they were.
 
CCTV on bin lorries? Oh my.

so they can prove the lid wasn't shut !!

Probably cheaper to get rid of the cctv and these investigations and just get on with the job.

at least when the robots take over people will know how to leave their bins out, maybe they are training us up to make sure we are ready
 
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My neighbour has lied to the Police three times about me trying to get me arrested because I put up a fence she didn't like. They don't even bother knocking on my door to question me any more. :)
 
Every now and then the postman or someone delivering junkmail would push it back into the front garden a few ft to get past. Apparently that extra two foot meant that we didn't want our bin picked up.

I remember the days before wheelie bins where bin men would come in to your shed and take your bin out before emptying it and putting it back.
and ofcourse it had no wheels and was metal

probably scared if your bin isn't by the road because it might have a spider on it

I remember the days when the bin men, actually did go and collect the bin from the side of your house or where ever. Lift all the bags from it, then throw them into the lorry..

Pffft. Bin men these days have never had it so easy........

Those were also the days where there was little to no social care taking massive chunks of the budget. Believe it or not the amount going toward bin collections is a fraction of your Council Tax and therefore we can no longer afford to have 6 men teams of guys.

There is also the issues of compensation paid to former bin men who later claim because they had to work for 40 years bending over picking up heavy bags, they now have bad backs and mobility problems.

Sadly we live in a litigious society, it is very easy to sue former employers for physically stressful jobs but also for residents because we did walk onto their property and broke their favourite gnome whilst retrieving their bin.

Sadly people only tend to think in isolation, they thing an extra two steps is nothing. What they forget is that the guys are servicing around 1,500 households a day and those extra few seconds per household turn into a few extra hours when you multiply it across the whole round.

CCTV on bin lorries? Oh my.

Your problem with that is?

maybe because for the amount of council tax we pay the bin men should just do what we pay them for which is collect rubbish bins regardless if they are 1 foot in out of where they say they were.

You are a common example of someone who thinks their council tax only pays for bin collections and the street lightning.

How much you pay in council tax is irrelevant to how much your council pays towards bin collections.

In my authority only about 90p a week from your CT goes to bin collections, a tiny fraction of what you're paying. As I stated above that extra 'foot' has a huge multiplcation cost when you consider all the houses being serviced.
 
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