Towed-ly unfair

"It's gone," announced a slightly scared-looking TheBloke (TM). 

"What has?" I asked.

"The Mini.  The Mini has gone.  Stolen, towed, I don't know."

"Oh, OK," I said, displaying the wearied calm of one who has lived in London for a while and to date lost three cars this way.

I called the usual number (it's on my Friends and Family discount so I get cheap calls to them) and found out that it had indeed been towed, from a single yellow line on a Saturday afternoon near the park.  As Tower Hamlets Bastards are wont to do.

The lovely Tower Hamlets Bastard on the phone told me that there was a £200 release fee, and there may be other parking fines on top of that.  Deep joy.  TheBloke (TM) looked grim (and a bit pale - I think he was still waiting for the anger).

So, off to Bromley-by-Bow (our friendly local car pound) we trotted, me with my car log book and insurance details to hand.  This is a somewhat familiar routine for me.  Hand over your documentation, hand over your debit card, Bob's your uncle, you get your car back.  (Though last time it was a courtesy car which made things a bit trickier.)

We finally got to the front of the queue.  The lovely lady took my documents.  TheBloke (TM) handed over his debit card.  

"Oh," she said, "our machines aren't working today.  It's cash only."

Now I'm no snob.  I live in Bethnal Green, I've spent a year in Dalston, I actually like the edgier parts of the capital.  But Bromley-by-Bow is a big fat shithole.  The biggest, fattest shithole you've ever seen.  Even if your job is working as a proctologist, looking at big fat shitholes all day.  The place is all concrete, full of gangs of bored teenagers unfortunately failing to get themselves run over on the dual carriageway that slices the grey, graffittied Mecca in half.

Politely, to the lady, I said, "We don't carry round £200 in cash.  You can take my card number and process it tomorrow when your machines are working again."

"Council says no," said the lady in the best Catherine Tate impression I've heard recently.  "There's a cash machine about ten minutes away.  If it's working," she added ominously.

"I'm sure it's not legal for you to hold onto my car when we've got a method of payment ready.  It's not our fault your machines are broken.  If you don't have a method to collect payment, you shouldn't be towing cars."

"What you gonna do, call the police?" said the maybe-not-quite-so-lovely lady.

"I might do," I said.

"You can pick it up tomorrow, if you like," suggested the lady.  This was a possibility.  I certainly didn't fancy walking round the area when all the locals knew that everyone heading towards the pound was carrying £200 cash.  "But it'll be an extra £40 for overnight storage," she said.

TheBloke (TM) restrained me from commiting a fairly warranted act of violence and we marched to the nearest cashpoint.  Which - of course - wanted to charge us £2.50 for withdrawing money and - of course - was out of cash, because I'm guessing several dozens of people were hitting it all day for £200 a time.

We marched another mile to another cash point in an even dodgier area.  TheBloke (TM) withdrew £200 of cash.  We went back to the car pound.  And waited.  And listened to a girl in the queue be told about the cash situation.  "I'm from the BBC," she exclaimed.  "This is ridiculous and I'm going to make a documentary about how shit you are!"  So, Ploggers, if you see a documentary in the near future entitled, Bromley-by-Bow Car Pound: is it shit?, you heard it here first.

Finally we were at the front of the queue again.  We passed the documentation and the £200 to the Tower Hamlets Bastard.  She said, "No, it's £260 pounds.  £200 towing fee, and £60 parking ticket."

"What?" I - let's face it - shrieked, "you said it was £200."

"No I never," she said.

"Well, we said we'd get £200 out of the cash machine and you didn't say it was any more than that."

"Computer says I did," she said.  OK, she didn't really, but that was the gist of it.

Luckily, between us, we scraped together the extra £60 in cash, got our appeals form and drove the Mini home.  (Before this we'd both tried to enter the pound, TheBloke (TM) was practically assualted as the Tower Hamlets Bastard slapped on the window, screaming, "Driver only!  DRIVER ONLY!")

Unfortunately for them, Tower Hamlets Bastards, so inefficient even at bastardry, failed to follow some fairly specific rules and regulations about appeals, (which I found out from this excellent website), meaning that when I chased them up by phone today (admittedly over a month since I put the appeal in), legally they've been forced to refund the lot.

We won't be spending it or gloating too gloatingly until the money is in the bank, but I'm hoping it'll be a case of Laurasplog - 1, Tower Hamlets Bastards - 0.

Watch this space.