Let's talk about those late trash bills in Scranton...penalty plus "REFERRAL FEE?" (credit)

[lorac07]

Well here I am again. It must be payday, bc most of my check is eaten up with the bills that are glaring at me from the table. It seems that I'm one of those people who really did overlook last yr's trash collection bill (yes, I really forgot to pay...very hectic first 6 months of last yr, somehow that bill got lost in the shuffle...). So I don't mind paying the bill; after all, I do owe it for all of the wonderful work our trash collectors do (at least I'm thankful my trash cans have stayed intact and mostly on my property for most of this yr). I'll not even complain too much about the penalty (though I do believe it's steep). But I HIGHLY resent the 'referral' fee to the collection agency--all $49 of it. The part of this story you don't know is that my ex-husband, yrs ago, refused, all-out refused to pay this bill when it was first instituted and then for as many yrs after as we were still married. We got divorced in '98; it's too late for me to do that math. Suffice to say that after all the smoke settled, I owed the NCC collection people over $2000 for that bill, a HUGE portion which was referral fees and late fees ontop of late fees (theirs, not the city's)...I was willing to pay them CASH for it, and they refused to knock off even one cent (so much for consumer credit companies and the like advising you to "negotiate" with your bill collectors to a reasonable, doable, payable bill). They wouldn't budge. So I paid the thing in full--all in an effort to preserve my shaky credit. And here we go again--yet another 'referral fee'. It just really p#$%$ me off.