Bullshit

Back in July 2003, I took a trip to New Orleans. On the way there, I was pulled over for speeding in Mississippi. Not just any speeding...

72 in a 70 speeding.

While that's technically still speeding, it seems to me that a police officer would offer up a little leeway for other factors like...going downhill. The act of passing, etc.

But nooooooooooooo...

This officer pulled me over, despite the fact I was going down hill because he had been working a bunch of accidents that night due to the wet roads.

So ok, whatever. I get back home and no more than a month later, I paid something I noted as "Speeding Ticket" in the amount of $87.00. No check number or anything in this entry (yes I was terrible about record keeping back then), so that likely means I hand-wrote the check and added it into Quickbooks later when I was reconciling the account. The date here is important:

The offense took place in July 2003.

About 2 weeks ago, I get a letter from Southern Financial Systems, Inc trying to collect a debt of $211.88. I note on the letter that the client for said collection agency is one "Pearl River County Justice".

I'm scratching my head. This is completely new and my first inclination is to believe there's been some sort of mistake. So I called them up.

Come to find out, this agency is trying to collect what I allegedly owe on the aforementioned ticket. Now I have a few questions about the legitimacy of this. The first of which is:

Why in the blue hell did it take 7 years for this to even show up? The ticket was from 2003. Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005. You can't possibly use that excuse.

The second is:

Why is a court house using a collection agency? Don't courthouses just do things like...I don't know...issue warrants for your arrest? Kill your license?

The third is:

If this ticket is that old and their records indicate that I haven't paid it, why wasn't I issued a summons to appear in court for the ticket? The address on my license hasn't changed since I got it. I had my address on my license as said address because I was generally moving to a new place every couple of years. Now I actually live at said address, so it wasn't like the address wasn't valid.

The fourth is:

Does the bank that bought the bank that bought the bank still have the records for said bank? Confused yet? Bowling Green Bank was purchased by Area Bank and that was purchased (or absorbed) by Branch Bank and Trust. I wrote the check out of the store bank account. The corporation that had the controlling interest of my business is defunct and I was removed as one of the officers of said corporation during a bit of a brutal buy-out process.

Anyway, I could clear this up instantly if I had that cleared check, but unfortunately, it's not. Well, I shouldn't say it's not the case. I should say they want to charge me $150 just to research the records and that doesn't guarantee they'll actually find anything.

So now this ticket has come back to haunt me and I apparently am going to get fucked out of this money one way or the other. If I can't find the cleared check, I'm of the mindset that if I'm going to lose that money no matter what, I'd rather give it to someone who can stick it to these guys.

Here's the other amusing aspect of this:

I was issued the ticket on July 5th 2003.

The ticket was filed on August 4th 2003.

I was apparently sued/summoned to appear regarding this ticket on August 19th, 2004.

Obviously, not having received any notification about this, I failed to appear. (Doesn't it seem far more likely I would have addressed this issue if I had known back then, when...records were a hell of a lot more current for me?)

This failure to appear got me strapped with some sort of "Contempt of Court" fee.

August 20th, 2004 to Feb 10th, 2010: Nothing happened? Six years and nothing.

Feb 11th, 2010: I receive a letter stating I haven't paid it from a collection agency. Not the courthouse mind you, a collection agency.

This smells of a pasture full of bullshit that only Mississippi can produce.