Killed By My Debt
Posted: July 26th, 2018, 8:13 pm
If you missed this (and I must admit I never look at the BBC3 schedules) I'd very highly recommend it - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p067bmlh
It tells the true story of a young lad working for City Sprint as a `self-employed' courier. He picks up a couple of tickets for straying into a bus lane etc, can't pay them and of course our dear old chums the bailiffs get involved, racking up higher and higher charges as they try to bully him into getting the money.
It's quite heartbreaking. The contrast between the initial optimism of the vulnerable young lad, pretending to his family that everything's going well with his new `job', and the sheer cynicism and nastiness of both City Sprint (though I don't suppose they're any worse than the rest of their revolting ilk) and the vile bailiffs is a tribute to both the actors and the director.
I'm not unduly sentimental about debtors and bailiffs. I collect debts for clients on a regular basis, and have used bailiffs myself. But the way these minor traffic violations escalate from what to most people is a trivial sum into a sum of over £1,000 without any human input is truly horrible.
And in case you're thinking that it's his fault as he should simply have paid the fines his net income from CS was sometimes as low as £12 per week.
It's a very unpleasant reminder of the fact that while most of us live a life of ease and affluence there are a hell of a lot who don't, and some of them are destroyed by entirely legal means.
It tells the true story of a young lad working for City Sprint as a `self-employed' courier. He picks up a couple of tickets for straying into a bus lane etc, can't pay them and of course our dear old chums the bailiffs get involved, racking up higher and higher charges as they try to bully him into getting the money.
It's quite heartbreaking. The contrast between the initial optimism of the vulnerable young lad, pretending to his family that everything's going well with his new `job', and the sheer cynicism and nastiness of both City Sprint (though I don't suppose they're any worse than the rest of their revolting ilk) and the vile bailiffs is a tribute to both the actors and the director.
I'm not unduly sentimental about debtors and bailiffs. I collect debts for clients on a regular basis, and have used bailiffs myself. But the way these minor traffic violations escalate from what to most people is a trivial sum into a sum of over £1,000 without any human input is truly horrible.
And in case you're thinking that it's his fault as he should simply have paid the fines his net income from CS was sometimes as low as £12 per week.
It's a very unpleasant reminder of the fact that while most of us live a life of ease and affluence there are a hell of a lot who don't, and some of them are destroyed by entirely legal means.