Foolocracy’s “Fool of the Week” award goes to Attleboro, Massachusetts’ City Collector Deborah Marcoccio who defended a one-cent threat of a lien against a 74-year-old blind resident.
The bill for one cent was mailed with the threat, that if not paid, it would become a $48 lien. The bill was for a 2007-8 utility bill that was underpaid by one cent.
Marcoccio initially questioned why the bill was not paid when due. She followed by saying the city would not waive the bill.
“If there’s a bill, it must be paid,” she said.
Several other people offered and did provide a one-cent payment on the bill. Afterwards, Marcoccio begged off that she was not the bad guy.
“When these notices go out, I don’t know whether they owe one cent or a thousand dollars,” Marcoccio told us. “I was just doing the job the way the law requires me to.”
Marcoccio said 120,000 delinquent bills are sent out a year and she only has a staff of four to do it.
While her predicament is noted, there are a couple of simple solutions. First, a little friendlier public relations response goes a long way. Second, the time spent by the city to add a little computer code into their billing program deferring miniscule amounts is a lot more efficient than sending one-cent bills with a 42-cent postage stamp.
Here is the earlier story by Foolocracy.
