A Tree Falling in the Forest

Today, I am giving a shout out to Ms. Tucker of the City of Richmond Finance Department. She gets a gold star.

You see, I have been waging a battle of sorts with the City of Richmond's Finance Department since February over Car Taxes from 2002.

First, I would note that I did not live in Richmond in 2002. I lived in Alexandria, where I paid car taxes, but apparently not enough car taxes. I still owed Richmond for a couple months.

To make a long story short, I sent in a check and called to see if everything was cleared up. I was told my check hadn't arrived and I actually owed more. Since, my bank told me the check had cleared, the battle was on. Problem is no one in customer service can really provide customer service or any explanations. They can just keep repeating, "you owe this much money." I talked to multiple people and left multiple messages. Nothing. It was like banging my head against the wall. I asked to speak to a supervisor, "we don't transfer or give out those numbers."

Well, fortunately, if you dig enough on their Web site you can find an employee directory. So I started random dialing anyone with the word supervisor in their title. That is how I got in touch with Ms. Tucker, who took my information, diagnosed the problem (on their end), and cleared up the whole sorted affair with about 15 minutes of work.