Judit Takacs on 14 Aug 2000 02:37:08 -0000 |
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[Nettime-bold] IT CAN HAPPEN TO YOU, TOO! |
Hi, I am Judit, I am Hungarian and I would like to tell you a(n unfortunately true) story. Chris is a Dutch man - happens to be my husband -, a poor one, strictly in the material sense. But he is a bright one, and he was a bright kid, too: when he was only 11 he won the 3rd price on a computer competition and as a result he was given a special account by the Dutch POSTBANK, containing only three digits. He still has this famous account - loaded with more sentimental value than money - which has just recently landed him with a pack of troubles. It seems that in November 1999 a Breda based company called Meeus (www.meeus.com) accidentally sent to this account 35.000 NLG, about which Chris did not even know. On the first place, he never received any bank statements concerning this money transfer, but the lack of statements did not strike him as something strange, as for Chris this - usually almost empty - account was not meant to be for everyday use: for years now he does not even have a bank card (giromaatpas) for it. Anyway, it seems that after about half a year the Meeus decided to take Chris to court claiming that he kept their money - what is actually true: the money is still there on Chris' special account, untouched and unnoticed for more than half a year. It seems that at the end of May, 2000, a Dutch court found Chris guilty in mishandling other people's money and charged him with about 5.000 NLG (including interests, which Chris never had on this money, legal costs etc.) and it also seems that all this time nobody was able to let Chris know about what was going on as he never received any either official nor non official news or notice about the court case and its final verdict. The only exception is a probably very smart Mr Jager (a 'deurwarder') who was able to locate Chris' home in Amsterdam on the 9th of August - about two months after the court case. That afternoon he popped in to Chris' home just to leave for him some official papers and announce that Chris has two days left before all his belongings would be confiscated up to the value of 40.000 NLG. When Mr Jager came to Chris' home, I was alone with the children. Mr Jager did not introduce himself, he just told me that he was from the court. He was unfriendly and his talking style reminded me of some kind of interrogation (or more precisely, of how I imagine that): he asked me who I was and whether we were legally married, and what Chris job was. When I asked him what he wanted, he replied that my husband had committed some crimes because he did not give back some money to whom he owed that money. When I told him that it sounded very irrealistic and I referred to the possibility that it was just a misunderstanding, his reply was a simple "no, no" and then he wrote something on the papers what he finally left with me and in a rather terrifying way - after looking around in the room where we were - he said that Chris should better contact him because in two days time he will come to confiscate things. So just about 9 months after someone at Meeus made a mistake - resulting in the conviction of a Dutch citizen, being unaware of all these happenings, who has not committed anything illegal in this case - Chris was suddenly 'enlightened' about his situation in a rather strange way. Since his 'enlightenment' the following things have happened: Chris tried to contact the Meeus in Breda but they refused to talk with him about this matter. Chris phoned the POSTBANK to be sure that it is not a bad joke - and yes, the money, the full amount, was still on his special account. Chris contacted a lawyer and following the lawyer's advice the day after Mr Jager's very unpleasant visit, on the 10th of August, Chris sent a fax to the POSTBANK asking them to send the 35.000 NLG to Mr Jager. Chris also informed Mr Jager about this in a letter which he faxed him (with the copy of the fax Chris sent to the POSTBANK earlier that day). In this letter Chris proposed that the Meeus should agree to stop pursuing him for the extra costs and interests above the original amount. And what happened next? On the 11th of May Chris got a letter from the POSTBANK announcing that ALL his bank accounts were frozen because of the actions of a certain Mr Jager. This announcement arrived on Friday which meant that - as nothing could be done during the weekend - Chris, me and our children were just left in more trouble and distress... It is not a nice thing to be wrongly accused - in fact, it is TERRIBLE! And it is almost unimaginable for me (or at least it was till now) that these kind of things CAN happen (and are happening!) here and now and to you - affecting your family life (for example, it is difficult to explain to our children what's causing all this stress around them), your personal life (Chris is stressed out, "a bit uneasy" about the 'what happens next?' factor) and your professional life (Chris should make arrangements for his next journey in September which has something to do with radio technology - but with frozen accounts everything is becoming quite difficult; not to mention the fact that because of all this unforeseen trouble he is unable to concentrate on his work). The whole case seems to be a nightmare for Chris - but unfortunately this is part of our present day reality. The reason why I am telling you this story can be summarized in one short sentence which is accidentally also a film's title: "IT CAN HAPPEN TO YOU, TOO"! (Well, actually the story of the film was about a hit man, but no worries that was only a film...) Amsterdam, 2000 August 13th _______________________________________________ Nettime-bold mailing list Nettime-bold@nettime.org http://www.nettime.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nettime-bold