Sunday, November 15, 2009

Wrongfully Accused

Many years ago before we had our own house, we lived in a 4-plex. R decided to rent a lawnmower out of his own pocket to mow the grass since the people who normally took care of it seemed to have vanished and it was getting rather long. He mowed the grass and then returned the lawnmower that afternoon. A week later I got a threatening letter from the rental place saying we owed them over 800.00 for the lawnmower that wasn't returned. I about died. I called R immediately and asked him if he returned it. He said yes, he had returned it about 3 hours after he rented it.

I went down to the rental place the next day with the letter and the receipt in hand. The owner, shouting at the top of his lungs called me a liar, said the lawnmower was not in their inventory and that if I didn't pay I would be taken to court. I suggested that we go look at all the lawnmowers and compare their serial numbers to the one on the receipt. He didn't want to do it, but I told him I wasn't going to leave until we checked. He threatened to call the police, and I said yes please do so we can settle this matter. Sure enough the lawnmower was there. The person who checked it in when R returned it had done it incorrectly. I never got an apology.

Some years later the IRS came down on us for two years of state taxes not filed from eight years before. We were supposed to pay the maximum amount as a penalty. That one took me three weeks to clear up. For those two years R had worked in Wyoming which doesn't have state taxes, so there wasn't anything to be paid. But since he had worked in Colorado the years before and after they just believed we hadn't filed the taxes. I had to go all the way back to get copies of W-2 forms and it was a huge rigmarole. Naturally since it was the government we didn't get an apology for their mistake.

Compared to those two things, what happened today is pretty minor. Nonetheless it's still bothering me a lot. Today I was reported on a site that I list bears on for breaking the rules. I didn't do it, I wouldn't do it...I am not that kind of person. It was most likely a glitch when I edited one of my pieces to reflect that I sold it. Given enough time I probably would have noticed something was amiss and contacted the site owner myself. But instead I received a lecture from them. I explained what I had done and not done. I don't know if they believed me or not. But I didn't get an apology. I am sure there will always be people who believe I did it though. That's the part that bothers me. There is no paperwork or forms I can get to back up my innocence. I can only hope the site history is recorded so it will reflect that I didn't do it.

Now I am no saint, but I do try hard to do things the right way. All of these situations could have been avoided if someone would have simply checked a little further before accusing us of doing something wrong. You can go through life doing things right, following the rules and sometimes it just doesn't matter...and you know what...that just plain sucks. (Pardon my french!) But an apology would go a long way...I wonder why we never get one?

5 comments:

Just A Girl said...

Hi Kelly,

I think that just plain ol stinks!!! Hopefully the site will make the proper adjustments and everything will be ok. I think people don't apologize out of pride...we don't like having to admit we're wrong...sad, but true!

I came over to snag my award and I should have my post up in about an hour. I think slowly ;-).

xoxo Cori

Carmen said...

It's true what they say, sorry really does seem to be the hardest word and yet it would stop an awful lot of situations getting out of hand. I feel for you as I've been wrongly accused before and am in fact going through something right now where I have been wrongly accused and after having been brought up all my life never to lie and always try to do the right thing - it sucks BIG time when you come to realise you seem to be in the minority.

Hope things get sorted for you, hopefully people that know you would know you wouldn't do what you've been accudsed of. Doesn't help when it could potentially affect your business though does it.

*Hugs*

Teacake said...

There is almost nothing worse than being wrongly accused! I lived in an apartment with a bunch of very meddling people. THe story would take a very long time since there were 4 people involved. One of them managed to turn someone I loved very much against me, he was secretly in the closet and had creepy feelings for the man I was seeing. (I'm female). This guy spread a lot of stories about me and little by little the entire neighborhood stopped looking me in the eyes or say hello. I have no idea what all he said. My fellow, who was friends with all of them, rather believe the stories and never checked with me. I might never recover. Apologies? HA

However, another person I know was once very rude to me and I was very upset about it. A few days later, she apologized - and did so for an entire week! That is a very rare and decent person!

Heather said...

Because so many people are jerks who either can't admit they're wrong, or, despite the evidence stacked up against them, will NEVER admit they're wrong.

Well... that, and the internet is a truly scary place, because people can fling accusations all of the time and rarely be held accountable for their actions... and the worst part is, their false assumption can be enough to ruin an entirely legit, good reputation.

Kelly said...

You are absolutely right Heather, the internet can be a very scary place. I am frequently amazed by what people will do because of the anonymity of the net!

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