An average tale of waste?

On Tuesday I parked my car on a pay and display bay and used one of those meters at which you can use a debit card.

The machine took the £6 from my card (yes, ludicrous, but that’s London) but then refused to print a ticket. After gazing dumbfounded at the screen and pressing the button a few more times in vain I called the council parking office and gave them the meter number to ask for a refund.

Thinking this marvellous new computerised world of debit card payment machines must make it very easy to trace the transaction I hoped this would be a straightforward thing.

“We need to send you a form. Can I have your address?”, said the nice man on the phone.

“Can’t you just look up the transaction?” I asked.

“No, we don’t have access to them” sighed the nice man. “If you fill in the form it will be processed and you will be sent a cheque, for six pounds,” he explained.

When the form arrived this morning the nice man had already filled in the details of time, date and meter number. All I had to do was fill in my address, which was the same address he had posted the form to.

I now have to go and post this back to him. Then presumably he will pass it to somebody else who will generate a council cheque and post it back to me, and I will have to go to the bank to pay it in. A clerk at the bank will process this and the money will finally land back in my account.

To refund £6 paid electronically in thirty seconds will have taken days and cost a small fortune in time and processing. It is hard not to conclude that there is some waste in the system. But is this average or exceptional?