Personal Stories of Government Bullying, Interference, Abuse, Harassment, etc., Please, page 1

reply to post by thegoods724

Reminds me of an incident my wife and I had with Domino's Pizza, of all things. One evening, about 8 or 9 years ago, we ordered a pizza by phone, they delivered it, but the delivery guy started asking us a lot of additional personal information under the guise he needed it to validate the check we wrote. We knew this to be unnecessary because we had already given all the pertinent identification (birth date, driver's license number, etc.) on the phone when we called it in and they most certainly would never have delivered the meal without first running a standard check validation. Both my wife and I were concerned as to why he would want even more information, especially as our checking account at that time was nice and healthy.

A little later we got a call from Domino's insisting we take the check back and give them cash instead. We assured them once again the check was more than valid, but refused to exchange it for cash and they had accepted the transaction already by phone and in person. So they wanted the pizza back, but guess what? It was long gone by this time.

Less than thirty minutes later the police show up at our front door with the delivery driver in tow. When I refused to give them cash for the check this time, I was handcuffed, arrested, and put in the back of the police car. To this day we still have no idea what the charges were supposed to be, but they kept me in the squad car in full view of our neighbors and friends until my wife went inside and brought them cash. At that point in my life, I was greatly concerned with not creating any unwelcome attention because of our developing hospice work, but still we quietly looked into what recourse was available to us. No lawsuit was possible because we would have had an unbelievable burden of proof as to damages which may have been limited to the cost of a pizza. The police simply said I was disrespecting their authority and my behavior indicated I was some kind of threat. Calls to a succession of supervisors at both Domino's and the police department were completely blown off as inconsequential and the attitude was absolutely daring us to try and do something about it.

A pizza was not worth the effort and we dropped it, but looking back I wish I had recognized it as a forbearing of things to come. Maybe I would have been able to avoid some of this stuff we are experiencing now.

Or maybe I would have spent the last several years in jail.