When I was a child I used to save the best bit, the icing on the cake perhaps, until last. My grandmother warned me of the danger this posed. When she was a child she put the glacé cherries on the side of her plate to savour last. A woman promptly leant over her and seeing she didn’t like the cherries swiftly ate them.
Yesterday, lunching at Ognisko, I had cold beetroot soup to start. I don’t have any truck with the notion it is common to drink soup at luncheon. I saved the boiled egg in the soup until last and was just enjoying it when I got a text message.
“Important Notice: Penalty Charge Notice (PCN): Records show there is a pending parking ticket associated with your account.
The payment deadline is July 29, 2025.
If the fine is not paid by this date, you risk incurring additional fees, interest charges, and potential negative impacts on your credit report.
After reviewing the above, please click the link to enter your license plate number (there is no cost to provide this information) to check and pay your parking fine.
https://fine.pcnrz.live/bills?Qe=JN5gNnb
Make the payment promptly to avoid any license cancellations and further legal issues.
Thank you for your cooperation.”
The link sent me to the Gov.UK website and it was only a £20 fine, incurred strangely on a day when I was in Estonia. But, keen to get back to Borscht, I paid it on an Amex card. The payment did not go through and subsequently there were multiple attempts to use my card on different devices – all thwarted by the vigilant fraud department at Amex.
Re-reading the text it is obviously a scam but somehow I was taken off guard. I feel foolish. If there is a lesson it is that the most cautious people sometimes drop their guard. Anyway my card has been cancelled and a new one is on the way.
I received the same, or similar message Christopher. But being at my desk rather than floating on the pleasures of a fine Ognisko lunch, (you can hear the envy creeping in here), I thought, bastards, it’s a scam and ignored it. The success of such scams does depend a great deal on the state of mind in which they find us when they arrive.