Largest library late fee you have paid?

[SailorMom]

I paid $24 once... and boy - handing over $24 for a few books probably worth about $15 total if I had bought them was a great way to make sure I never forgot again!

[g7s22]

My library cuts us off at $10, and we have come very close! My kids now are in charge of checking their own cards on the morning of library day, and paying any fines if necessary. Not as many fines anymore..;)

[LaughingCat]

Our library also has a $15 limit for racking up fines. I've hit that but usually pay when it gets around $5. Good thing you didn't ask how much per year though. :tongue_smilie: Since I have 87 books out right now on MY card (not counting any others) I think I get my money's worth! So far I've managed to avoid any big single fines - although once I had out some tv show "season" and misplaced it, and if it weren't for the kindness of the local staff giving me extra time to find it I'd have been paying out the wazoo ($50 to replace - even though I saw it on amazon for $20 AND I never even watched it lol ).

 

Back "in the day" when I moved home after college for a short time, I went to the local library and found to my dismay that I had a $50 fine waiting for me - and all the books were ones my Mom had checked out on my card 4 years before! I told the staff that, and they said if I brought them back they'd return the money. Went home and found them sitting on the bookshelf pretty as can be. My Mom said she'd carried them around in the trunk of her car for a long time and had finally given up and taken them out :lol:

[swellmomma]

On one card or all cards combined at once? let's just say I have easily owed more than $25 on 1 item before (like a forgotten dvd at $1 per day). Technically my card is supposed to be locked once fines hit $10 BUT my home library doesn't hold me to it, eventually everything gets paid off but not necessarily as soon as it hits $10

[Shellers]

A few years ago I owed about $104. I returned the books and ignored the bills. The library took me to collections so I paid up.

[Pretty in Pink]

Last month I paid off a 45.00 late fee. I thought that was terrible. Some of you gals certainly have beaten me!

[Tap]

Duck and run...our regular library system doesn't have fines. :D

 

 

We do borrow from over the state line and I occastionally have $10 or so to pay there. I actaully pay the most money to have books mailed to me. It costs $2.50 per book, which is cheaper than gasoline there and back for single books that I can't get at our more local system.

[bookfiend]

Our library also has a $2.00/book; $10.00 total fine. They will stop lending if the account hits $50.00. Shamefully, I abuse this system and wait until my fines are near that before I clear the account for $10.00.

 

I hope our library administrator never reads this thread; I'm grateful for the cap.

[Rhonda in TX]

My highest was about $75. I've had over $20 many times, though. This is one reason I love checking out ebooks with my Nook. There is no way they can be late (automatically turned in), so no late fees!

[QuirkyKidAcademy]

$40 on 2 cards. They did take payments.

[rwjx2khsmj]

I prefer to think of it as a contribution rather than a fine.

Our limit is $10. Our last library didn't have fines.

[joannqn]

I've had two in the $36-$37 range.

[SweetMissMagnolia]

$20

[MamaT]

My largest was about $50.

[lailasmum]

£90 about 4 years ago.

[BlsdMama]

It was the low $80's. Late fees, plus one broken book and one lost book. Moving week - 'nuff said. :glare:

 

(And, no it isn't cheaper just to buy them. Generally speaking we have a few dollars worth of fines each month - $5-$10 but nothing catastrophic. But we probably check out about 50 or so books each month. We have an excellent library system IMO.)

 

I was sad to pay all that but really, truly loved our old library. I'm hoping our current one will be as loveable. It's within the same system but I need to get to know the librarians! :)

Edited April 5, 2012 by BlsdMama

[M&M]

I don't know what the largest fine I have ever paid, but yesterday I paid $12 in fines, $1.25 to the parking meter and since the meter expired 5 min before we came out of the library , I now have a $ 25 parking ticket to pay! Amazon is starting to look good again!

[VeteranMom]

$48- my kids didn't remember that they had a wii game and it was quite overdue.

[Tammyla]

$12...:glare:

[Hannah C.]

I don't know if I've ever paid a fine...and I am a heavy library user. I only returned books late at the library which didn't charge overdue fines - they just froze your account until you returned or renewed the books. :D

 

I've worked at 2 libraries, and the highest fine I've heard of was well over $500 and climbing for a family with multiple cards. One library I worked at turned an overdue book into a lost book after a while - the cost to replace a lost book was $60.

 

At the library I currently work at, overdue fees are $.25/book/day and $2/DVD or VHS/day. Replacement fee is the value of the book plus a $5 processing fee. The library does waive fees or parts of fees at times, sometimes quite large ones. They put notes in the system when they do that, though, so that it won't be abused. All kids' cards are connected to a parent, and if one card has overdue fines all the cards get blocked.

 

We also check in all books when they are returned and check them in *AGAIN* before we shelve them. As a result, it is EXTREMELY rare for a book to be reshelved by library staff without being checked in. The library I worked at previously did not do this.

[thescrappyhomeschooler]

Our library also won't let you check anything out if you have fines over $10.00.

[lcelmer]

$22ish... :-( But that is MUCH MUCH cheaper than buying all the books for Tapestry of Grace! We were down with the flu for 2 weeks after the due date arrived... :-P

[MelAR05]

The most I have paid is 27.50 and that was a couple of weeks ago. I love the library so much, probably too much, that I don't mind paying fees. Between 3 different libraries, one of which is an hour away, I have about 100+ books checked out at one time.

[Sk8ermaiden]

Over my life I have paid thousands and thousands to libraries. My books just never ended up turned back in, and so I paid the replacement value for them. 6-12 grade, every 6 weeks saw me dutifully trudging to the library to pay my hold so I could get my report card (I escaped 1-5 grade because mom was a teacher in the school and knew when I had overdue books.) Same deal every semester in college to register. Except college library books are waaaay more expensive to replace. My highest there was probably close to $500.

 

So then I didn't use a library for like 12 years.

 

We started preschooling two weeks ago and now I have a library card again. God save us all. I am hoping that being so close to the library + needing to go frequently for new books will help keep me in line. Because at the rate I am already checking stuff out, there is no way I can afford my usual fines.

 

And my problem is severe ADD. Severe. And being the most forgetful person in the world, which may or may not be related. I lose EVERYTHING. I forget conversations I had a week ago. It's nuts.

Edited April 6, 2012 by Sk8ermaiden

[Classical Country Mama]

There's a library I think I might still owe some money to, like $40, for a bunch of books I returned a week late because of emergency surgery. Er, in the '90s.

 

We've moved several times since then, but years later, if I happened to drive past that branch, I would turn to look out the other way just in case they had face-matching video cameras pointed toward the street.

 

Maybe somebody in my house should call them to find out for sure.

[besroma]

I have paid plenty of library fines during the past few years. The most humiliating thing about it is that when you pay your fines at our library, they print a receipt for you that lists every book with the title, author, and amount of fine etc. It prints on a dot matrix type printer that can be heard all over our small library and I always end up with a very lengthy receipt. My kids always lift it up gleefully to see if it is taller than I am! I call it the public list of my transgressions.

 

:lol:

 

Our highest to date is $9.60. I just paid a fine at the library tonight. While I was there, she told me I had late fees for a book I was pretty sure I had returned. I asked her if we could check the shelves for it.

 

We did. It was sitting there right on the shelf! If I had not asked her to check, I would have had to pay $14.95 for the book plus a $5 processing fee!

[Kirch]

$50-something. We had some really bad weather last winter and ended up having to go stay with my in-laws for a few days. The last thing on my mind was library books. I probably could've asked for some grace, but we just went ahead and paid it.

[Kirch]

We also check in all books when they are returned and check them in *AGAIN* before we shelve them. As a result, it is EXTREMELY rare for a book to be reshelved by library staff without being checked in. The library I worked at previously did not do this.

 

I wish our library did this! I've gone in multiple times and found a book on the shelf that theyxstill had checked out to me. They're always really good about fixing it, though.

[sewingmama]

Depending on where you live - a lot of libraries in Australia don't have fines.

 

I lend from two libraries -my local one has an automatic $8 fine no matter how many books you have (but you get an overdue notice and one weeks late grace before they charge you). So it's $8 per issue not per book -so if you borrow books on three different days and they are all overdue it would be $24.

 

The other library charges 5c a book per week late. I lost a book once and it was 2 weeks late and I was charged 10 cents :tongue_smilie:

 

I go to the library 2-3 times a week (it's close) and storytime etc etc so the staff know me well. If I go up to them and apologise for the book being late they usually tell me "Oh we know you are so good with your books usually and you need them for homeschooling we will wipe your fine" :D I love my library.

 

Oh I have paid quite a few replacement fees though - I have 2 kids who are very sensory and love to rip pages :glare: The library allows me to buy the book from somewhere else (much cheaper) and just give that copy to them.

[jubilation]

$19. We live 30 minutes from the library, and when we check out books, I normally use the renewal system to renew for a full 6 weeks and save myself the gas money.

 

However, the one and only time that I checked out a few DVDs, I didn't realize they weren't renewable like the books, nor did I realize that the fees were 4x higher than the fees for late books, until it was too late. I told the librarian that I was doing my part to support the library system.

 

Needless to say, I never check out library DVDs anymore. The $8 per month that I pay for streaming netflix is much cheaper than the risk of another fine like that. :lol:

[nono]

I don't know what the largest fine I have ever paid, but yesterday I paid $12 in fines, $1.25 to the parking meter and since the meter expired 5 min before we came out of the library , I now have a $ 25 parking ticket to pay! Amazon is starting to look good again!

 

 

:grouphug: That's just lousy! :sad:

[LaughingCat]

I have often had our library re-shelve without checking in, even before they went to those magnetic stickers (where they can hold multiple books under the scanner at once). If it is not overdue, I just go and look on the shelf myself and turn it back in. If it is overdue, I go up to a staff person and tell them "I turned in this book, but it's showing up as still checked out" - and they go and look on the shelf and then wipe out my fine. They do go out of their way to look widely and various places in case it was mis-shelved but it would be nice if they didn't have to do that at all :tongue_smilie:

[LBS]

I am not allowed to check books out of the library. I paid for too many books. Once they're overdue so long they're really lost, they make you pay for it. My librarians are ultra nice and have forgiven some books lost, and forgiven some fines, but, ultimately, I just make out better ordering online from Amazon, or going to a really huge used bookstore. I visit the library, read lost of odd periodicals and peruse the shelves, and attend their fundraising booksales. Every time I try to get in a cycle of checking out books again, it ends the same. The most my fine has been was under $100, but repeatedly incurred. Makes me fee so stupid. Makes me feel so human to hear of others doing stuff like this.

 

Thanks!

[Virg]

If you add all of ours together I think we are at about $40. You can't check out if you have more than $10 in fines on a particular card but luckily they aren't linked so I rotate between our cards :) We have a 30 book per card limit though so I always have to use more than one card at each check out. I try so hard but..... I suck at returning books I guess.