The plight of Mrs Bunty Money, who was aggressively hounded by shady Joburg law firm Van de Venter Mojapelo Inc (VVM) for an amount she didn’t owe (nose123) elicited considerable response from noseweek readers:
- Cliff Livingstone says he is being pursued by VVM for rates on a Lyndhurst, Joburg, house which was sold by his wife six years ago.
- Another reader, Greg de Chaves, complains that for some time VVM have been harassing him over a rates bill outstanding on a house he sold seven years ago, and are now threatening to have him blacklisted. VVM are demanding that he prove his innocence by producing a rates-clearance certificate. His response: “Who keeps that sort of thing?” (Besides – how does a property get transferred to its new owner without a rates clearance certificate?)
- David Wolpert, reports that he’s been getting rude and aggressive telephone calls and text messages from VVM for months, demanding that he pay a Telkom debt allegedly incurred by a now insolvent company, of which Wolpert was a director – but for which he never signed surety. He left the company’s service in 2005 and believes it went into liquidation in 2007. Although VVM staff have conceded to Wolpert that they can’t verify that he is in fact legally responsible for the debt, they insist that he must pay – unless he can prove that he is not liable. The threats culminated with a final letter of demand (dated 24 December 2009), addressed, quite absurdly, to “Business David Wolpert”.
Wolpert referred the matter to the Law Society of the Northern Provinces, ending his letter with a weary plea: “I would appreciate it if you can assist me to stop this unlawful terrorising of an uninvolved citizen.” But to no avail: The Law Society, keen as ever to have the legal profession live up to its slimeball reputation, simply slapped Wolpert on the wrist for not submitting his complaint as an affidavit.
The Society proceeded to clarify the matter by telling Wolpert that attorneys represent “their clients regarding a claim that their client alleges they have against a debtor”. In other words, in the view of The Law Society, attorneys are under no obligation of any kind to ascertain whether or not the claim they are hired to pursue against someone has any legal validity.
The Law Society’s solution to the situation was that, if Wolpert objected to being unlawfully harassed by an attorney, he should get an attorney to help him.
Wolpert’s response was considerably more dignified than anything the legal profession had managed thus far: “I have always been under the impression that a registered attorney would, at all times, be required to uphold the high principles of the legal profession and would be obliged to conduct him/herself in a manner aimed at maintaining the ethics and values laid down by the profession’s governing body. Threatening and haranguing a member of the public, while aware that that party has no debt whatsoever to the client, merely in order to earn collection and related fees, would, in my view, not constitute anything like the type of integrity and ethics referred to above. I will take your advice and engage an attorney to put a stop to the harassment.”
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