Filed here for the sake of completeness: Well done Sarah.
Sarah King: Courage under fire. (Click for link)
It took 5 years and 257 complaints but the Commerce Commission have finally acted on NBO and all the spin off “businesses” operated by Shallendra Singh, Jitendra Singh and Sonia “All I ever did was work for him” Klair who just so happens to also be known as Sonia Singh.
The NZ Herald reports today that NBOL directories have been raided as part of a Commerce Commission investigation the paper describes as ‘an unprecedented crackdown on alleged large-scale invoicing scams’. Search into online scam
Sarah King, an internet consultant who has been warning people about these three websites since 2007, welcomed the action by the Commission: “I’m looking forward to what they do next,” she said.
In June last year King received letters from law firm Hesketh Henry that said her internet articles claiming Shallandra Singh’s businesses were scams were defamatory.
Lawyer Frank Chan, who wrote the letters, said Singh was no longer a client. Financial records show National Business Online defaulted on a $27,997 bill to Hesketh Henry this year.
I’m proud of you Sarah. Good work exposing them.
I don’t have a printable reaction to the news that lawyers Hesketh Henry didn’t get fully paid for their no-doubt-designed-to-intimidate-and-induce-stress threatening letters crap. (oops) I guess that happens a lot. – P
Thanks Peter. It actually all started in 2005 but whats a year or two?
I don’t have a lot of pity for Hesketh Henry despite vaguely knowing a few of their lawyers. I guess the whole profession would crash if they were required to be sure of their facts before sending anything out. I can’t help feeling a bit peeved at them though for letting the scammers slip through their fingers.
It will be interesting to see if the Singhs & Klair can get anyone to act for them now. Can you get legal aid for this kind of thing? Is that a fair use of our taxes? And where did all the money go?
Well, thank YOU Sarah for the encouragement and example.
I know from personal experience how those threatening letters (even if written by a good lawyer) can be absolutely full of it … but still need mentally ‘processing’.
And one can feel a bit unsettled by them… the cost of having the argument as we (you and I) discussed on PropertyTalk.
I never thought for a second the NBOL threat to ‘sue you for defamation’ was realistic.
Neither for that matter do I think Matthew Gilligan and Dean Letfus would ever seriously contemplate carrying through their various vulgar threats to sue PropertyTalk over discussions on that forum, despite their tub-thumping and sabre-rattling (‘small man syndrome’ someone unkindly called it). The ‘reputational’ and other risks — for them — are just too damn high and a decent lawyer would, eventually, advise them of that.
But it takes guts to stand up to bullies.
Anyway, good on you for sticking to your guns and not being intimidated into silly concessions. – P
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