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Australian Court Lets Lawyer Serve Papers Via Facebook

Posted by kdawson on from the super-poked dept.

a302b writes "A Canberra lawyer has been permitted to serve legal documents via Facebook for a couple who defaulted on a loan. He claims he needed to do this because he was unable to track them down to a physical address. At what point does our online presence become 'real?' And what opportunities are available for fraud, if social networking sites are considered legal representations of ourselves, even when they can be anonymously created under any name?"

13 of 204 comments (clear)

  1. But.... by arthurpaliden · · Score: 4, Interesting

    How does he know that the person is infact the one he wants? It could be someone registering with a false name. No, I guess it could not be cause that is now illegal.

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    1. Re:But.... by __aasqbs9791 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      My dad ran into someone with the same first name, last name, and one of my middle names and when he talked to the guy a little more he found out we were born on the same day in the same hospital! This was a few years ago in a small town we lived in at the time (which is over 800 miles from the said hospital, so it is even more interesting.) The guy was just passing through town with his family, so I never met him (time travel paradox adverted!)

    2. Re:But.... by QuantumRiff · · Score: 5, Interesting

      There was trouble tracing a problem with a person in our DB at a college I used to work in. They were listed in the system twice. Same Name, birthday, address, marital status, and age. In fact, the only difference was the social security number and gender. One had taken a few classes, one was full time. We spent forever tracking down the problem, assuming someone created a typo when they created the student record, then thought to call the phone number listed as their phone number (yep, same number) and they both came in. Husband and Wife were both named "Leslie" (Not common for a man, but not unheard of) both were born on the same day, in different states, and had been married for 25 years with children also attending the college. That day taught me a reminder I still keep around about jumping to conclusions. Sure, your 99.999% sure, but that leaves 1 out of 100,000, and someone has to be that one...

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    3. Re:But.... by Fluffeh · · Score: 2, Interesting

      More important than that, in Australia court papers need to be served in a manner that ensures the person being served is both given the information and also is aware that they are given it.

      Sending papers by the mail for example is NOT considered good enough.

      I don't see how this guy could guarantee that the users got proper notification that they did in fact get served the court papers. Short of getting the person to write a reply email confirming that they have indeed accepted the papers (which I would see as being as good as a signature on a sheriff's slip) I can't see how this can possibly stand up.

      My understanding is that any ruling based on "being served" can be easily disputed if the party serving the papers cannot prove that the right person got the papers, and that they have proof that they got the papers. I cannot see that via facebook.

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    4. Re:But.... by ArsenneLupin · · Score: 2, Interesting

      As you can imagine, the chances of you disappearing from society and leaving no trace of how to contact you with employers, neighbors, family, and friends is fairly small...unless you're running from something.

      I know a guy who thought it smart to just "disappear" for a year, touring the world.

      When he came back, his large real estate holdings were foreclosed, because there was problems with some tenants who failed to pay their utility bills and just left (some even taking the keys with them...). The company that my friend had hired to look after the building failed to do anything about the situation, so the city moved to confiscate the building in order to pay the bills.

    5. Re:But.... by kabocox · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Personal service is preferred, and process servers go to extreme and often comical lengths to put the paper in your hand, but some people refuse to accept service. Should you have to continue a manhunt for a year, at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars, in order to exercise your legal rights? How would you feel if someone potentially owed you thousands or millions of dollars and you couldn't get it because they wouldn't open the door?

      I'd be more upset at the system that allowed that rather than the individual that evaded being called up by the system. The thing is that process server is supposed to make sure that the right people get the papers. Think of 3-5 people with the same name living on the same street with only the address numbers being slightly different. I doubt that happens too much in the physical world, but it would be much easier to happen online.

      I had a college friend named Mark Miller. When I tried looking him up a few months ago, there were 10 Mark Millers in the same city as he was last known. I didn't need to find him badly enough to actually contact each of the 10 to find out if any of them where him, but I'd imagine that a process server would have to do that and then physically contact the person. Well, calling people on the phone/cell or e-mailing them is easy. It's difficult to actually verify if the person that you've contacted is the person that you actually should be talking to though. Esp if you aren't already familiar with the person. (I might remember my friend from college and could tell him from the other 9 Mark Millers, how the heck would a process server tell them apart? The only thing that he has going for him is the address to limit it down a bit.

      It sounds like this lawyer didn't even have a current address. I'm sorry, but this doesn't sound like it should be valid at all. If anything, it would just let lawyers serve things without the proper people finding out until after the lawyer has had a court date and used his time to say that the other party defaulted so his side should win.

  2. Wait, via Facebook? by strredwolf · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Couldn't the lawyer request Facebook give up the goods on the couple?

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  3. Proven by the RIAA by BearGrylls · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If nothing else, the RIAA has proven that the end of online anonymity is coming. Why is anyone surprised that this is happening? It's sketchy, and from what I understand barely legal, but it's gaining momentum.

  4. At what point isn't an online presence 'real'? by Zadaz · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What trog wrote the summary?

    Most of my clients know me only via phone number, email address, or chat alias. I still produce work and they still pay me.

    My bank and my credit cards knows me by a made up user name. They still let me move my money around.

    Amazon only knows me by a made up name and they trust me enough to take my money and ship goods to some address I just gave them.

    The only thing controversial about serving documents via Facebook is that I don't know how you can verify delivery, which is kind of the whole point of serving papers.

  5. Re:This could be used for by jamesh · · Score: 4, Interesting

    That's a very valid point.

    "Yes your Honor, I do recall receiving a message with that subject/content but I deleted it assuming it was spam or a virus. After all, what kind of an idiot would serve a legal document via Facebook?".

    Aside from the fact that inferring that a judge is an idiot is seldom a good idea, it would appear to be a valid assumption - it's what I would do if I saw an email with a subject that looked like it contained a legal document (or any attachment from someone I didn't know), and ditto for a facebook message if I had a facebook account.

  6. Australian Debt Recovery anything goes by tg123 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm surprised they even have lawyers in that colony of misfits.

    Your not too far wrong sadly enough.

    This story is really about australian debt recovery. In australia short of actual physical violence you use any tactic you like to recover debt.

    You can even make threaten violence and scare the sh*t out of someone to get your money and the court will let you get away with it.

    this is a link to a few who got fined. NOTE: ONLY FINED

    http://www.fairtrading.qld.gov.au/OFT/OFTWeb.nsf/Web+Pages/3C3C486D9B068FDF4A256FDC007E3CB5?OpenDocument&L1=News

    1. Re:Australian Debt Recovery anything goes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It's a pretty sleazy industry

      It is a very sleazy industry. I just had issue a month ago with a phone company when I cancelled my account. They never issued a final bill; instead referring the matter straight to their preferred debt collector. Funny that the debt collector had the correct address but the phone company swears black and blue that they never had my correct address.

      I ended up on the wrong end of the phone trying to get a bill out of the debt collector. Spent nearly 6 hours being transferred around and around on a few different phone calls. Their whole attitude was 'if you'd paid the bill you wouldn't be in this mess, so pay the bill" to which I continued to reply "If I'd been sent a bill it would have been paid". That went around in circles.

      To top it all off, the bill would have actually been due about now, so the debt collector was unnecessary.

      Eventually I had to go to the relevant industry associations to get anywhere. Said phone company still hasn't actually sent me a correct bill (no it's not T$ for once), won't communicate with me and won't compensate me for the almost whole business day of lost income because I was trying to deal with their incompetence.

  7. .....no way.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    This can not be happening.....this is just opening the doorway to huge scams and total bullshit...if we cant escape the real world for just a bit to chat to friends and relax then we are totally controlled by the laws....we will never have a time to ourself's if we are getting stalked by financial institutions in our private friendly place.

    Just fuck off!