This makes me sad.
I signed up with TRL over the phone, after they answered some tough questions... for a month-to-month pre-paid service. I paid, they activated it... it worked for a month.
I used it on and off over a time... some months I didn't use it, some months when I'd need it, I'd pay, they'd activate it, and I'd use it... until one month I paid, and the service worked for a few days and then stopped working. Their website happened to be offline everytime I checked, and their phones didn't work, over a period of several weeks... so I forgot about them and wrote off the money I paid, thinking they went bust like so many fly-by-night companies did back then.
Then, a few months ago, I apply for an increase in my credit card limit at the bank, to get me through the month... lo and behold, I'm declined. Why? There's a JUDGEMENT against me!?
So I research the legal processes involved and it turns out they claim to have attached a summons to my door... one I clearly never got! Also, the summons is for me to appear in a court that is an 8 hour drive from where I live! Not only that, when a case that you are involved in, goes to court, and you're not there, you lose!
And what do I owe? Monthly fees for four months after the month that my service stopped working before I could use it! According to them, I agreed to a 30-day notice period when I signed up and supposedly I never cancelled the service. According to that logic, I'm surprised they're not trying to claim R30k+ from me for the months since, since I have to date not cancelled anything... as little as I ordered anything or signed any sort of contract.
We did argue this in email and over the phone... and he even agreed to refund 75% of the amount, if I paid 25%. I naturally refused, claiming he owed me the fee for the month of service that I in fact paid for but it didn't work! Our last communication was via phone, and the conversation ending with him saying "OK" and putting down the phone. Naturally, I expected that he has dropped the whole thing.
Next thing I find out about it is from the bank, who refuses to honor the new credit limit they marketed to me. Thankfully this all happened just after I got a bond, else I'd not have been able to take up the opportunity of a lifetime - buying a house at a really amazing price.
So this is all really annoying. But I suppose it's not much in a country where the bigger picture consists of two police chiefs who were fired, one who is in jail, and a president who spends the entire education budget of one province on a private mansion.
But the moral dilemma remains... do I quit my job and take off time to fight this and do my bit to fix the system that lead itself to this exploitation... or do I just pay what is in effect a legal form of extortion?
Look, my philosophy in life is that I if I can't pay for it up front, I don't want it. But the world isn't wired this way, and you can't live like this unless your parents left you at least a house. Which they didn't. Anyways, if anyone has any leads... that does not involve the bad guys getting the money, please let me know. Thanks.
Or Reuben, if you ever read this. Make things right... I'm sure whatever went wrong wasn't necessarily your fault, but two wrongs doesn't make a right.
What really annoys me is that there's not even a way to prevent this... it's not like you can call every single court every month to find out if someone made a case against you so you can defend yourself. The only thing you can do is to protect your private information as fiercely as possible... keep a list of everyone you give it to, and make a case against everyone who even tries to disagree with you... and take screenshots, photos and keep an exact diary of dates and times of every single little thing, so you can use it to defend yourself when the time comes.