About

About me

We are a group of writers and bloggers. We not lawyers - this website is not meant to be taken as advice - neither legal advice nor general advice. Rather, it is an aggregation of information from various consumer rights websites including Victorian Consumer Affairs, Consumer Action Law Center, the ACCC ASIC, and from Sean Hardy's website. Sean Hardy is a practicing Victorian Barrister who gives free advice through his website forum.

This website brings all this information together in one place. It provides references throughout to where the information was obtained from. Where we are not directly quoting specific documents such as the ACCC Debt Collection Guidelines, we are giving an opinion, and what we say shouldn't be taken as fact.

Johnny Smithson has been quoted in, or this site has been linked from, the following Metropolitan newspapers and nation wide magazines or legal publications:

• Sydney Daily Telegraph

• Melbourne Herald Sun

  • Choice Magazine and again

  • Just Answer Australian Law

  • Last December, John Rolfe's asked Johnny to answer questions from the readers of his Telegraph Blog column.

As someone who has had a friends go through this before, Johnny was keen to provide information and options to others, as others had helped us when a close relative of Johnny's was going through this. After his relative was finished the process of disputing their debt, Johnny helped out by answering questions on a couple of discussion sites, but found he was answering the same questions all the time so he decided to put the info in one place on this website, so he could refer people to it with just a link.

After Johnny created a few short pages on this website several years ago, Johnny thought that was to be the end of it, and that his website would slowly gather dust. But shortly after he created it, he started receiving rather disturbing emails from people who had been treated very badly by some companies. From people such as Brian (see Brian's story) and Joanne who said she felt "stalked" by one of the companies (see Joanne's story). So then he recording more and more stores such as Brian and Joanne's on this site.

The information on the website is nothing that cannot be found elsewhere. It is designed to give people clear options, but doesn't tell people what to do. For example, it gives three options to respond to letters - ignore, respond with a denial, or to pay the amount demanded. All three options are valid for different people. For example, an elderly person who is stressed by the letters to the extent that is its affecting their health, may decide to pay. That is a valid option for them. So they are all just options, and we don't mean or intend to tell you what to do because we don't know your personal circumstances and even if we did, we are not legal practitioners. In that regard, please assume the authors of this website does not have any special qualifications, authority or credentials. Please read the references on the site yourself and make your own decision.