30 September 2008

Telco Fraud : Supported by law

Recently a matter has been lodged within an government organisation, outlining a fraudulent activity managed by an Australian Telco.

It has been documented that the contractors are being ripped of, from their salary, with contracts that they sign, and the balance being split between the agency and the Telco.

This practice has been identified by a legal firm as fraudulent.

The amount that the workers are being ripped off is in the magnitude of millions of dollars per year, with the scope to be in the tens of millions depending of the breadth of the offense.

In order to take onus away from the institution, with which the documentation was lodged, the representative from the organisation, claims that they do not understand what has been written, and pointed the individual on a goose chase, e.g to claim holiday / sick pay entitlements, which was NOT the concern of the documentation.

With similar cases of fraud, and collapses of large institutions:

HiH Insurance - BUST - the public did not see the money;
Quintex - BUST - again the people lost,

the law generally does NOT refund the public the monies they have been defrauded of, and the companies concerned are NOT penalised accordingly.

Eg. :
Steve Vizard fined $400,000 for a $3,000,000 fraud - 11% fine (better than tax)
Pratt fined $36 million for a $700 million fraud - 5% - (did better than Vizard)

Since this matter has been initiated by a member of the public (read : no lawyers have been involved to charge ridiculous amounts for their time : money given to mates), and as a consequence, contractors across the entire board would be applicable to claim, the matter has NO chance of success.

In the cases of a Queensland Police officer who WON a case of sexual harassment again the force was awarded an approx amount of $120,000 of WHICH approx. $105,000 was "GIVEN" to the lawyers for the legal costs.

There is ONE of THE most important aspects that needs to be taken into consideration, and that is of PRECEDENCE.

A matter of this magnitude CANNOT make it to court for it can set a precedence.

Justice is NOT as matter of who is right, but who has the BIGGER WALLET to prove / disprove.


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