I was contacted by a young guy who said he had some of his post intercepted, and criminals then tried to change his bank account details.  They did so with a fake Commissioner of Oaths stamp, in my name, together with address details that don’t correspond with my firm at all.  It is amazing how much crime there is out there, and how often these types of things go on.  Last year an East Rand firm, where I know one of the partners from his involvement in the Gauteng Law Council, sent me a letter about an account that I allegedly opened at some far off, East Rand printer, and which had not been paid and supplied me with cheque that I issued.  Again, completely fraudulent and fake information and it ultimately turned out that my original cheque had actually been made out to a witness for an accident for subpoena purposes and appears to have gone missing while in the office of the Sheriff or at some stage in the process of the subpoena being served and then having a new payee and amount inserted.

One of the delights, now that the elections are over, and what a wonderful turnout there was, is to be able to remove election posters and not face some sort of criminal sanction!  I cannot say how irritating I found it, every day I drive into the office, to have to drive past about five smiling faces on the telephone pole immediately at the entrance to my offices.  I will now have some relief for almost five years!

Apparently the Department of Justice will formally promulgate on Friday, 8 May 2009, to be effective from 15 June 2009, a 60% increase in party and party tariffs in both the High and Magistrates Courts.   A further 40 % increase will follow next year.

I think the Road Accident Fund made a strategic mistake in not appearing on Carte Blanche with regard to the changes of the Act and the postponement tactics adopted at Court.  Unless you really have no answer at all, not saying anything is always going to be worse than any answer, however silly that answer may be.  They came across as an organization that simply don't care - and they don't care if people don't think they care.  The transcript of the show can be read here: http://www.mnet.co.za/Mnet/Shows/carteblanche/Story.asp?Id=3689

I would love to hear your comments on the show on Radio 702 featuring Jacob Modise this morning.  I am certainly disappointed at the number of allegations made., completely lacking any factual basis that went unchallenged - such as the allegation that R4 billion last year was spent on on what would boil down to claims that were exaggerated or not real - as it was made to sound.  I certainly  got the impression that the Road Accident Fund or RAF believe no claimants are ever honest?  Certainly on the figures I heard on the show.

I must say that I was very disappointed to have missed out, in an absolute stampede it would appear on Computicket, to get tickets for the rugby final this weekend between the Bulls and the Waikato Chiefs at Loftus Versfeld. I noticed however, after it was drawn to my attention by a few staff members that there are lots of tickets being sold on a bidding website called Bid or Buy and when I last looked they had a R1 000,00 reserve price on the tickets – which effectively means the top price tickets have been multiplied by three.  They always go on about ticket scalping being illegal, but I am not quite sure in terms of what law it is that one cannot on-sell a ticket and the fact that they never seem to prosecute anybody tends to make me think about that.  If you have any idea, please won’t you add something under the “comments” so that I may see that.