This piece is a follow up on part one, which details my experience with a car rental scam involving East Coast Car Rentals and subsequent legal battle during my year in Australia. If you haven’t taken a look at part one, please do so before reading this to familiarize yourself with the matter. On this page, I will share my thoughts and concerns regarding this experience.
As you saw in part one, I was repeatedly faulted by the Tribunal for not bringing evidence to show I was not at fault for the incident. First and for most, under Australian law I am not required to prove I am not at fault for causing damage to avoid being held liable for it. That burden rests on which ever party is claiming damages. It would not have been possible for me to prove this on my own anyway. I made it clear that the best evidence that could have been provided would have been if Roadside Assistance had come to retrieve the vehicle and inspect it on site, as the rental agreement itself had stipulated when such incidents occur. But instead I was left stranded in the roadway and forced to call a tow truck and cover the costs, after which the vehicle remained in the possession of East Coast Car Rentals and, according to their own timeline, was taken apart a few days later. By violating their own terms and conditions, the company had ensured there was no way for me to obtain such evidence. This is a point which neither the rental company nor the Tribunal was able to counter or bothered to address.
Then there was the evidence that I did have, which I did provide: that the mechanical component that failed, the outer CV joint, is one of the sturdiest components of the undercarriage and its failure is almost always mechanical or maintenance related. It very rarely fails due to impact. This was a point I outlined at length in my written statement and provided several articles from auto technician websites to support it, both of which were available to the Tribunal Members as evidence. This is one of many points I made which the rental company failed to address or refute. I did not refer directly to this point during the hearing as I was not asked to do so, nor did I think it was necessary for me to say anymore as the other side made no arguments for me to refute and their case appeared in shambles. But it seems to me if the Tribunal did want me to provide some sort of evidence, they should have asked me about this during the hearing, yet they chose not to, probably because, regardless of the law, facts or evidence, they had made up how they were going to rule no matter what.
Between the rental company’s own actions, invoking unlawful contract terms and breaching their own rental agreement, sloppy statements submitted as evidence, the flaws in their evidence and timeline, the repositioning of the wheel and close angle photographs, the company’s own track record and my clean driving record (the latter two I also submitted as evidence to show which party was more credible), and the nature of the accident and the mechanical component that failed, the evidence was clearly in my favor. It was more than enough for more likely than not, and I could have proven my case beyond all reasonable doubt if I actually did manage to get a mechanic to inspect the original damage.
The rental company was bad enough, but the Tribunal had turned out to be equally bad or worse. Just like the rental company, it seems the New South Wales Civil Tribunal also has a long and unscrupulous track record and is long overdue for an inquiry and an overhaul. There are forums all over the internet full of complaints and stories similar to my own, many of which are quite lengthy and detailed and appear to show quite a bit of thought and understanding of legal matters. For starters, just look at the Google Reviews when searching “New South Wales Civil Tribunal” on Google.
The criticism is not confined to internet forums either. Below is a quote from a New South Wales Member of Parliament from 2008 (as I said, the tribunal has quite a long and extensive track record). You can see the transcript for the full speech here:
“The CTTT seems to reward liars, rogues, and defaulters, yet it punishes honest people because they lack the experience of the serial applicants and defendants. The system is incredibly biased against first time users…
A review of the Supreme Court’s rulings where tribunal member’s decisions have been set aside or overturned makes mind-boggling readings-members failing to give coherent reasons for their decisions as required by the Act; members failing to give reasons at all when awarding costs, members not understanding their jurisdiction, especially in home building matters; members inappropriately criticizing a party during the hearing; and even a senior member who had a ruling overturned by the Supreme Court then attempting to rehear the matter and refusing to excuse himself…
This is what is going on at the CTTT. Surely the Minister cannot seriously suggest that this is efficient, cost effective or fair to the parties.”
There was also a report submitted to the New South Wales Parliament in 2011 outlining major problems and, as it states “the utter failure and disfunction of” the tribunal. The list is quite alarming, and includes many that my experience appears to highlight quite clearly, including this: “The Tribunal is unwilling to accept that errors may have been made in earlier decisions and take steps to correct those errors-this appears to be about protecting the Tribunal rather than protecting the members of the public who have sought the protection and support of the Tribunal” (Number 13).
Shortly after this report the Tribunal was merged with several other smaller tribunals, but little seems to have changed since then. As one forum puts it, “NCAT is still the CTTT.” There is even a forum detailing experiences from people who have dealt with family matters before the Guardianship Division of the tribunal. The idea of people dealing with sensitive and emotional family matters having the type of experiences as myself and so many others and receiving that type of treatment is truly heartbreaking.
There have even been petitions, several of them, calling for reforms to the tribunal system. This one is calling for the New South Wales Parliament to open an investigation into to tribunal, and is close to reaching the 500 signatures it needs to be launched. Take a look at the signees reasons for signing to appreciate the scope of this.
But it is not just the tribunal in New South Wales that has these problems. There are forums full of similar complaints about tribunals in other Australian states. Here is a blog detailing problems with the tribunal in Victoria. It seems this is how a significant part of the Australian legal system works (or doesn’t work).
Then there is the rental company. It seems East Coast Car Rentals has a long and unscrupulous track record. For starters, there is this forum full of complaints. The company’s contract terms have also been singled out by consumer watchdogs. But besides this, the company and its (now former) owner Boon Tan Seng seem to have some questionable ties to local politicians in Queensland, particularly with the Liberal National Party. A few years ago there was an anti-corruption investigation into a backdoor land sale between him and the (then) Lord Mayor of Brisbane, which was made without putting the land up for tender as is legally required. Boon Tan Seng was sold a piece of land next to an East Coast Car Rentals office in central Brisbane for $3.3 million. The application for approval failed to disclose that Boon Tan Seng was a donor. The application was ultimately rejected and the land sold for $5.5 million when put up for sale. While the investigation found no evidence of illegal wrongdoing, it was critical of the way in which the deal played out.
There are some serious financial discrepancies here. Based on my observation and that of other reviews I’ve seen, East Coast Car Rentals does not seem to have been doing a very good business and has a troubled financial history. A few years before this land sale the company got wound up to pay out a claim against it from a court case involving an insurance claim it refused to honor. Unfortunately I can no longer find the link describing the court case, but the company had tried to use fine print to get out of paying an insurance claim involving a customer involved in an accident, but the Brisbane Magistrates court ruled against it. But just a few years later it donated $50,000 to Brisbane politicians. The company was also at one point a sponsor to the Brisbane Roar soccer team when its (now former) CEO Mark Kingsman was the manager of the team.
I may not know everything about the company and its finances or be an expert on how this works, but it seems questionable how a company with this sort of background and financial history would be able to provide tens of thousands of dollars in donations to political campaigns and sponsorships. It is also unclear exactly where Boon Tan Seng got the money to afford to make a $3.3 million land deal. The only other company linked to him at the time that I am aware of is Nudgee Capital Investments. Nudgee Capital Investments is mentioned in the articles above as the source of a $363,000 deposit on the land sale. But Nudgee Capital Investments went out of business just one year afterwards. A simple google search for Nudgee Capital Investments comes up blank. Besides some registration and deregistration information, there is no website, no mention of any physical address or location, no advertisements or customer reviews, and no evidence that such a company ever existed or operated.
So what was Nudgee Capital Investments? How did it go from paying a $363,000 deposit to going out of business in one years time? The whole thing raises serious questions about East Coast Car Rentals and the people who were running it. Why would a company and a businessman who operate like this have such close ties to local politicians and the Lord Mayor of Brisbane? I do not know the answers and do not know if I have missed anything, but the whole thing looks questionable to say the least.
Boon Tan Seng sold East Coast Car Rentals shortly after my dealings with them. It was for a time owned in part by Mark Kingsman, previously the company’s CEO and for a short time the manager of the Brisbane Roar soccer team. Kingsman apparently died in a jet ski accident not too long ago. I do not know very much about the new company management.
East Coast Car Rentals is far from the only car rental company in Australia to look out for. It seems the Australian car rental industry is full of companies like this providing unsafe rental vehicles and using illegal terms and conditions. There are forums all over the internet full of similar complaints. There have indeed been tourists who have been killed while driving rental vehicles that were unsafe. But Australian authorities have done little to seriously address the problem, while the legal system allows for it to keep happening.