Thursday 7 October 2010

ACS:Law - 2 weeks on and STILL threatening the UK public, what can we do?

A SPECIAL REPORT FROM ACS:NEWS HEADQUARTERS, LONDON

It has been exactly two weeks since the castrosptropic email leak at notorious 'legalised scam' law firm ACS:Law.  Many, both inside and outside the legal circle believed this would strike the end of the rogue firm and finally put their 'get rich quick' scheme to bed.

Unbelievably 14 days later people are still reporting being harassed by Andrew Crossley for ridiculous sums of between £495 and over £1000.  A post today by Slyck user 'ANGRYMAN' states that he has just received a second letter from ACS telling him to pay up or face ficticious court fines, suggesting that ACS:Law are still in operation.

"Okay Ive been following this thread for some while now as I am one of the many who has been wrongly accused. I got my second letter just now after my first lod had been refused as they say it was a template letter. Utter nonsense as I added half the words to the lod myself. I just copied the paragraph with the law acts involving the CDPA Act 1988 as I am no professional in the law. This letter that I have just received says if I do not pay the £495 within 14 days of receiving this 2nd letter then they will apply to the court for an immediate interim payment of £1000 towards their legal costs. What is this all about. Im innocent , can they do this, get money from you before you even go to court. Its outrageous. This ACS law company are really pushing it now. Threatening people with £1000 up front interim payments before you get taken to court surely cant be right. These people will not intimidate me. Ive not done it. Demanding up front legal costs by a court order before you go to court to cover their costs, whats that all about???" - ANGRYMAN, Slyck forums

As per usual, the helpful crew at Slyck, a forum ACS:Law previously attempted to shut down, jump on board to express their knowledge:

"ACS have been picked up on their lack of transparency re costs and fees before. They'll have plucked the £1000 (too round a figure to be real) out of thin air and would probably attribute it to the cost of sending their letters and other admin (LOL).
In reality the 1K has no other basis other than as an additional scare tactic." - Time on my hands, Slyck forums

"Don't worry about it, as far as I know this threat has no legal basis, as Time on my hands says, it's a scare tactic. A court cannot (will not?) award costs to someone on the basis of an accusation. The only way for this to happen (as far as I'm aware) is to have a trial and one side to be found guilty, and we all know that's not going to happen." - shufferin'shuccotash, Slyck forums

Could ACS:Law be attempting to milk as much from innocent people in what could be the final weeks of their existence?  It seems they're wasting absolutely no time sending out their usual hogwash to the masses that have previously sent ACS letters of denial[EDIT: PI guru Alexander Hanff explains why ACS cannot reject a LoD]

So, what can we do to help put the final nails in the coffin of Andrew Crossley and his team of currently legalised scammers?

Education is key here and what will be most feared by ACS:Law.  This is a firm built on taking advantage of the good, non-confrontational nature of most people, relying heavily, if not solely, on being able to bully via a suite and a letterhead.

A Google search for the law firm now suggests 'scam' as a search phrase, 'leak' as another and lists hundreds of results enlightening those who have fallen victim to an ACS letter to the foul nature of the firms existence.

Let's outline a few things that we, the average internet user, can do to ensure the demise of ACS:Law:
  • Don't stop informing people, the media and any contacts you may have about ACS:Law's operation and the leak.  Perhaps Crossley thinks that in time the chaos caused by the email leaks will 'die down', let's not allow that to happen.
  • Contact the new 'Legal Ombudsman' and the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) who, according to reports, are currently receiving hundreds if not thousands of complaints.  If you've received a letter then use this to your advantage, get in contact with the SRA and add to the numbers.
  • Contact your ISP today and ask them what they are doing to combat these 'IP collection' scams.  UK ISP Xilo has just stated that they WILL NOT hand over any customer data to the likes of ACS and strongly believe that IP collection methods are flawed and hold no real evidence to a case of copyright infringement.  Put pressure on your ISP to release a similar statement - remember BT and Plusnet are now rethinking giving data over so easily.  Let them know that the privacy of their paying customers should be a huge priority and if they cannot prove their will to protect you, you'll be going elsewhere.
Yesterday news broke to the taking down of three Spanish anti-P2P groups - SGAE.es, MCU.es and Promusicase.es by Anonymous, the collective term for nameless internet users using the power of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks as a means of protest.  Think of it as the online equivalant of standing outside of ACS:Law's offices with masks and banners, disrupting their business whilst bringing mass media attention.  The news was covered throughout Spain on national TV stations, radio and of course online.
As yet more 'get rich quick on the Internet' hopefuls jump on the 'sue 'em all' bandwagon, it seems as though there is no shortage of potential targets for Anonymous as the battle for online freedom continues...

18 comments:

  1. ACS:News wants to hear from you - Please contact your ISP and ask them to consider releasing an official statement outlining that they will never do future business with these law firms and fight any 'IP Collection' cases brought to them.

    Any information you can get from your ISP on or relating to this issue would be of great help so post it here along with the name of your ISP. The media is very interested in how ISP's are going to play this and your privacy concerns could be exactly what's needed to put and end to these IP collection scams for good.

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  2. BE Broadband won't do anything - I have repeatedly asked them questions regarding this issue - especially since they provided my wife's data to Andrew Crossley (for a fee of course) - they will not comment on it or answer any query - prefer to stick their heads in the sand

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  3. Well we didn't get mentioned in causing that money hungry egotistical man's demise but glad you guys noticed <.<

    Anonymous,

    We are legion

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  4. I was always a big supporter of BE/o2 and would recommend them to anyone. This has certainly made me reconsider my opinion of them and I'll almost certainly be taking my business to Xilo in a few months.

    I recently moved to another property literaly down the road from my previous address and moved my o2 connection with me. They failed to mention until after I moved that I wouldn't be able to get on their LLU exchange in the new location and my bill was bumped up from virtually nothing a month (o2 mobile customer) to £17.50 + the BT landline.

    Ok, I can live with that, I thought. But have you seen what they've done to the non-LLU customers? EVERYTHING is blocked. I'm talking everything and on a 'deep packet' level I believe. You can't use SoulSeek or other P2P applications - you can torrent but after a couple of hundred MB's your speed (HTTP aswell) is capped to LESS THAN DIALUP SPEEDS. No exaggeration.

    How am I getting around this and actually making the net useable for those in my household? A VPN. It gets around every type of blocking and throttling on the line.

    I understand o2 are having to rent from BT on their Broadband Access package and would prefer to have their customers on the LLU but what they've done makes the package absolutely unusable. I've also noticed they've just put a 20GB monthly cap up on their page online now too, something I won't be obeying because this was never said to me when I moved house.

    All that said, I'd still be a happy o2 customer IF I could get back on their proper LLU package. BUT NOT NOW. After they've shown an utter disregard for the privacy of their paying customers and basically SOLD US OUT I will be fucking squarely off to Xilo once I'm out of contract.

    £16.xx a month, PRO P2P, PRO PRIVACY, LLU on the way, NO RESTRICTIONS, NO HORSESHIT, customer service actually posting on places like ispreview. Oh and there's no contract - can you believe that shit? They're so confident with their service you can just WALK AWAY if you ever feel the need to. This is similar to when Kia slapped a 7 year warranty on all their cars to show how confident they are with their reliability and service. This is an ISP the average person would never have even heard of as they don't advertise on the god damn X Factor, between bullshit shows on ITV2, etc. Promote this ISP for fucks sake everyone, they're something special.

    Hey Xilo, start providing a home phone package too like o2 have started doing so I can get away from BT too!

    I hope they get a load of custom through this because I'd never even heard of them until this ACS:Law stuff broke and ISPs started selling us out.

    BIG UP XILO!

    ReplyDelete
  5. @Anonymous 2 up, check the rest of this blog..this whole ACS:news thing started when the attacks happened, the writers here are very much in on the scoop!!

    you can usually find them in payback irc..they clearly know what theyre doing.. lol

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  6. Excellent writeup :-) I hope you continue this blog well after the death of ACS Law... there are plenty of others ready to take their place who deserve this sort of outright grilling ;-)

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  7. Xilo's got guts

    Hats off to them

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  8. Enjoy your final days Mr Crossley. *puts the boot in and fires up seedbox sharing your emails and forbidden music*

    No one will tolerate your scam any more.

    ReplyDelete
  9. ACS Law must be desperate. You can imagine that heavy fuck Crossley bumbling around his soon-to-be-possessed office trying to find whatever letters he cant to send out to people.

    Is there any way we can get Google or TeleAtlas or whoever to fly over his property in a couple of weeks and see what's changed? Hope the tennis court has gone and he's laying face down in the pool .. the bastard.

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  10. Thanks for the heads up! I'll be off to Xilo once my contract with Plusnet expires.

    ReplyDelete
  11. All blown up out of all proportion - filesharers are filesharers - if you get caught pay up

    Ian Scott - ian.scott@ompropertymanagement.co.uk

    ReplyDelete
  12. I can only assume that "Ian Scott" is either a complete and utter simpleton or has someone out to tarnish his reputation because he's stupidly overlooked the entire point of the ACS:Law fiasco.

    1) Nobody targeted by ACS:Law can be proven guilty.
    2) Even through paying up there is no true admission to guilt as the tactics inherited by ACS:Law are put in place to scare into coughing up money through fear of prosecution.
    3) ACS:Law is completely insecure and cannot follow even the most simple data protection procedures.

    "Filesharers are filesharers", what is this supposed to mean? Sounds like a stereotypical phrase used by the sort of people pushing an agenda, i.e. Piracy is Stealing.

    Using the word "caught" is another sure way to tell that you're likely working or have ties to anti-piracy. Nobody file sharing is attempting to HIDE and therefore getting "caught" isn't like getting busted for arm robbery -- they're sharing their music online, for christs sake.

    "Pay up" -- no further comment necessary.

    Tell Mr. Crossley Anonymous says hello.

    Yours,
    Legion.

    ReplyDelete
  13. OM Propery Management aka Peverel OM - www.ompropertymanagement.co.uk is a scam, fraud : AVOID!

    http://forum.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=355906

    "So they want to take me to court for payment of services for which the haven't supplied.

    This is money extortion.... "

    Extortion, where have we heard that before Mr. Ian Scott?

    OM Property Management were previously 'Peverel' which can be Googled to see what sort of scam they are running. I repeat, as Money Saving Expert have revealed amoung others ompropertymanagement.co.uk are SCAMMERS.

    I wonder why Mr. Ian Scott decided to comment here?

    "A specially dedicated website for people experiencing problems with Peverel, has been set up under the name Peverel Action. It is run by homeowners across the country in an attempt to unite estates and push for national action. The people running the site are working closely with a number of MPs to address this problem, and we would urge everyone experiencing problems to make contact with us via the site as soon as possible."

    http://www.spanglefish.com/peverelaction/

    ReplyDelete
  14. http://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&biw=1280&bih=578&q=Peverel+scam&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&fp=613793c5dfdc7bfb

    Anonymous is watching you, Mr. Ian Scott of known scam property firm Peverel AKA OM Property Management.

    We're aware of your possible ties to Andrew Johnathan Crossley and Terance Tsang and will be investigating further should the need arise.

    We're also aware of your probable past salary earned under the 'Peverel' and understand you are, at least for now, enjoying the riches which come with the act of defrauding innocent people, much like our good friend Mr. Crossley.

    Funny how after your reputation is ruined online your company decides to, yet again, change names in an attempt to stay under the radar. Much like ACS:Law, even Googling your new firm name "OM Property.." we are presented with "scam" and "complaints" as a possible solution to our search.

    Keep on posting your propaganda, Ian Scott, you're clearly changing the minds of an entire generation.

    We are Anonymous.
    We are Legion.
    We do not forgive.
    We do not forget.
    Expect us.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Andrew Crossley: I hope you lose as much sleep now as your victims have done, combined.

    Bastard.

    ReplyDelete
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    ReplyDelete
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