Originally Posted by
rutan around
Can any Pruner with legal knowledge advise me as to whether or not I have to respond to an invoice sent to me by Avdata for use of an airfield my aircraft has never been closer to than 400 NM. I think that the current Avdata system is designed as a giant scam for them. All they have to do is send out hundreds of fake invoices and then sit back and wait to be paid. If someone squeals just apologise and have another go sometime later meanwhile counting the$$$$ from all the ones that didn't notice the ring in airport. This seems to be happening to me more frequently lately. If my company sent out fake or padded accounts we'd either be sacked or sued by our customers. As I can't sack Avdata can I sue them or can a class action be mounted against them? Currently there appears to be little to deter them from scamming. Perhaps if they had to not only reverse the fake invoice but also pay the victim the invoice amount it might make them a bit more careful. I understand everyone can make a mistake (even our company) but the number made by Avdata is ridiculous and I have better things to do than rectifying their mistakes deliberate or otherwise.
IIRC, a PPRuner actually asked a lawyer about it a while ago. The response was along the lines of "It's up to them to send you a true and correct invoice, till they do, you can ignore it".
It isn't up to you to correct a private companies screwups. I dunno about suing them, but you could probably lodge a claim in your local fair trading department, seeing I believe the term is, "consequential loss", ie the time/cost you spent notifying them of their screwup. If nothing else, they would have to defend the claim -or be found in your favour by default...