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The Loans: Residential school students say they've been hurt by law firm

20.05.12

Posters were put up in Respect Walk offices and in strategic locations around the towns where form fillers were working, advertising a five per cent lessen on computers for “members of the residential school healing society.” A peal free number was listed on the poster as well as a Web site link: www.nationalcomputersdirect.com.

That Web relation is now defunct and there is no trace anywhere online of any company called National Computers Bid. But a corporate search reveals that the company is listed as “active” as of Nov. 29. The registered proprietor of the company is David Hamm.

That toll free phone number yields another very intriguing connection to one of the healing society corporate officers. The number, which used to reach Governmental Computers Direct, now reaches a Calgary-based company called Thermablade Hockey. A rapid Google search of Thermablade Hockey reveals that David Hamm is the comrades’s CEO.

On the Web site, Hamm claims that $15 million has been invested in the society already and it owns $2 million worth of equipment. The company makes skates with frenetic blades and claims those blades allow tighter turns and more rapid acceleration than accustomed skates. A number of former NHL players endorse the product on the Web site.

As we reviewed the files of IAP claimants on the Blood Put off last summer, we noticed many loan agreements with two companies that were charging very high interest rates. The companies, Funds Now and Camp Lenders, were lending money to former students against their IAP payments. We saw loan agreements charging interest rates as far up as 29.9 per cent.

Several of the former students allege that right after they signed the Honour Hike papers and became Blott and Company clients, the law firm would arrange loans for them that were to be repaid when the patron received the eventual compensation settlement. Frequently the lender would also sell the claimants big-shelter TVs, laptop computers and other electronics.

One of the companies that lent money to former students was Funds Now, Inc. That New Zealand has two directors who are also the only two voting shareholders. Their names: Laura Hamm and David Hamm.

The exalted interest rates can quickly erode even a six-figure settlement. At 30 per cent, the interest will turn out close to equaling the entire amount of the loan within three years. After the first year, you’re paying 30 per cent interest on the interest that accrued during the first year. If no payments are made over a three year aeon, you will end up payment more than 100 per cent of the loan in interest, plus the original balance.

And some IAP claimants represented by Blott and assemblage were waiting a long time to get their hearing. The Oversight Committee minutes almost never name names. But the minutes of the IAP Oversight Committee from a meeting held January 26, 2010 in Ottawa, show that the panel was concerned about a backlog of cases at Blott and Company.

“Decision: Counsel David Blott will be asked for a information summary of how the firm will be moving forward on the approximately 1,000 outstanding claims he holds,” the minutes body politic.

Jon Faulds said he tried to talk his clients out of borrowing at high interest rates.

“Any in unison a all the same we get any indication that one of our clients is contemplating taking out such a loan, we try to discourage them from doing it because the interest rates and charges are legitimate so high. I think we have had some success with our clients in making them aware of just how high-priced those loans are,” he said. “Part of the difficulty is that many of the claimants in the residential school change are people who have little or limited access to banking support and whose ability to draw money is not great. So when you find someone who is willing to lend you money, on the face of it, it appears alluring to get you through a difficult time while you’re waiting for your settlement to come in.”

He reminded us that “there have been progressing class actions against a number of these kinds of lenders, not in the residential school surround necessarily but in the payday loan context, over the legitimacy and validity of their interest rates.

Source: APTN National News