A4V: A horrible idea

Hello everyone in blogland. I'm taking a moment from post Yom Kippur let's-dig-ourselves-out-of-the-holiday-mess to share this with you all.

Once upon a time, I articled for a summer in a large firm. One thing led to another, and I discovered one of my province's most prolific lay litigants: one John Ruiz Dempsey.

Mr. Dempsey is an "independent legal specialist." He is not a lawyer (or at least was not, at the time the judgements I'm reading took place. There is an off chance he attended law school, wrote the bar, etc., since then). Mr. Dempsey says that he does not call himself a lawyer because "he does not "practice" law and therefore he does it for real" The Law Society differs with him on this point: they say that he did hold himself as a lawyer and is not allowed to, because he hasn't passed the bar or been admitted to the law society.

I wrote Mr. Dempsey off as a highly eccentric personality, and filed the wonderful judgement The Law Society of BC v. Dempsey 2005 BCSC 1277 away in my personal "best of" file.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that there is in fact a whole movement of Mr. Dempseys. It's called the Freeman Movement. I might post a bit about the Freeman Movement later, but right now let me just summarize: Freeman Movement people believe that the legal system is not as it appears. It is all a sham and has been since the Federal Reserve of the US was established, and/or the US went off the gold standard.

According to the Freemen, the entire political system is voluntary. If you don't want to submit to the police, you don't have to. If you got a loan and it wasn't in actual gold, it's not a real loan. You don't have to pay it. Fiat money is imaginary and any debts accumulated under that system are null and void. If you have a mortgage on your house, you don't have to pay it: It's all pretend money!

So why do people pay their mortgages, tax bills, and so forth? Well, it's because they don't know the correct way not to pay them. What should the Freeman do? That's where the A4V, Accepted for Value process comes in.

It's hard to get good information on this, because everyone is out to make a buck. Here's a summary of one fellow explaining it. This guy is selling his version. George Tran here is trying it, and selling coaching, even if it doesn't seem to be working for him. There are bunches of youtube videos. There's a forum. On the internet, there's a forum for everything.

Short version: When you get a bill, write "ACCEPTED FOR VALUE" on it. Send it back. Voila! You're done!

Long version: When the IRS/CRA/bank fails to honour your "payment" of the bill with "Accepted for value" on it, try some other wrinkle. Maybe you need to try again. Maybe you need to use a different colour ink. The variations are endless.

To save time, you can purchase an "Accepted for Value" stamp!

So let's get to the point.

These remedies do not work.

They do not work.

They are a horrible idea.

Let's grant that the Freeman understanding of the law is the correct one, or as correct as any other. I think it's all a bunch of nonsense, but fine, work with me. All we're talking about is, if you write "Accepted for value" or something similar on your bill, will you still have to pay it? YES YOU WILL. And you will get yourself a lot of trouble to boot.

Canadian judgements refer to this as a "debt protest approach" and they don't like it at all. Here is what they say about it when one Simon Marples tried it: "this Court has clearly stated that such an approach is completely devoid of merit and will lead to special costs." Mr. Dempsey had to pay special costs too.

You interject, But Stealth Jew! Those are BC cases! I reside in another province!

Not so fast!

One I. Kovacevic tried the "Accepted for value" approach in Ontario in order to maintain possession of his Mercedes-Benz. It did not work. It was a spectacular failure, and Mr. Kovacevic when to prison, a surprisingly hard thing to do here in Canada.

Trying these "remedies" is like posting a great big target on your butt. Don't do it. There's no free lunch, and you do have to pay your mortgage.

As an added reason to avoid the whole mess, negative indicator Casey Serin is now working the A4V process to avoid paying for his parents home, and has a blog so you can follow along.

Anything Casey Serin does is a bad idea.

Don't do it.