A SHENZHEN woman who was hit by a car in 2014 found that 160,000 yuan (US$24,384) of her compensation may have been pilfered by a fake lawyer, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported Friday.
Li Dan, who worked in a factory in Shenzhen, was hit by a truck on Nov. 11, 2014. She suffered ankle fractures and was hospitalized for 45 days, which cost her over 18,000 yuan.
The driver who hit Li paid her 8,000 yuan when she stayed in the hospital, but later the driver said Li should ask the insurance company for compensation.
“A person from my hometown said he knew two lawyers who could help me, and he said victims of such cases can usually be compensated up to 100,000 yuan,” Li said.
One of the people presented as lawyers, surnamed Tang, said she could pay 70,000 yuan to Li in advance, but Li would need to sign an agency agreement and do an appraisal of Li’s disability. Li said she was satisfied with getting 70,000 yuan, so she did what Tang requested. The two copies of the agency agreement were taken by Tang.
After Li did the disability appraisal, Tang transferred 70,000 yuan to Li’s bank account and asked Li to open a new bank account with Li’s ID card.
“She said the new account will be used to receive compensation, but she took away the bank card as she said she was the only person who could help me get the money,” Li said, adding that Tang saw her card’s password when she opened the account.
Half a year later, Li asked Tang for the case’s mediation documents, but Tang said the case wasn’t settled yet. But later another lawyer told Li that victims of such cases can get compensation that is much more than 70,000 yuan. “He said I should use my own ID card to print the mediation documents at the court,” Li said.
Li got the mediation paper at Futian District People’s Court last week, and the paper noted that the driver’s insurance company transferred 232,000 yuan to Li’s bank account in July last year as compensation. It also noted that the attorney who represented her in the case was a lawyer whom Li had never met before.
Li used her ID card to check the bank account’s records as the bank card was taken away by Tang. The records showed that the account received 232,000 yuan on July 14 last year, but 160,000 yuan was transferred on the same day. Later the rest of the money was all withdrawn.
Li said she called Tang after figuring out what happened, and Tang didn’t deny taking Li’s money. “Tang said ‘I am doing business in this industry, and you don’t scare me,’ when I questioned her on the phone,” said Li.
Tang hung up the phone when a Daily reporter called her and mentioned Li’s name. The attorney who represented Li in the case didn’t answer his office’s phone.
A Shenzhen-based lawyer Guo Shenghua said according to charging standards for lawyers to handle traffic accident cases, an attorney’s commission will usually not exceed 30 percent of the client’s compensation. “Over 160,000 yuan of Li’s compensation was taken away, so the signed agency agreement can be annulled, no matter what it specified,” Guo said.
“The compensation amount of such cases can be estimated, and these fake lawyers may have intentionally defrauded Li as they only promised to offer 70,000 yuan to her,” Guo said.
Another lawyer, who declined to be named, said many people are making a profit by taking away compensation from traffic accident victims who don’t have much legal knowledge. They transfer the cases to real, practicing lawyers and take a share of the compensation.
(Zhang Yang)
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