Revenge from an Ex-Wife?! ~ A Short Story Adapted from Real Court Judgments - Part 2

More than ten years ago, due to prolonged marital discord and frequent quarrels, Ta-fei and his wife, Ah-li, agreed to a divorce in December 2008 with relatives and friends as witnesses. Ta-fei originally believed that after the divorce, the two would go their separate ways and everything would be settled. However, around May 2009, Ta-fei received a payment order issued by the court upon application by Bank A, on the grounds that Ta-fei had unpaid credit card debt owed to Bank A?! Ta-fei was extremely shocked at the time because he had never applied for a credit card with Bank A. He immediately contacted the handler at Bank A, who asked him to visit the bank and showed him the original credit card application form. Upon inspecting it, Ta-fei found that while the ID number on the application was genuine, the handwriting was not his, nor was the telephone number provided. Even more absurdly, the address listed on the application was neither his current residence nor a place he had ever visited or lived in. Clearly, this was a forged credit card application. This also explained why Ta-fei had never received any credit cards or statements from Bank A.

Ta-fei immediately told the bank staff that this was a forged contract and that he had not run up any charges on the card. The bank staff then asked him, "Well, who applied for it then?" Ta-fei took another look at the handwriting on the application form and found it very familiar. A flash of insight struck him: this must be Ah-li's handwriting! It turned out that the application form had been fraudulently forged and filled out by Ah-li after their divorce. Although Ta-fei immediately shared his deduction with the bank staff, the bank staff retorted, "Without a handwriting appraisal, how can you prove what you are saying is true?" They dismissed him on the spot, telling him that the bank would pursue this credit card debt with him to the end. Because Ta-fei was unfamiliar with the law, but had heard from friends that the competent authority for banks was the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC), he thought perhaps he could seek help from the FSC for this dispute over credit card debt. Consequently, he wrote three complaint letters in one go to the FSC. He even went so far as to write an additional petition letter to air his grievances to the Premier of the Executive Yuan. However, a few months later, the only response Ta-fei received was the FSC asking Bank A to reply directly to him with an explanation..... While Ta-fei was foolishly waiting for the FSC's help, the payment order from Bank A had already acquired the effect of a final and conclusive judgment because Ta-fei failed to file an objection with the court within the statutory time limit.....

One year later, the company where Ta-fei was employed informed him that the company had received a wage garnishment order from the court, stating that one-third of Ta-fei's salary would be deducted and paid to Bank A starting from the following month. Although Ta-fei explained to the company that he did not owe any credit card debt to Bank A, the company stated that since there was an official court document, they had no choice but to act in accordance with the law. Ta-fei then hastily consulted other legal professionals to see if there was any way out of this predicament. Only then did he learn that his sole remedy at this point was to file a retrial, asking the court to revoke Bank A's payment order. Ta-fei filed for a retrial with the court, fully confident that the judges would see through the details and allow him to prove that he truly had never applied for Bank A's credit card, nor did he owe any credit card debt to Bank A. However, things did not go as he wished. Because the judge held that Ta-fei had already known last year about his ex-wife Ah-li's suspected forgery of the credit card application, yet dragged his feet for a full year before filing for a retrial, he had clearly exceeded the statutory 30-day time limit for retrials. Therefore, without caring whether the credit card application was genuinely forged by Ah-li, and without addressing whether Ta-fei actually owed credit card debt to Bank A, the judge directly dismissed Ta-fei's application for a retrial.

Dissatisfied, Ta-fei appealed to the second-instance court, but his appeal was dismissed on the exact same grounds. The case was thus finalized. This meant that even though Ta-fei owed no credit card debt to Bank A whatsoever, he was forced to unjustly shoulder this debt for the rest of his life..... Ta-fei could not help but ask: "Why is a retrial the only remedy after a payment order becomes final and conclusive? I don't understand the law, so how could I possibly know that once a payment order is finalized, a retrial must be filed within 30 days? Furthermore, the handwriting on the application form clearly isn't mine—it's my ex-wife's; Bank A clearly never mailed a credit card to me; and I didn't run up any charges on the card. Why should I have to pay money to Bank A? Isn't the court a place where people seek the truth? In the end, with a miscarriage of justice as glaring as a rice bowl, there is nowhere to seek redress. Is there really no place left for ordinary people to find justice......?"

If you were Ta-fei, or if you share a similar experience to Ta-fei, please immediately fill out the Payment Order Victim Complaint Form and join us in our efforts to fight against the payment order system! If you do not know anyone in this situation, you are still welcome to share this post to help friends who might have had similar experiences.

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The story above is excerpted and adapted from the contents of "Judgment No. 101-Hu-Zai-Jian-Zi-2 and Judgment No. 101-Zai-Jian-Shang-Zi-1 of the Taiwan Shilin District Court." Furthermore, it is hereby clarified that the events and contents described above do not reflect the actual circumstances of the parties involved in those judgments.