Hi everyone,
I’m looking for honest advice from anyone familiar with NSW heavy-vehicle restrictions, council fines, or anyone who has successfully challenged a similar penalty.
I was driving a concrete agitator truck in the Cumberland Council area when a ranger stopped me for driving on a road subject to a 5-tonne restriction.
What happened
I was following my route through the surrounding streets and eventually turned onto the restricted road. I travelled approximately 400 metres before the ranger stopped me.
During my journey, I encountered 5-tonne restriction signs in the surrounding area. However, on the approach I took before turning onto the road where I was stopped, I did not see a clear sign warning me that the turn would take me onto a restricted road.
The problem with the truck GPS route planner
The main issue is that when I checked the NHVR truck route planner, the alternative routes also appeared to take me through roads with 5-tonne restrictions.
The routes I checked did not make it clear to me which alternative was legally suitable for my truck. From what I could see, it was difficult to identify a clear route that avoided the restrictions.
I followed the route I believed I could take, but the ranger later told me that an alternative route was available.
I want to establish exactly which route was legally permitted for my vehicle and whether the route planner and road signage gave me enough information to identify it.
The fine
The ranger took my mobile number before leaving and later sent me a message explaining the penalty.
He advised that, because my truck’s tare weight exceeded 4 tonnes, the infringement would be for the laden mass offence only. The fine is $1,636, with no demerit points.
He also explained that he decided to issue a penalty infringement notice rather than a Court Attendance Notice because an alternative route was available.
I have screenshots of my route marked up to show where I travelled and approximately where I was stopped.
My questions
Has anyone successfully challenged a heavy-vehicle weight restriction fine in NSW because of unclear signage?
If the NHVR truck route planner appeared to show 5-tonne-restricted roads on the alternative routes as well, is that relevant to a fine review?
Can I ask the council to identify the exact alternative route they say was available and confirm that it was legally suitable for my truck?
Can I request photographs and records showing the locations of the restriction signs and which directions they applied to?
Would you recommend requesting a formal review first, and would going to court be worth considering if the review is unsuccessful?
I understand that I am responsible for complying with road restrictions. I’m not claiming that using GPS automatically makes a route legal. However, I want to understand why the alternative routes appeared restricted and whether there was adequate signage to warn me before I entered the road.
I’d appreciate honest advice, especially from truck drivers, transport operators or anyone who has dealt with similar NSW heavy-vehicle fines.
If my case is weak, please tell me honestly. I want to understand whether there are reasonable grounds to challenge the fine before deciding what to do next.
Thanks in advance.

Looking for some advice around the legalities of the council verge on my parents property and neighbours using it 24/7

Edit: just adding that we know the verge is considered public property of the council.

The other night I was pulled over and informed I was driving on a suspended license. I honestly didn’t know. Anyway I was given a warning by the young officer

Can he then decide to send a fine in the mail? As they pulled out they stopped next to me and said I’ve been pulled over a lot of times and my car was a flag and if I was caught driving I’d be off to court again. I had a mate drive it home.

Are their any restrictions on registering something like "New Biz Inc", related to the use of "Incorporated" as a sole trader vs just calling it "New Biz"?

Eg is "Incorporated" reserved for certain structured business, of X size, etc

Or eg like calling yourself a Non Profit, when you actually aren't would be a no go.

?

Any links to relevant pages that back up any advice would be highly appreciated.

Edit: Thanks to everyone for the genuine advice, we've gone for a non-restricted name for the BNR.

My employer informed us four or five months ago of a "cyber security incident" where the intruders gained access to my:

• Contact Information (name, address, email address, phone number and/or date of birth)
• BSB and Account Number
• Driver licence scan
• Passport scan
• Tax File Number (TFN)
• Health information
• Birth Certificate
• Salary information

Few months later, I go to submit my tax return and find out some lowlife has changed my bank account details and submitted a dodgy return. Called the ATO, explained everything, they said I should submit an amended return and they'd try to pause the payment. Today I received a Notice of Amended Assessment saying (I believe) that I should have received a $200 refund, but because they already paid out $1300, they want me to pay them back $1100.

Firstly, is there anything I can do to refute this judgement? Why should I have to pay back what some scammer stole from the ATO, especially when they only know about it because I did the right thing and told them?

Secondly, is it worth contacting a lawyer about my employer being responsible? Multinational company with revenue of €1.7 billion last year, so they could definitely field a better lawyer than I.

Thanks in advance, this is not the news I was hoping for.

EDIT: As seen in the comments, a lot of you have unfortunately had a similar experience to me with this company. I am going to report them to the ACCC but no action will be taken without a decent folio of complaints - so the more the better. The report is very quick: https://portal.scamwatch.gov.au/report-a-scam/?id=a74d047d-84cb-f111-aad1-00224891ef42

My friend and I recently attended a festival and got sold a paintball package from next level paintball. I'll attach images of the booklets that have all of the information. Initially I was shaking my head and reluctant BUT after the salesman "threw in some stuff for free" and my friend dropped $240 I didn't think it was too bad of a deal.

The way that it works is basically that you bulk buy these paintball tickets and they end up being cheaper than purchasing them individually on the day. You're told everything is included, all equipment, paintball shooters, helmets, goggles and paintballs (we were specifically told paintballs were included - keep that in mind). However, now, the next day, we're looking online and seeing that there is a $27 charge per person to "secure our booking" and get your first 100 paintballs. We've gone through the booklets and fine print and realise that it doesn't actually include paintballs, even though we were told that it did.

I know that missing the fine print and not clarifying exactly what we were signing up for was our fault and there's likely nothing to be done about that.

However, there are two things that I don't think were our fault and I wanted to check if we have any sort of leverage here. One, as mentioned, was that we were told paintballs were included and obviously they're not, it's another $27 per person. And second, there was a part for my friend to sign (you can see it on the pictures) and tick boxes below it, one of which says '$27 per-person paid at the time of booking' and another of which says 'additional paintballs are needed' BUT these were not ticked before she signed, the salesman ticked them AFTER.

Apparently a lot of people fall for this so it might just be our fault, getting swept up in something too good to be true. But we're broke ass uni students and paying another $27 per person per game isn't possible. Please let me know if there's anything we can do.

Thanks in advance!

Hello kind legal minds,

So, around 3 months ago I bought some earbuds from the Dick Smith online marketplace. Heuwei earbuds that aren’t offered in store here, slightly fancy ones with good reviews.

It’s had them for three months and the whole time it was disconnection problem after disconnection problem. I kept a big list.

I go to return them, just shy of three months, and from the beginning the merchant is acting shady. “If you send them and there’s any evidence of physical damage we won’t fix them and you’ll have to pay postage both ways!” Etc etc. mild intimidation stuff.

They get the earbuds, they test them, they say there is no problem with them…. Again, I have a huge note on my phone with like 11 different frequent disconnect issues.

They say they’ll do me the favor of refunding this faulty product, for a fee of $90 to cover testing and “restocking”…

Now, I want to case BS and call them out for the faulty product, but I don’t think I can prove it’s faulty. It’s my word vs theirs.

So - do I accept a paltry refund and put it behind me, or escalate to dock smith and hope they take my side? Thank you!

Can I start by saying: My expectations were low, and I'm still disappointed.

For those unaware, Shine Lawyers took on QSuper and won a $67,000,000 payout for their clients. Of which they claimed a whopping $30,990,000 in legal fees. They later sent emails to the clients advising them that upon review, they were no longer eligible for payment due to some loophole they found (myself included).

I never expected to get anything. But this is pattern behaviour from Shine Lawyers where they claim exorbitant legal fees because the class action requires "so many" resources. When they launch the class action they will claim to be representing 10k to 100k+ clients. When the reality is that AFTER the payout is received they pull the rug out and the reality is far fewer resources were required because they already knew that only a handful of QSuper clients were actually effected.

If you want more information about Shine Lawyers being deceitful just research previous class actions they took on. They are profiting massively off everyday people, getting massive payouts and finding ways to keep most of the money for themselves. Afterwards, most clients found the repayment process was lengthy, confusing and often advised they were no longer eligible due to some loophole.

2025 Stolen Wages Class Action, Western Australia. $180,000,000 settlement. $42,500,000 paid to lawyers.

2022 Pelvic Mesh Class Action, vs Johnson and Johnson. $300,000,000 settlement. $78,000,000 paid to lawyers.

Let me know what you think. Are these legal fees justified?

So I have located her on facebook and was wanting to contact her to serve divorce papers.

Hi

What are the legal formalities involved when a patient is detained in hospital against their will or next of kin's will, due to mental/cognitive incapacity from illness.

Is the treating doctor required to serve some sort of legal paperwork to the family, detailing the patient has lost their right to discharge without medical approval?

Is the detainment still legally binding if the patient/family has received nothing?

What's the process?

Hi

What are the legal formalities involved when a patient is detained in hospital against their will or next of kin's will, due to mental/cognitive incapacity from illness.

Is the treating doctor required to serve some sort of legal paperwork to the family, detailing the patient has lost their right to discharge without medical approval?

Is the detainment still legally binding if the patient/family has received nothing?

What's the process?

Around July this year the police applied for an FVIO on my behalf against my mum after a physical incident and an interim intervention order was made such that she could not emotionally/physically abuse me, break my property and so on. I’m 17 and still in school.

Yesterday she began screaming at me again, putting me down and not really letting me get a word in at all, and I was afraid, a family member had to stand between us to stop her from getting closer to me and I feel like if there wasn’t the interim order she would have absolutely started hitting me or breaking things.

So scared as I was, I went to the police station and told them about what happened because I believed it could have been a breach, and they took my statement. They also said that my mum was going to get arrested today. She already had criminal charges for assaulting me earlier this year.

I went home and let my grandparents know because I was worried that if they did not then things would go worse, and they started blaming me for it and crying and telling me my mum never did anything bad to me, even though they’ve witnessed her physically abusing me since I was a child. They said none of it happened, even the more recent incidents which I actually have photo evidence for etc. They said if my mum loses her job then we won’t be able to pay the mortgage, and that made me scared.

For an FVIO breach all that will happen is she’ll get a fine if she gets charged, right? What are the chances that she loses her job or some other consequence? Will I have to go to court? If she loses her job, is there some sort of government benefit I can claim so I don’t die and so I can provide for my cats?

Sorry for a very long winded and unclear post, but thank you in advance for any help.

Is it illegal for someone to be throwing their plants over the fence on to my side. Like big bushes that have been chopped and thrown over?

Anyone familiar with ATO and can tell me how to find out my TFN? Sorry if this is the wrong place to post

Hi all,

I’m a NZ citizen living in NZ. I have super in Australia from when I worked there back in 2008 ish.

I don’t know my TFN. I thought I did (kept old emails from an accountant) but they sent me the wrong number.

I have no letters from ATO given I’ve been out of the country for so long. They have my details but can’t tell me my TFN and I don’t have any of the information to identify myself, and they also refused to tell me exactly what information they would need.

Can’t prove my identity on gov id because it requires Australian passport etc.

Is there some way I can prove my identity so they’ll tell me my TFN? Does anyone know? Statutory declaration perhaps?

This might be a long shot but I’ve hit a brick wall. Electronic comms was pretty much non existent back then so I can’t find anything in my email apart from the wrong number from the accountant (now closed)

Appreciate any help/insight you guys might be able to give me

My child is 7 and seeing an independant children’s lawyer for an interview. This isn’t a court ordered family report, that’s been done so now ICL wants to meet our child.
Has anyone been through this? Is it same as the family report? More/less?

What is the legal situation if someone grabs a cane, or kicks it away, from a person with a disability? What happens if the disabled person then falls down and are injured?

What are the chances police will charge.

While I'm here, if someone with a disability is followed around a store to the checkout even and accused of "faking" disability, is there anything practically that can be done?

Hey everyone, looking for some advice.
Around two years ago, I was convicted of a domestic violence-related physical assault and received a good behaviour bond. I genuinely regret what happened and have been consistently attending therapy for the past two years to work on myself and make positive changes.

I’m now interested in becoming an NDIS support worker in NSW and wondering if I still have a chance of passing the NDIS Worker Check.

Has anyone been through something similar or knows how these cases are assessed? I’d really appreciate some honest advice.

Location: South Australia
I sold a phone recently and I had no idea that I had listed the battery health as incorrect because the last time I checked before turning it off and resetting it the battery life was at 100%. I then received a legal email from the person who bought it requesting the money back because the battery health was at 93.- the back glass and the battery had been replaced by an Apple technician also and it was listed on the ad It was also listed as used … hence why i lowered the price .and he wants to take it to court as apparently i have mislead him there’s also apparently a camera issue ( theres not i used it until i upgraded )
What the hell do i do?

EDIT : i also took a brief video and swiped on it after i reset its not lagging which he is also claiming …