Hello, me and 2 friends are in a sticky situation and we're just looking for some options on what we can do about this.

I'll try to keep it short, this happened in BC, Canada.

A little over 2 weeks ago, we were a group of 5 (all age 18) hanging out at the mall. It ended when 2 of our friends decided to impulsively shoplift (dumb items like umbrella and gloves), and they got caught (the other 3 of us were unaware that they shoplifted). Our entire group was taken in back inside, and they took our info and banned us from the mall and retailer. During the holding, I overheard one of the guys that caught us explaining to an RCMP officer that came that the innocent 3 of us were "passing the gloves around." I am sure that for at least 2 of us, that never happened. The other one has decided to avoid this whole scenario. Since being banned from the mall and retailer wasn't all that bad, the 3 of us that were innocent decided to be good friends and not to fight back. Following that, the RCMP officer came in and talked to us for a bit, and decided to let us go from criminal charges (thank god) since it such was a dumb situation and she was in a good mood. So we left feeling very relieved, and accepted the bannings from the retailer and mall. We were never warned about any other punishments.

Fast forward 2 weeks later, we all received letters in the mail from a legal corporation saying that the retailer is claiming damages against each of us.

"..you unlawfully took possession of merchandise from the Retailer's premises.."

And they want each of us to return a payment of $595.00 or so called the "Settlement Amount".

We were never warned about this fine when we were being held, and if we were, you can bet the 3 of us would've defended ourselves.

Since the 3 of us never "unlawfully took possession of merchandise", nor helped the shoplifters in any way, nor was even aware that they were shoplifting,

What can we do?? We're young so we don't know much about the legal world, and that's a lot of money to us.

Thank you

Does it have a court date on it? If not then call them and tell them you didn't do anything so your not paying anything.

Did you sign anything at the retailer? Do you have copies of what you signed?

The only future date on it is the due date for them to receive the payment before further consquences

"The Retailer is prepared to settle its claim for damages against you in return for a payment of $595.00 (the "Settlement Amount"), received on or before January 12, 2011. If this amount is not paid, a law suit may be commenced against you before a Civil Court in your jurisdiction for all damages, plus interest, legal expenses, etc..."

So I guess not?

Call who, the retailer or the number on the letter (which I'm assuming is the corporation's number)?

We signed 2 things, one is a "Notice of Prohibition of Entry to Premises", which we received a copy of on the spot, the other we can't quite remember. It had info about our appearances, so I guess that had to do with the banning of us from the mall and retailer as well.

First this is not a fine, is not from the court, In Canada, the store is allowed to collect money from shop lifters to pay the cost of being caught, cost of security, management, paper work, the clerks to do the paper work, the cost to have you banned, and cost to keep check on who is banned, ( and so on)

This is a civil issue, not criminal. Of course the store has a black mail card to use, if you don't pay, they can still at this point press the criminal charges, Normally if there are a group of teens, all together and one or two do the stealing, all can be convicted since there is an "assumed" guilt of the group.

So in general it is a cheap way out of court costs and court fines, gives you no record and you merely pay about the same as court costs and fines, but a lot less than an attorney would cost.

Ah, I've now learned that the letter we received is a civil recovery letter. So are you saying that the best thing to do is to pay up? Can we do anything at all? That really sucks

Personally I'd tell them to blow it out their ***. They try to strong arm young adults and new immigrants mostly. Tell you a lot of scary things in legal language. If you are worried contact a legal aide lawyer and get advice, which they'll probably give you advice for free. Pretty sure they'd tell you to tell them to blow it out their *** too.

Actually what you got is a form letter given to anyone caught shop lifting, even those they call the police on also.

And while I class it close to blackmail, I also do understand, as a business person, the cost of catching, and then going to court with shop lifters is costly, So you are also paying for the 10 they did not catch.

I will not tell you not to pay a debt that Canada laws allows them to charge you, but yes at this point it is a civil issue not criminal