Hello - this is mainly a legal advice question and I'd be greatly appreciative of your thoughts.
I signed up online to do an online paper at Massey Uni, just for fun, but I ended up arguing with them for several weeks because they said they'd lost my transcript. I pointed out that I completed a post grad qualification with them 10 years earlier, but they said they'd lost all of my details. After a few weeks of arguing they finally approved it after admitting they were wrong, but by that time I'd already missed out the first week or two of classes and since I was too far behind I told them to just cancel it. They cancelled it but told me I had to pay 100% of the paper because I was a day or two past the cut off for cancelling, even though it was their error that had caused the enrolment delay. So I told them to reinstate it if they're forcing me to pay for it anyway, but they refused. I made a complaint through their complaints process but only got a standard template email back saying I had to pay for the paper.
I was advised by someone else to make a formal complaint to NZQA, which I did, but they wrote back and said they are no longer responsible for universities and didn't supply me with any information about where I can get assistance with this issue. In the end I gave up trying to get Massey to fix the situation (they didn't bother to return any of my calls or emails) and moved on with my life. A year later I got a text message from my ex-partner saying that Baycorp was constantly calling him saying that I owed Massey Uni money for that paper. They had my ex-partner's number because I had supplied it to Massey on my next-of-kin personal details for emergencies. I was shocked that Massey had breached the Privacy Act in this manner, but more shocked they'd referred this disputed situation to Baycorp. I've moved house at least three times in the past year and changed my number.
Note that I've never had a debt in my life (I work in finance so I religiously pay all invoices the day I receive them) so I don't have any experience with debt. What do I do about this - is there a disputes court that I can take Massey to for charging me for a service they never supplied? I was never informed that the online application I filled out for this paper would be referred to Baycorp after our dispute - doesn't Massey require a signature from me to charge me for that paper that I was never supplied? I never signed anything with them. Also, they were the ones who never returned my phone calls or emails when I complained to them about the issue so I had given up chasing them about it.
Any advice is much appreciated. I've gotten to a point where I thinking of just moving overseas permanently as I don't know what else to do.