Harassement by Intrum Justitia

Finance, Taxes, Banking, Insurance and Retirement
1
A couple of years ago, I sold an item on Ricardo. Everything went smoothly with the auction and the sale, but Ricardo never sent me a bill — neither by post nor by email. The first notice I received was a letter from Intrum Justitia claiming not just the original amount, but reminder fees and collection fees.

Immediately, I paid what I owed, directly to Ricardo, and contacted the company to inform them of this, and of their error in not sending me a bill. Their staff were alternately friendly or downright rude, depending on with whom I spoke. But what was constant was their unwillingness or inability to help. I got the impression that they simply did not believe me that I had never received the bill.

I had a theory, and at one point, I offered to help Ricardo’s IT staff determine if my email address (which contained an unusual character) might have caused my invoice emails to go astray. This effort went nowhere though, and eventually I gave up corresponding with the company. I had paid my original debt as soon as I learned of it, and I considered the matter closed. I asked Ricardo not to contact me any more.

More than a year later, I received a new letter from Intrum Justitia, again demanding payment of the debt — the full original debt, with no deduction for the amount I have already paid.

I do not wish to waste too much time of this, and the amount they are asking for is actually less than I earn in an hour; but for me this is also about the principle. I cannot tolerate disreputable business practices, and I do not wish to reward them by acquiescing.

I would like to take whatever steps are necessary to fight this, even if it means hiring a lawyer and take the matter to court. Has anyone run into a situation like this before? Any advice or tips? I would also be glad to receive referrals to legal professionals who work in this area.

Thanks in advance!

2
You probably know that Intrum Justitia have no legal basis for their demands, so it is difficult to handle the situation.

Do you have an address? Can you send them evidence you have paid the debt? Will Ricardo give you proof you have paid, or withdraw their accusation?

I was once falsely accused of a debt to a dentist, made by my "10 years ago divorced ex-wife", but there was not even an address to reply to, just a demand for money and a payment slip. Eventually my friends and I convinced the dentist to withdraw his accusation.

3
Best way to deal with Intrum Justitia is to pay up and pray that karma realy is such a bitch.

Disclaimer.

If ever I get my hands on one of these creatures, even if it is the janitor, I will go gladly to jail for the honor of beating the living crap of of it.

4
https://www.konsumentenschutz.ch/med...trum-justitia/

In this web site you can even find a letter to send to Intrum justitia (?!).

The only thing you should pay them are eventually the interests, since you already paid the debt to Ricardo (unless thy can proof that in order to find you they incurred some actual costs).

5

Several threads dealing with their harrassment.

http://www.englishforum.ch/search2.p…ntrum+Justitia +

6
that sounds violent lol

7
ftfy

8
General rule applies:

Who orders, pays. Full stop.

It's Ricardo who ordered Intrum to do their thing and hence it's up to them to pay them. Full stop.

Ricardo need to prove they actually sent invoices, which requires registered mail. Starting with that sent date you owe 5% annual interest. Many companies will also bill additional costs, e.g for invoices. That's only legal if it's explicitly mentioned in the contract (or alternatively in the AGB, general terms and conditions).

You owe (assuming contract doesn't contradict):

- the initial price

- plus 5% annual interest (subject to contract terms, also see above)

- if billed, some reasonable amount for Ricardos' additional efforts (say, 20CHF for the additional invoices). Again, subject to contract terms, also see above

- of course less any payments you already paid

That's it.

Intrum will probably invoke article 106 of the Obligationenrecht, but that's irrelevant here (you can safely ignore any demands based on "Verzugsschaden", damages caused by delay). In fact, only SchKG (Schuld- und Konkursgesetz) article 27 applies. See lexfind.ch for any legal texts.

Intrum will probably threaten with "additional measures", aka Betreibung, which would be sent by registered mail. If they do you want to raise "Rechtsvorschlag" by signing the letter you collect at the Post office on the backside (ask the person at the Post counter, they'll be happy to help). Doing so requires for them to prove their claim for additional damages, which they can't.

A helpful article Beobachter (german)

It should be easy to find "Musterbrief" (sample letter) as a response to their threat regarding "additional measures". Just shout.

9
No it's not. I had a similar situation before - original bill never came, suddenly got their inkasso stuff.

Simply put - there are pretty clearly defined legal limits what fees can be put on a demand. Companies like them ignore those laws and write letters with pseudo-legal sounding threats. I wrote them friendly but directly back with a similarly pseudo legal letter that they can go and screw themselves. I got two more reminders from them. Then I wrote an email as well as a registered letter to both them as well as the company who screwed up the original bill that if I get one more of those I'd sue them - as well as going to "Kassensturz", CHs biggest consumer magazine which has over a decade of track record covering Intrum Justitia basically yearly... and suddenly I got a message that it was all just a mistake.

Do not back down. Their business model is to scare the weaker part of society into paying illegal fees. On average does the Swiss legal system work very well, but it is a confession of failure for me that the authorities still do not manage to deal with these vultures... it is clearly illegal and it is clearly thousands of cases a year - how hard can it be to stop them?

10
Just think Intrum Justitia and Cablecom together in one sentence.

Tried to cancel with cablecom when I moved from St Gallen to Basel, 'nuf said.

11
I don't, Cable com are great, with friendly and helpful staff.

At least here.

Tom

12
I don't get this about the OP's insistence that Ricardo didn't send the bill. I regularly use Ricardo and every month I get a bill - a bill through my account. Given that these are generated automatically, I struggle with the OP's insistence that he never received a bill...

13
Perhaps it got lost in the post. It does happen.

14
I wish Id known this a couple of years ago... sigh. Inter Discount screwed me royally and I ended up paying almost double an item value because of a screw up they made and then they sent the IJ dogs on me. I panicked and paid up. Hindsight is a wonderful thing...

15
The e-post!? If you have an account, you have an email address (required to set up the account) which works... If you have the account, the bill is sent both to your "internal" Ricardo email and to your private email... remind me again where it might get lost?

16
spam filters?

17
Not to your internal Ricardo mail...

18
And if you've sold something as a one off, you're really going to monitor that?

No, every other company sends physical post, ebill etc. Ricardo is ths first I've seen that relies on their internal system, which did actually catch me up myself once (I got the email though, so handled it before going as far as the op).

19
Um... you read the terms and conditions you signed up to, right?

I'm sorry, but I fail to see why this is Ricardo's fault or the insistence that they never sent a bill. At all. I understand the frustration and the wish to see off IJ, but this is self-inflicted.

20
As with parking/speeding tickets the correct procedure with bills from collecting agencies is:

1. Pay the bill (even if you dont agree to it).

2. Start a complaint procedure to try and get your money back, if you feel you have a case.

Think of Intrum like Hells Angels. They purchase a debt and use force to collect it, together with their fees. And they will collect it. You need to pay Hells Angels to get rid of them. Hells Angels dont care about you not having received an invoice a year ago or whatever, neither does the client who sold the debt to Hells Angels. They just want their money, with interest, right now.

The matter is between you and Hells...sorry, Intrum Justicia now.