Question on Intrum debt collector

Finance, Taxes, Banking, Insurance and Retirement
1
Hello,

I have read a few threads about the dubious practices of the Intrum debt collecting company on this site, but still have a couple of questions.

Here's a breif description of the situation.

I bought a computer for my son at InterDiscount. We financed it over 4 yrs. Dumb, I know, but I didn't have the cash right then to buy it straight out.

Things went on swimmingly until I had some financial troubles and missed a couple of payments. I got a couple of reminders, and upon receiving the Mannung 2 (2nd reminder), I was planning on paying the bill. However, in the meantime, I received another letter from InterDiscount stating that, due to missed payment, they were selling the contact to Intrum. I called InterDiscount and asked if I could make the payment, but they said it was too late, as the contract was sold to Intrum.

A couple of days ago, I received a letter/bill from Intrum, and it shows the following:

Rechnung Ref. xxxx - chf 96.00

Rechnung Ref. xxxx - chf 896.00

Forderungsübergabe an Intrum chf 992.00 ( I assume that is the InterDiscount debt)

Zinsen - chf .65

Verzugsschaden gemäss OR Art. 106 - chf 259

Based on what I have read so far, it seems clear that the last amount of chf 259 is a bogus amount added by Intrum, and I should nt pay it.

1. Is that correct?

2. If so, should I:

- Send a letter to Intrum (I have a sample letter from a website I found

"Konsumenten Schutz") stating that I will pay what I owe ID, plus

interest, but not the Verzugsschaden costs, and ask them to resend a

proper bill?

- Pay Intrum the amount owed to ID without the Verzugsschaden costs?

- Call ID and tell them I want to pay them directly the remainder amount,

bypassing Intrum altogether?

Thanks in advance for your help and advice.

Patrick

2
Pay 1.057,- Chf to Interim and send them a letter that you dispute the Verzugsschaden and will refuse to pay those.

It amazes me how they can keep on doing this, police/government should just give them a few warnings and than give them a huge fine for every time they make another clearly bogus claim based on art 106.

3
992.65

Tom

4
to be fair even swiss lawyers give the shit advise to pay up in full inc the fee's to just make them go away, so all the time they get away with they'll continue doing it.

5
Intrum went to court two times - lost two times.

The letter can be found here: https://www.konsumentenschutz.ch/the...t-musterbrief/

When you pay, see that you can pay using an IBAN transfer or pink payslip instead of an orange payslip. With IBAN transfer or pink payslip you can specify in the payment details that you pay only the Hauptforderung and Zinsen. Otherwise they could play stupid games and might claim that you paid the Verzugsschaden in full but only part of the Hauptforderung.

6
Oh damn, never noticed it was only 65 rappen instead of 65 chf.

7
Hi, thanks for that. I got an orange slip with the bill, but with my bank online, I can add some text and detail what I am paying. Would that work like you explain?

8
Unfortunately, that comment is only for your own convenience and will not be forwarded to the recipient.

If you pay using the orange slip: Send the Konsumentenschutz letter out using registered mail, once received by Intrum, pay the reduced amount using the slip.

9
Just got one of those ...

Question: should I pay to the debt collector (Intrum) or can I pay to the originator of the 1. bill (UPC) (without the Verzugsschaden)? Thank you.

10
I would pay the original bill.

Tom

11
I understood it works like factoring as such at this moment your debt is in fact paid by Intrum to UPC and UPC has no outstanding amount/bill against you and may just take it "akonto" for services you may want to use in future.

12
Yes, this is also as I now understand it.

Now, shall I pay the part I am due with the same EZ (orange slip) ? Or shall I ask them to send me a new EZ with the corrected amount?

Apparently, aSwissInTheUS seems to say that I can pay using the slip with the wrong amount:

13
If the amount is pre-printed on the slip, get a blank slip (for free at the post office) and copy all the details by hand.

If you pay online/electronically you can of course manually type any sum you want.

14
I understood they actually sell your debt to Intrum.

So UPC takes a loss and sells a debt of, for example, 1000CHF for 700CHF.

Intrum tries to recover 1200CHF from you, knowing full well that they fail a certain percentage of the times, but if they succeed they have got 1200CHF return on a 700CHF investment.

But UPC doesn't actually like to say goodbye to a 1000CHF debt for 700CHF so if you pay them directly it is preferable to them. I don't know if they can claw back the debt from Intrum if you do. But it probably voids Intrum's claim against you, but may give Intrum a claim against UPC.

15
Intrum are based in Sweden and hide behind a strange mish-mash of cherry-picked legalese from different countries.

It would take international legal action to put them out of play.

16
you can also speak to the debt agency at the company, they also should have the ability to claw it back (and get the full debt owed to them).

17
I always see the comments in full when I receive payments.

Well, sometimes foreign diactrics are messed up.

But if you are concerned that your comments will not appear or can safely be ignored, I agree that a registered letter should do the trick.

18
there are two comments fields - one is a reason for payment that the recipient sees and one that is a comment for your records.

"Donut fund" and "Christmas party fund" is what I add for my speeding and parking fines

19
I like that .. never thought about it

- what do you do when paying cash ? little drawing at the side of 100chf ?;-)

20
There is Swiss branch under Swiss regulations or one would be with no obligation to pay