Unfair payment demand - Legal question

Daily Life, Swiss News and General Topics
1
Last year I bought something from ebay.de, and paid the €17 by Paypal (automatically), giving my delivery address in Germany. When the goods did not arrive after a month, I wrote off the money without even mentioning it - for €17 it was not worth the hassle.

A month later, Paypal returned the money to my account with the message "Recipient Unknown" - the Ebay seller had given the wrong payment details (maybe on purpose). I wrote to the Ebay seller explaining their error and had no reply.

Another month later, when I finally got back to my flat in Germany, there were payment demands from a German debt collecting agency now for over €80 (incl. Mahnungsgebühr and Admin costs etc.). (since I already knew what they were up to by email, I identified these letters by the postmark and did not open them).

Neither Ebay nor Paypal wanted to help - despite this being a huge flaw in their business model (in my opinion).

1) Cheap product sold on Ebay

2) Payment details wrong so impossible for buyer to pay seller despite buyer following standard payment procedure.

3) Seller who now knows buyer's personal details goes to "debt collecting agency" and starts to send ever increasing demands for payment.

4) Buyer left with sleepless nights, worry of legal problems etc. just for buying a low value item on ebay.

Whether the seller had fraudulent intentions or not, it is a huge hassle for what seemed like an insignificant amount of cash, and no wrong doing on my behalf.

(I ignored the demands for payment, returned all the letters from the Debt Collection agency unopened "Not known at this address" and emigrated to CH.)

In Switzerland, I received a demand for payment of CHF10 from a rental firm as an administrative cost for tracking me down since "I had not informed them of my change of address". (I had, and proved it with the original letter - this still took an hour of my time).

Anyway....

My question is how should unreasonable payment demands be dealt with in Switzerland? I would know how to deal with it in England, but what should someone do if they received an unjust demand for payment? Legal advice will usually cost much more than the invoice itself.

What should someone do when confronted with the ebay scam example? To whom in Switzerland can I report a fraudulent demand for payment? (e.g. from a company with whom I have had contact, but to whom I never agreed to pay any sum of money)?

In Switzerland, a creditor can report unpaid "debts" to a central agency, who then keep your name on a register (I forget the German term for this), and it damages your reputation as future landlords or employers can see you have unpaid "debts".

In short, you can end up with a lot of unfair hassle by doing nothing wrong.

Any thoughts?

2
is the debt collection agency real or just something the seller made up? do they have a regulator in germany where you can check this is a legit company?

personally I'd just ignore them, sounds like a scam.

ETA how can you owe money if you never recieved the goods anyway???

3
It was a real debt colleting company - they try their luck to scare people and profit from the the "admin fee".

The problem remains, that despite you doing nothing wrong, any firm could theoretically demand payment with an invoice and then damage your reputation / credit rating if you refuse to pay (ignoring whether you are right or wrong). Is it just me, or is this an unacceptable almost Kafkaesque legal pitfall for honest consumers?

Anyone had any experience of this in Switzerland?

4
is there an ombudsman or regulatory body for debt collectors in germany?

get all the evidence you paid and emailed the seller, send copies with a letter explaining it all to the company and cc the regulator and tell them you will be charging them and taking action for there harrasment if they don't stop. that usually works in the uk at least.

5
All this for Euro 17.-- ????

Sounds like you're trying to scam us my friend, it's just not worth it to write & post letters from Germany to Switzerland.

6
Debt collection is in Germany a "private problem" as there is no such thing as the Betreibungsamt here. So in principle: You have to sent some bills (I believe three - with four weeks time between them) and then you can only sue somebody. Instead of sueing, you can "sell" your debts to private companies who would sue you instead... and they typically write "intimidating legal sounding letters" and put completely illegal amounts of fees on top. They are not 100% a scam, but somewhere in a grey area - You have to know your rights and fight unlawful demands at court. In this case I cannot say if it was a deliberte scam... but I would not pay but let them sue me... they most probably won't and if you could proof that you actually tried to send the money and that the original seller not answered requests for the correct billing information (and ebay was not helpful either). However, I would not leave the letters unopened, but answer them immediately.

There are some companies in Switzerland doing the same - and since there is a legal process as the Betreibung - I believe they operate in an even "darker grey area" - the consumer protection office, the "beobachter", the Ktipp - they all covered them extensively in the last years. I received a letter once and it bordered to bullying in a pseudo legal language threatening me with "severe legal repercussions" if I do not pay immediately - they put a fee for sending me the letter on top of their (wrong) demand: 250 CHF! I frankly believe than uneducated people who are scared of lawyers or anything legal will regularly pay... otherwise their business would not work. I wrote them a nice letter telling them that I know my rights and would never pay their fees anyway - after that I explained why the original bill was wrong and I would not pay that either - if they wanted to they could do the Betreibung and I would be happily waiting with my written proof to meet them at the Amt. In copy the same went to the original shop... suddenly, all demands disappeared.

So: If you ever get a letter from "intrum iustitia" or similar: Do not immediately pay, especially not any fees that are more than 5% of the original bill. In my case they wanted 50%, so I guess they will never just ask for what is legally theirs...

Here is a sample letter how to answer their demands in German.

http://konsumentenschutz.ch/medienmi...-justitia.html

7
Thanks, Bigblue.. but the German case is old history (just cited as an example). I read on the internet in Germany that the best policy is to ignore them, I returned their post unopened. Pursuing any sort of legal thing in a foreign language is a huge hassle, warning letters need to be professionally translated etc.

In Switzerland, if someone reports me for an unpaid debt, it damages my reputation - I work in the financial sector. So this is just a preemptive attempt to keep my hands clean.

But I appreciate the replys..

8

You missed the point. This all happened in Germany long ago and is cited as an example, the money is irrelevant. If you read the OP you will see that the scam involves escalating amounts of cash, so whatever the original amount was, they are out for much more. Sorry if that was not clear.

What is relevant is how the individual can protect themselves against these scams which are in a legal grey area.

9
i never bother to respond to them. let them think that they have wrong address etc. i suspect that by responding, you move to the next 'stage' in their legal dragnet.

10

Yep, I agree totally - I never gave any response to the debt collecting agency so they have no proof that their messages ever reached me. I figured it would not reach court for such a derisory sum, and I was leaving the country anyway. There must be people however who end up paying them just to make the problem go away.

11
You often see these scams with debt collectors on German TV.

They also say - just leave it. never Pay.

If they want to take you to court at some point - they have no chance. So they wont do that - they just hope that you will pay - to get rid of them.

So just chuck the letters out together with all the adverts

12
Did you charge them for the hour of your time. 50CHF for your time + 10CHF admin costs seems reasonable.

Pro-litteris, right?

13
I certainly wanted to. Funnily enough, after I had proved that I had notified [the former landlord] of my address change, they asked me if I would do them a favour, and forward the wrong invoice to the party responsible for the error [the former landlord]. Which would have involved at least a further hour of work, writing a formal letter in German takes ages, the cost of a stamp, trip to the Post Office, and starting a legal dispute with a 3P in which I had absolutely no interest. I was utterly amazed that they would even ask (or that any customer would ever consider complying with such a request).

Anyway, that anecdote is another reason why I thought it would be interesting to discuss how to deal with unfair payment demands.

14
would have been a good opportunity to state your hourly rate and say if it is ok if you invoice for the additional work separately as you will raise an invoice now for the existing work done

15
Make sure you also read the sticky thread in this section on bills/debts/etc:

The complete guide to bills and what happens if you don't pay them.