Amiable demands for money!

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stranded

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Hoping to derive from the collective ‘wisdom’ of the assembled wise heads (and the rest of you😁) on here.

A week ago I received a (scan of) a letter which had been forwarded to the Port de Folleux in France by Marina Moulin Blanc, also in France. It was from a French debt collection agency called Intrum, who claim to be an ‘amiable’ collection agency(!). It referred to my account with FedEx which would be closed if I did not pay them a sum of c.€570 - it provided no information about when the supposed debt was incurred or what it was for.

Intrum seem to be legit. I therefore messaged them and explained the above. I have just now received a reply from Intrum accompanied by a copy of a FedEx invoice dated June 2023 addressed to s/y Nooka, ATTN: COMPTABILITE FOURNISSEURS, Marina Moulin Blanc, Brest. Thé FedEx invoice refers to a customs charge of c€460 for an autopilot computer sent to us from the UK c/o Moulin Blanc. The reference to the sender is correct.

Fair enough - the package was actually sent to us through DPD, but I vaguely recall being pleasantly surprised that we were not charged duty and I presume that FedEx acted as some sort of agent for DPD - I had not registered that. Unfortunately, by the time the FedEx invoice was sent we had departed Moulin Blanc, so we never received it nor any other communication about the matter. But the original debt of €460 seems legit and therefore I am happy (that’s not the right literal word, obviously) to pay that.

But I object strongly to paying what I assume is Intrum’s collection surcharge of c.€100 and absolutely fuming to see they have added a further €30 odd for answering my query. So now they are demanding over €600.

My stubborn side says pay the original amount and tell them to go $¥#% themselves over the rest - I have our ships log which shows when we left Moulin Blanc and could probably obtain marina invoices for the subsequent couple of weeks as well. But I know that the advice here is likely to be just suck it up, which I know is well meant. I think really I just need to see it to ease the burning sense of injustice🤪
 
I’d certainly try offering to pay the original saying you have done so as soon as you were served an invoice. How much hassle I’d put myself through to avoid the rest would depend on where I was in the world (pursuing it internationally is a lot of work), how belligerent I was feeling, how well I spoke the language and understood the customs, etc.
 
Why didn't they email it?? I'd pay the original invoice to FedEx direct, and tell them not to be so silly next time - and take payment on delivery (or before as is commonplace now)
 
Bummer, I had something a bit similar happen to me in Germany, but with a phone company. Back when I arrived here we had a phone contract with Deutsche Telekom where they offered a cheap calls service to the UK for a few DMs a month by dialing a prefix from a 3rd party when calling the UK - the money for the service was collected by direct debit with the Telekom bill. When we changed bank, it took Telekom 3 months of trying to collect from the old account before they updated their records, once they got it right, they collected everything, but didn't pay the third party. Fast forward three years we got a letter from a debt collector demanding payment plus extortionate fees.

It turns out the third party company had sold the debt on to a collection agency, we presented the Telekom bill we had paid and told them to collect it from Telekom and never heard from them again.

Point is, that in your case, FedEx may well have sold the debt on, so trying to pay them will not help your cause. As already stated, unfortunately, paying up and writing in down to experience seems like the best option.
 
Pay up, my son thought he was being clever 20 odd years ago when he would ignore parking fines by moving house multiple times with his mates, he was young and silly. I did warn him at the time and I paid off around £600 of outstanding fines for him, but he then went and did exactly the same ( parking outside his flat on the pavement) debt collection company eventually found him and slapped a £1500 bill on him. He paid it off monthly.
 
Yeah, I’ve paid it. Didn’t want a lien or whatever it’s called put on the boat for less than the cost of a decent lunch - though don’t know if that was a real risk.

Not sure though that there’s a particularly useful lesson though. Can you imagine trying to have a worthwhile conversation with a courier company in a language youre not terribly good at to explain that you want to pay a bill that you think they might be thinking of sending you although you’re not sure if any money is actually due but can you pay it anyway please. Buy French I guess.

Wife might be a bit disappointed with her Christmas present this year. 🤣
 
stranded said:
Yeah, I’ve paid it. Didn’t want a lien or whatever it’s called put on the boat for less than the cost of a decent lunch - though don’t know if that was a real risk.

Not sure though that there’s a particularly useful lesson though. Can you imagine trying to have a worthwhile conversation with a courier company in a language youre not terribly good at to explain that you want to pay a bill that you think they might be thinking of sending you although you’re not sure if any money is actually due but can you pay it anyway please. Buy French I guess.

Wife might be a bit disappointed with her Christmas present this year. 🤣
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But as you said in your original note - “I vaguely recall being pleasantly surprised that we were not charged duty”.
To have a legitimate fee of €460 it must have been a substantial item. So you clearly knew it would be subject to charges.

Perhaps for an eBay item costing €50 posted person to person in a small packet it may be reasonable to assume it flew “below the radar”.
But for a major item from a legitimate retailer delivered by courier, of course there will be charges. You clearly missed some email or similar (I have got quite a few cross border boat packages via DHL, and paid accordingly).

So the learning is presumably if charges are due, check your paperwork carefully and ensure paid in time. Most T&Cs have q options of quite onerous surcharges if not paid in time.
 
KevinV said:
Why didn't they email it?? I'd pay the original invoice to FedEx direct, and tell them not to be so silly next time - and take payment on delivery (or before as is commonplace now)
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But the OP has already had an extra admin charge of €30 added for a previous query. Any attempts to avoid paying the full demand will just incur additional charges. And presumably some penalty interest rate is built into the T&C for late payment.
 
dunedin said:
But as you said in your original note - “I vaguely recall being pleasantly surprised that we were not charged duty”.
To have a legitimate fee of €460 it must have been a substantial item. So you clearly knew it would be subject to charges.

Perhaps for an eBay item costing €50 posted person to person in a small packet it may be reasonable to assume it flew “below the radar”.
But for a major item from a legitimate retailer delivered by courier, of course there will be charges. You clearly missed some email or similar (I have got quite a few cross border boat packages via DHL, and paid accordingly).

So the learning is presumably if charges are due, check your paperwork carefully and ensure paid in time. Most T&Cs have q options of quite onerous surcharges if not paid in time.
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You are very judgmental.

I suppose I did assume it had ‘flown under the radar’ - I don’t recall. But there was definitely no communication before we left moulin blanc because the original invoice was dated after we had left, and no email, because 1. I don’t get enough emails to miss an important one, and even check my spam folder before emptying it, and 2. if there had been I would have paid it.
 
dunedin said:
But the OP has already had an extra admin charge of €30 added for a previous query. Any attempts to avoid paying the full demand will just incur additional charges. And presumably some penalty interest rate is built into the T&C for late payment.
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"Unreasonable charges" don't really stand up, and E110 for a first letter plus E30 for a phone call to discuss said letter is certainly unreasonable. I've done what I suggested in the past, with success - a bird in the hand and all that.
 
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