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LeaseWeb Deutschland takes my case to court in Amsterdam. Advise needed. - Page 2
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LeaseWeb Deutschland takes my case to court in Amsterdam. Advise needed.

245

Comments

  • jsgjsg Member, Resident Benchmarker
    edited January 2021

    @vero said:
    If it's European jurisdiction then what? Suing internationally for €5000? How many trips they can afford for such amount? I don't know really, but it doesn't sound real. Even if they have some sort of partners in that other country, they have to calculate the percentage of success quite thoroughly.

    I'm not so sure about that. They'll highly likely guarantee a minimal fixed fee (like 50 €) and otherwise share both potential profit and risk.
    Also, in many cases courts accept each others orders intra-EU.

    Important side note: Such cases are often decided against the victim simply because victim didn't react. So, again: Communicate only by registered snail mail! That drastically increases their risk to be bitchslapped if they get a NL court order because they didn't mention your correspondence.

    If you say "I won't pay" or you say "**** ***" that's basically the same. If you don't answer, that changes nothing. The most important part was when OP tried to solve everything directly with provider. If they passed this to some agency, that's a war.

    No, because leaseweb controls much of the correspondence (e.g. via tickets) so client can't easily prove what he says. Also keep in mind that many judges don't give a lot about electronic communication like emails which can be easily faked, changed, etc.
    Plus someone accused who seems to - or can be painted in such a way - not care and not react looks bad.
    Also, a "f_ck you!" is much less promising psychologically than creating the impression of being a knowledgeable and cool opponent.

    Finally and importantly it's virtually meaningless what leaseweb thiks (by now). What's important is how judges would perceive the situation and evolution and how credible they deem both sides. A party that reacts properly (for courts that means within reasonable time and formally correct) always looks much better than one relying on electronic communication, lack of emotional self-control and careless, too late.

  • verovero Member, Host Rep

    @jsg said:

    I'm not so sure about that. They'll highly likely guarantee a minimal fixed fee (like 50 €) and otherwise share both potential profit and risk.
    Also, in many cases courts accept each others orders intra-EU.

    Thanks for sharing, didn't know that. Interesting how it works because of different legislation in different countries.

    No, because leaseweb controls much of the correspondence (e.g. via tickets) so client can't easily prove what he says. Also keep in mind that many judges don't give a lot about electronic communication like emails which can be easily faked, changed, etc.
    Plus someone accused who seems to - or can be painted in such a way - not care and not react looks bad.
    Also, a "f_ck you!" is much less promising psychologically than creating the impression of being a knowledgeable and cool opponent.

    There are so many polite ways to say something without saying it. But with such agencies you can be completely open and straightforward. We should not waste our time trying to impress trash.

    Finally and importantly it's virtually meaningless what leaseweb thiks (by now). What's important is how judges would perceive the situation and evolution and how credible they deem both sides. A party that reacts properly (for courts that means within reasonable time and formally correct) always looks much better than one relying on electronic communication, lack of emotional self-control and careless, too late.

    What you write here is completely obvious, I suppose. My point is - it's to late for negotiations. OP can send letters, but all his electronic communication should serve as evidence pretty fine, considering the age we are living in. Last of all - I would bet this case won't reach court if OP is in different country and 10% of probability if he's in the same country. BTW - I tried to sue one similar agency because they tried to get money from me, but this didn't go far; they are allowed to do that at some extent: they can call you and text you whenever they want, they can piss you off and get away with that. Still, I think I paid them back (most of the workers they had) :D

    Thanked by 1Edmond
  • jsgjsg Member, Resident Benchmarker
    edited January 2021

    @vero said:
    What you write here is completely obvious, I suppose. My point is - it's to late for negotiations. OP can send letters, but all his electronic communication should serve as evidence pretty fine, considering the age we are living in.

    No negotiations needed. Just acting like a good guy (as seen from a judge) plus not providing any bullets to leaseweb and their enforcement gang and making the enforcers work harder (maybe stop them in their tracks)

    And now, if you'll excuse me, I'd like to end our discussion because my intention was absolutely not to be Mr. Smart or to win an argument but simply to help @rotkiv, especially to sooth his fear and to help him to avoid unnecessary panic.
    Again, I'm not a lawyer but I guess with some (re)acting smartly and keeping his cool, a lawyer will not even be needed. I sincerely hope that I could help rotkiv a bit.

  • verovero Member, Host Rep

    @jsg said:
    And now, if you'll excuse me, I'd like to end our discussion because my intention was absolutely not to be Mr. Smart or to win an argument but simply to help @rotkiv, especially to sooth his fear and to help him to avoid unnecessary panic.

    This discussion was quite fruitful. Poll for Mr. Smart is in another thread BTW :) And there's no reason to excuse, we just shared our knowledge, that's why we are here. OP already did what he needed to do. Panic is completely unavoidable on one's first encounter with court and fear is not going anywhere after second or third time, but it becomes controllable.

    Again, I'm not a lawyer but I guess with some (re)acting smartly and keeping his cool, a lawyer will not even be needed. I sincerely hope that I could help rotkiv a bit.

    I think he won't need anything at all, but if that's not the case, forum advice might not work well. If one is not completely stupid, he wont start swearing to every person he meets also he will keep some evidence for future use. That's self-understood for me, but perhaps it was worth pointing out. When it comes to debt collectors, there's quite a different language they understand (not necessarily f words), but being benevolent is treated as being weak by them. An average law abiding citizen doesn't meet such scum often in his life, so usually he doesn't know how to react. And they take advantage of that. So my advice - you can be polite with them is such way, that they would not want to or feel extremely uncomfortable to contact you once again.

  • jsgjsg Member, Resident Benchmarker

    @vero

    Thanks, yes I enjoyed our discussion, too. It's just that I think that I have provided enough points to @rotkiv (who seems to not even follow this thread anymore. Sad.), and I have other things to do. Plus, here in Europe it's already quite late.

    Have a nice weekend - and to rotkiv: Stay cool and good luck!

    Thanked by 1vero
  • My 2 cents., You live in another country, A lawyer will be very expensive for the amount they are taking you to court. I thing the smart thing to do is, try to negotiate the debt with the collector. offer 50% of the total, tell them you live in another country and they will never get a cent from you., but even if you pay 70% is not bad, according your own writing here you breached the contract.

    Thanked by 1rotkiv
  • pikepike Veteran

    @marvel said:
    Even if they take it to court and the judge says you have to pay it's very hard for them to collect if you're not in NL.

    You got these fancy license plate scanners at the border, and for quite some germans the dutch coast is the closest beach they can get to.

  • you answer can be find in Netflix - Suits

  • rotkivrotkiv Member
    edited January 2021

    Thanks a lot for all the advice I have received so far.

    I have now slept on the matter and apologized to my wife for being in such a bad mood all day yesterday.

    I try to stay calm but it makes me really fucking pissed that leaseweb does not even want to take the slightest responsibility for their technical problems in the summer of 2019 that forced us to change provider in the middle of the summer holidays, and instead continue to chase advance invoices for new periods via debt collection companies.

    TBK INCASSO has now after 2 months has not responded to any of our emails where we ask them to specify which invoices at leaseweb to which the collection amount applies. They do not respond to e-mails at all, but instead become more threatening in every letter they send via snail mail.

    Before I went to bed yesterday, I paid € 613.69 directly to LeaseWeb. I will not pay anything to this suspicious debt collection company. This covers the cost of a new 12-month period. I have to take responsibility for this cost because I terminated the server via email instead of via a ticket in the summer of 2019.

    Quite frankly, I would like to call a higher person at leaseweb where we can agree on something, but I simply can not bear to have more contact with them. It was too exhausting last time when all the problems started. In this context, € 600 is a small sum to never have to have contact with them again or be reminded of them again.

    The remaining cost of ~ € 200 which includes collection costs and LeaseWeb's "deactivation charge" I will not pay.

    Am I stupid to pay? Probably. This is not the fight to pick. Time and well-being is worth more than money. This also reminds me how incredibly happy we are with the hosting provider we changed to. I gotta send them a thanks for great service on monday.

  • ShazanShazan Member, Host Rep

    I would suggest you next time to pay first, then dispute later...
    If you don't find a solution after you dispute, then migrate to another provider without leaving any debts behind.
    Leaving this kind of issues open never ends well.

  • NoCommentNoComment Member
    edited January 2021

    @rotkiv said: Am I stupid to pay? Probably. This is not the fight to pick. Time and well-being is worth more than money. This also reminds me how incredibly happy we are with the hosting provider we changed to. I gotta send them a thanks for great service on monday.

    Next thing you know, they end up mailing you for the remaining 200+ euros with some interest tacked on top... I think you have to send leaseweb and the collection agency registered mail to check if they consider your debt settled. Also, I don't know how this stuff works but it's quite likely that leaseweb sold your debt for cheap to the collection agency, and you kinda paid the wrong company.

  • deankdeank Member, Troll

    Yep, Leaseweb sold the debt. Happens all the time.

    OP can certainly ignore it. I mean the amount is small enough for them not to bother. But, given enough years, with interest (Usually 20%), the amount will be large enough.
    It will take several years though.

    When big enough, that's when they will hit you. Seen it happen more than a few around me. A dude ignores an invoice, and it eventually bites his arse a decade later.

    Of course, the agency can chalk it off when they deem it's not worth it. I'd say it's 50/50 that it will eventually bite your arse.

  • JioJio Member

    so to be clear you signed a contract and then decided to cancel it by saying 'im not paying'?

  • pakhostpakhost Member
    edited January 2021

    @rotkiv It is totally a new experience I listened from you. If you don't wanna use LW services anymore, then just their renewal invoices. But, how they can force you for pay renewal invoices.

    Edit: In hosting business, services will be activated after payment. When LW will not receive any payment regarding the concerned service, they will not activate the service and matter will be finished. But why they are forcing you to make payment for renewal. It is totally unclear for me.

  • @Jio said:
    so to be clear you signed a contract and then decided to cancel it by saying 'im not paying'?

    In July 2019 we paid for a 12 months contract for this server. One month later in August 2019 we cancelled the server via e-mail due to technical problems which they failed to solve. We cancelled all our servers with LeaseWeb and switched provider.

    We never took the server into use during the first 12 months which we payed for, and accepted the loss of money since we did not want to spend any more time with thier customer service.

    In July 2020 they send an advance-payment invoice for a new 12-months. We dispute this. They never answer to our disputes and in Dec 2021 we started to be harrased from thier debt collection company. We dispute the invoice and attach our dialogue with LeaseWeb, our cancellation and all the technical issues. We never receive any reply from
    the dept collection company, nor leaseweb.

    And now they threaten to take this to court on Jan 27.

  • deankdeank Member, Troll
    edited January 2021

    So, you just broke your contract on whim.

    A contract must be cancelled mutually.

  • @rotkiv said: And now they threaten to take this to court on Jan 27.

    Actually, they were going to begin with the procedures on 27 Jan, so you had plenty of time to make a response after they give you a court date. I'd like to recommend you to send them registered mail again just to check on their view of your debt. I think they are not going to chase you for this small amount but you value your well-being, no?

  • deankdeank Member, Troll

    He does not. If he did, he would have consulted with a lawyer of some sort.

    He wouldn't have started this thread to begin with.

  • rotkivrotkiv Member
    edited January 2021

    @deank said:
    He does not. If he did, he would have consulted with a lawyer of some sort.

    He wouldn't have started this thread to begin with.

    Only a lawyer would recommend a company to hire a lawyer for an b2b dispute of € 800.

    Given your answers, it just seems like you want to provoke.

    Thanked by 1TimboJones
  • jsgjsg Member, Resident Benchmarker

    What a waste of time. Lots of panic noises but then he breaks down and gives in quickly ... of course not the proper way but his way. Plus he still seems to think that a court cares about his email "proof". And not even a thank you click.

    Likely outcome: The incasso guys will continue their hunt.

    The real lesson I learned here is to not care at all about panic requests for help. Especially not when OP first takes a good nap instead of following his own panic thread.

    Thanked by 2rotkiv AlwaysSkint
  • @jsg said:
    What a waste of time. Lots of panic noises but then he breaks down and gives in quickly ... of course not the proper way but his way. Plus he still seems to think that a court cares about his email "proof". And not even a thank you click.

    Likely outcome: The incasso guys will continue their hunt.

    The real lesson I learned here is to not care at all about panic requests for help. Especially not when OP first takes a good nap instead of following his own panic thread.

    I am aware that I am not acting completely rationally, and in part let my reminded anger against leaseweb take over how I act now 1.5 year later.

    Regarding sleep, we are probably in different time zones.

  • verovero Member, Host Rep

    Looks like you have got type of contract which renews automatically every year, if you don't cancel it one month prior to renewal. If so, you need to stop this somehow. I have no idea how legit this practice is, but without going to court you won't find out. So many companies use it (especially in Germany), I suspect they might have some legal basis. If you would be a private customer it would be much easier, as consumer laws kicks in here, but in b2b type of relations it will be possibly just a waste of time and money. For both of you.

    After quick googling, I found, that EU has implemented some new cool features three years back, like "European Account Preservation Order". So they kind of can reach you everywhere in EU, except if you are in Denmark (they don't accept this regulation - kudos). Yet I have no idea how it works and if it works at all, but I'm sure if you let them, they will do whatever they please. There is so much things one can contest in this case, it's so involving.. It would be real fun for some beginning lawyers.

    Thanked by 1rotkiv
  • @vero said:
    Looks like you have got type of contract which renews automatically every year, if you don't cancel it one month prior to renewal. If so, you need to stop this somehow. I have no idea how legit this practice is, but without going to court you won't find out. So many companies use it (especially in Germany), I suspect they might have some legal basis. If you would be a private customer it would be much easier, as consumer laws kicks in here, but in b2b type of relations it will be possibly just a waste of time and money. For both of you.

    The practice is common in Sweden too.

    However, it is probably not as common for companies to force renewal if you as a customer have shown that you do not want renewal next year due to that the service has had too many problems.

    Most things can be sorted out quite well with dialogue. This is also how I avoided court during my 22 years as a business owner.

    After quick googling, I found, that EU has implemented some new cool features three years back, like "European Account Preservation Order". So they kind of can reach you everywhere in EU, except if you are in Denmark (they don't accept this regulation - kudos). Yet I have no idea how it works and if it works at all, but I'm sure if you let them, they will do whatever they please. There is so much things one can contest in this case, it's so involving.. It would be real fun for some beginning lawyers.

    Yeah. I found that too yesterday, It was basically the worry of that feature that caused me to start this thread.

  • acidpukeacidpuke Member
    edited January 2021

    @rotkiv said: I paid € 613.69 directly to LeaseWeb

    LeaseWeb is done with you. Once they sold your debt to 3rd party there not in the picture anymore. Sounds like you now have a credit at Leaseweb.

    One thing you have to remember is even if they start a legal proceeding there is plenty of time to negotiate even up to the day of trial if you wanted to.

    You would be surprised how many case are settled hours before a trial starts, a lot of Judges hate these 3rd party collection companies for there tactics, judges throw these type of cases out all the time for lack of evidence, again are they going to have a LeaseWeb employee show up at trial from accounting and testify (99% of the time no unless its substantial money)

    Incasso knows this and it a big roll of the dice for them, they want to settle before a trial, usually these types of cases are settled at 20% and under. That's a big 'if' it even goes to trial.

    Thanked by 1rotkiv
  • verovero Member, Host Rep

    @rotkiv said:
    Most things can be sorted out quite well with dialogue. This is also how I avoided court during my 22 years as a business owner.

    You have missed a lot during that time :D Not really. Being surrounded by clever people (and business partners) makes life so much easier..

    Yeah. I found that too yesterday, It was basically the worry of that feature that caused me to start this thread.

    If you are in Sweden, then Denmark is just one long bridge away - you could open bank account there :) Again, being serious - I don't know how much it is possible for someone to block your account for something from somewhere, it is very serious measure. I don't think you would even apply. But, it must be hard not to worry and act rationally after these undisturbed 22 years.

    Thanked by 1rotkiv
  • verovero Member, Host Rep

    @acidpuke said:
    LeaseWeb is done with you. Once they sold your debt to 3rd party there not in the picture anymore.

    Stop right there. Selling a debt and passing a debt for collection is two different things. I didn't meet the case when debt was sold, I know banks do that, yet I'm not familiar. This scenario must be definitely well described in contract / TOS / wherever. It they just pay someone to collect their debt, like in this case, I suppose, then everything you wrote after is more or less truth.

    Thanked by 1rotkiv
  • LeviLevi Member
    edited January 2021

    @vero said:

    @acidpuke said:
    LeaseWeb is done with you. Once they sold your debt to 3rd party there not in the picture anymore.

    Stop right there. Selling a debt and passing a debt for collection is two different things. I didn't meet the case when debt was sold, I know banks do that, yet I'm not familiar. This scenario must be definitely well described in contract / TOS / wherever. It they just pay someone to collect their debt, like in this case, I suppose, then everything you wrote after is more or less truth.

    LW sold their debt to collectors. It is very common practice in Europe. You just minimize your losses. Read paper again, it is not "on behalf of leaseweb..." it is "you owe us some money mate...".

    OP is in Europe, so eventually he will pay. Final sum can be 2 or 3 times bigger than original after all fees.

    OP get a nap again, shake your wallet and pay. As a bonus I would sent my penis photo along with check if I were you.

    Thanked by 1rotkiv
  • verovero Member, Host Rep

    @LTniger said:
    LW sold their debt to collectors. It is very common practice in Europe. You just minimize your losses. Read paper again, it is not "on behalf of leaseweb..." it is "you owe us some money mate...".

    No, but thanks for mentioning the paper, I didn't read it before. It clearly states "client claim, that has been passed to us for collection".

  • verovero Member, Host Rep

    @vero said:

    @LTniger said:
    LW sold their debt to collectors. It is very common practice in Europe. You just minimize your losses. Read paper again, it is not "on behalf of leaseweb..." it is "you owe us some money mate...".

    No, but thanks for mentioning the paper, I didn't read it before. It clearly states "client claim, that has been passed to us for collection".

    Update. I used the same terms (passed for collection) even when I didn't read it and I'm struggling with English language sometimes. I feel so good now.

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