And of course he is correct unless the account number is in the public domain like for example Mark's account number...

Ah but I did not ask for any identity details. I merely asked them to confirm whether the payment that I instructed be wired to the account IBAN xyz had indeed been wired to said account IBAN xyz (regardless of the details of the beneficial owner) or not.

Surely that isn't a breach of secrecy?

Why you need to ask ?

I do all my payments with yellownet and I have a trace off all of them.

If you paid at the bank you should also have a receipt, don't you ?

Some of the fees are indeed then enforceable IF the Betreibung/poursuite actually finds in their favour ie that you do owe them money. In this case the debtor ie the one owing has to pay the reasonable cost of the debt recovery. This is not the same as all the figures listed in the letters of the debt receovery company but will include the actual cost of the betreibung/poursuite plus some of the other costs. If the court finds these costs unreasonable the court splits them as they see fit...

Assuming you accepted the package you accepted the attached conditions ie that you would pay the said amount. So if they start the procedure you can complain that the figure is too high, you can even shout from the rooftops but you will still have to pay.

If only life was that simple! Any bill you receive will come with conditions attached. Dependent on those conditions you have individual cases determined by defined rules. Specific cases can be answered but you would need a book to answer them all...

Yes, but my little knowlegde about contracts is that you have to know and agree to the conditions in advance to consider that you accepted the contract.

When the postman comes and leaves a package that need taxes payed, he makes you pay and gives you a receipt.

In this case the postman only left the package at the door. The invoice came 2 weeks later with the surprise ammount and also the surprise that this was a "private company" delivering, which is false, because the package was delivered by the same postman who delivers normal postal packages.

No it indeed is not. Attach a name to the account and the account owner is in Switzerland and you have 2 of the three points you need to make the information confidential, but as you implied the guy from UBS was being a bit of an idiot.

If the postman delivers the letter to your door AND you open it then he has completed his duty. If you want to refuse then you may, even after the event, and return the package unopened to the post office as "not desired/not ordered". Furthermore, seeing as we are talking about duty etc you can also return the package and reclaim the duty but unfortunately not the handling fees.

I wanted to know whether the conterpart lied about not getting money and deserved to be shot in the head, or rather was there a normal operational delay in processing the transaction, in which case he only deserved to be shot through the kneecap for wasting my time.

I am a big treehugger.

This depends on what type of contract you are talking about. If the contract comes to being through a purchase within a shop then no you need not know the terms and conditions in advance or indeed at all. Often it is the case that the first time you actually have anything to do with the terms and conditions of the transaction are when you need to make a claim and that is the time when you find the little disclaimer "any goods sold to a person not exactly 1.6956589m high will not considered for a return". Thankfully you still have consumer protection to counteract any such silly rules.

If however you purchase over the internet then the terms and conditions need to be presented to you. ie it is not enough to say I have read and agreed to the conditions. They physically have to be there for you to read and only through clicking acceptance do they go. Also business over the internet is a tricky one. Some countries state that the protection is provided by the country where the seller is located and others state that it is provided by the location where the buyer is located so actually it is a mess.

So actually knowing the contractual terms is not necessarily a requirement as it depends on how you bought the goods and where the counterparty is based.

Dear Lob,

Thanks for moving this thread but you have now put this in the wrong place so would you be so kind as to move it back again and then delete this post. This is very much about daily life and has nothing to do with finance...

Richard

Richard, just wanted to say you are a shining beacon of information, as always. Thanks!

The point of this post is to confirm what Richard says about OR 106 and "rt 27. Abs. 3 SchKG" - can someone please tell me what SchKH is an abbreviation for?

I sort of won, thanks to the guys and girls at my local "Sozial Dienste", but the Inkasso involved has put a dirty great black mark against my name as a bad risk. I find it absurd that when I refuse to pay their outrageous charges, they control the bad debtors list and can put me on there at a whim.

And oh yes, in the bill involved, they tried to stiff me CHF 25 for "Rechtsberater Kosten" (legal advice). Nuff said.

Hi SCHKG is short for Schuldbetreibung und Konkurs Gesetz ie the law for dealing with debtors and bankruptcy. The black mark against your name will also have the mark paid in full against it and given the date the Betreibung is issued and the date the payment is made is very short this should not be an issue. Furthermore anyone can initiate a Betreibung which remains a "black mark" as long as you are here. Some of these are relevant and some not. I have two - one from Diax and one from Orange but they have never caused me any problem - just for information I won both cases but the Betreibung entry is still there...

UBS has a great feature in ther Internet banking called Initiate a research. Works wonderfully in my experience. Another reason why UBS is on the top of my Banklist :-)

Or get the yellow receipt book from the Post office and get them to stamp the book. That way your receipts are all in one place.

IIRC the book costs 2 francs, the PTT put stamps to that value and stamp them, apparently this makes it a legal document.

just some additional questions:

if you owe money on lets say the 15th, but its a sunday, can you pay on monday the 16th and not get fined???

also how come only companies can charge customers for late payments 5% but they dont have to pay 5% to customers when they owe them money??? (for instance i had the internet company overcharge my credit card and paid me back 4 months later without interest). just from experience it seems 5% is only for companies, and not for private individuals.

also how come the victim of abusive companies (overcharging or inventing contracts) have courts rule that they must pay without hearing both sides of the case, and if the victim wants to fight it they must pay the court money. seems odd that the victim always pays, and often the system favors companies.

There is normally an unspoken "grace" period for all invoices of 10 days. Thus, to pay on the 16th when the invoice is due the 15th is no issue really. Note though, this is for the original term of payment. In case you get a reminder, I would be more carefull and make sure the invoice is paid within the limit they states. In that case I would execute the payment with value date the 13th (Friday).

There are also certain invoices you really never should be late paying such as rent and health insurance e.g.

And of course, if you always choose to pay your invoices with a delay, you may have substantially less "good-will" to call on if you are _really_ late once. Thus, my recommendation is to always pay the invoice with value date being the same as the due date.

Regarding the customer side of the payment there is actually something like what you're asking for. It is called "skonto" and is normally 2% if you pay within 10 days of date of invoice. Some companies specifically states that they don't grant this and others states nothing. If there is nothing stated, you may try to deduct the 2% and see if you get away with it. You may be lucky - you may be not :-)

All the above are unspoken norms and are _not_ legally binding. Legally binding is only what was contractually agreed (in writing _or_ verbally).

so 2% customer, 5% companies. that seems fair... as for contracts. well i live in the italian part of switzerland and can say most contracts are oral, and many people refuse to put anything in writing (they think its a scam or say they will but never do...) how would anyone prove a verbal contract if there is no evidence of it? IE arent tape, phone, and video recording illegal? ive been told verbal contracts are taken seriously but really i dont think they are here.