hi,

i got this strange letter some time back from web.de saying that i had subscribed to their Club and am liable to pay something for it. I vaguely remember using web.de but have no clue when I accepted such a service..must've been part of their small print.

i emailed them saying that i had no clue why i shud pay for it and that i dont even remember let alone use web.de's services. i only got an automated response from their customer service asking me to provide my login details!

now i get a letter from some inkasso dienst asking me to cough up 130 bucks for all possible costs that dont exist.has anyone been in a similar situation?

i googled this and saw that lotsa people have been getting such crap from web.de..point is, i dont want to pay - can lawyers (VPMK?) handle this or is it a verbraucherschutz issue?

any suggestions welcome

~tiefweiss

Hi,
I had a same kind of situation and unfortunately I pay.
this is a strange system here that if you register for some so called "free services", you must deregister it before three months. alternatively, you will start getting some bill.
In my case, I ignore this web.de bill for aroung one year but at the end they find my address from some where and send me the "mahnung" by post of around 130 euro.

after consulting with all of my colleages (who also suggest me to pay) I contact with web.de team and after days of negotiation they reduced my mahnung costs and reduced the bill to 60 euro.

but be carefull, you must get an official letter from the web.de team that you are deregistered after paying the amount.
regards,

thanks for that..i never received any bills until one fine day when they sent me a letter (not even a formal bill) saying that i owe them 60 and have not paid inspite of several (non-existent) mahnbescheids.

their claim is that i have a membership vertrag with them, which has no proof..i never signed anything or got a copy of the vertrag..moreover, even if i did click on something and susbscribe, the terms & conditions did not come up clearly for confirmation.i see too many loopholes here..anyway, im not paying..lets see..i wrote to web.de again saying im taking this issue public to spiegel, computerbild & other mags..

imagine sending out such letters to lotsa users and each one paying a minimum of 60 (cud be lesser..u say u even negotiated!!)..a very organised and clever form of white-collar crime..nuthin else!

how did they come to know your address if you didn't register on their site?

http://freemail.web.de/home/landingpad/?mc=hp@fm.freemail@register

is this what you are talking about?

WEB.DE Club-Gratis-Testmonat:
Die Laufzeit beträgt 30 Tage. Möchten Sie danach Club-Mitglied bleiben, brauchen Sie nichts zu tun. Ihre Mitgliedschaft wird um 6 Monate (5 Euro/Monat) verlängert. Sie können die Testmitgliedschaft bis zum 25. Tag per Telefon 0180-5-67 66 99
für 0,12 Euro/Min., Mo.-Fr. 08:00 - 21:00 Uhr / Sa.-So. 10:00 - 18:00 Uhr beenden.

WEB.DE Sucks man.

I wanted a printed bill at my address everymonth and they refuse to do it.

for a F**ing 5 euro membership (RIP OFF) i get a 7.50 euros mahngebuhr.

this is a total rip off.

Hi Tiefweiss, Can you give a feedback on what happened later on.

I too have got a 'LETZTE MAHNUNG' from a Inkasso for some other service. I do not know how to handle it. Should I ignore it or should I call and negotiate with them?

me too had the same experience.I paid totally around 100 euros.This is really worst.
thanks for all your messages.

One solution for these problems

First better read fully what u r doing becasue most of the time these money clauss they write very small so that user normally ignore and later get traped and of course our german is also not very good so we wont bother to read fully:-)

Second if something like that happen then better pay and close the case(if u feel that they hav upper hand then u can fight) coz u cant win from them as they can hav better layers and better german law understandings.

Ignoring them will make it worse for u.

AS u delay the amount will become more and more and after if u get this GELB BRIEF then there is almost no chance to escape from it.

I had the same problem. I went through a lawyer and didnt pay any cent. I dont know if its ok to put his name here. So mail me at

kalapatt at gmail.com and i will send his contact details

I would like to warn the whole world for WEB.DE - Warning, warning, warning!

Here is my story from Sweden:

I also had a "free email account" for one year in 2006 at web.de - in december 2006 I got my frist LETZTE MAHNUNG letter (before that I have received no letters from them, so how could it be letzte??). Stupidly I paid 90 Euro direct from my bank account. Two weeks later I receive again a letter from them with threats about inkasso. I called them and spoked to a man who promised to delete my account at web.de as I had paid my debt.

Two months later I received again a bill with 90 Euro. I called again and this time I spoked to a woman and she insisted that I had to pay this last 90 Euro to end the account, then it should be finished. OK. Stupidly again I did pay, and this time I paid with my credit card on internet just to quickly get the problems out of my world. And so I thought it was...

BUT in december 2007 I got a surprise! Once again a bill of 90 Euros!!! This time i did not pay. Nothing happend (I thought).

In February 2008 I discovered in my bank account that WEB.DE have done WITHDRAWALS directly from my account in March 2007, June 2007 and August 2007!!!!! Each time 15 Euro. Not a lot of money, but if they steal money like this from 1000 persons it's kind of some money they get! I am really pissed!

To my great surprise finally again I received an invoice in december 2008, I returned the letter to them and said I was DED! I closed my credit card so they can't do anymore illegal transactions.

I wrote to the large magazine Bild in Germany about this story but nothing happend.

I guess I now can wait for a new invoice in december 2009 as this seems to be a never ending story. I am mostly surprised that they can keep going on doing this kind of "business".
Why are they still out there? Does people in Germany accept this? In Sweden this is ILLEGAL!!

P.S - they get your postal address from your IP address on the computer.
They are really working nasty!

@ findusen444

Why did you need to pay them, if you have only an free email account?

Did you activate some special service, like big storage, club membership etc??

No, no - I did not have any extra functions at web.de - only the "free email account".
From other complaints I have understood that they have a small text in their agreement saying: the email account is free for 3 months and if YOU don't cancel it after those months you have to pay. Really nasty. I did not use my account for 7 months therefore I missed their email.

Anyway I don't understand how this web.de still can be running as they do illegal transcations directly from your credit card month after month!

Should be a German police investigation on this!

>>Anyway I don't understand how this web.de still can be running as they do illegal transcations directly from your credit card month after month!

Why did u provide with your credit card information if it is supposed to be free? Should that not ring a bell in your head in the first place


>>Should be a German police investigation on this!

Why dont do be the first to complain then? The police cant start an investigation if they dont have a complaint. The best place to complain is Verbraucherzentrale and they will advise about further steps to be taken. The company keeps on fleecing customers if no one complains against them and no one wants to take the effort to compalin.

Well, as I explained, unfortunately it was not free (only for 3 months which i totally missed), so therefore I did (stupidly) my duty to pay and thought that the "problem" was solved. NORMALLY when you pay you never continue to receive inkasso letters which of course made me suspisious...I thought it was a serious web site.

And as they agreed that the account was closed and paid when we spoked by phone I of course took for granted and trusted them. Why should I not?

Thanks for the advise how to complaint in Germany. It's not easy to be in another country "fighting" with web sites like this. And for sure I am not the only one.

>>And as they agreed that the account was closed and paid when we spoked by phone I of course took for granted and trusted them. Why should I not?

Why should u trust them??

Anyways one more lesson, get everything in writing. On a telephone it is your word against them unless you have recorded the call. Try always to have a paper trail irrespective of how much the other side is trustworthy.