This week I had my first experience of visiting a German court.

I’ve talked before about the payment culture in Germany, and how some customers just don’t pay up.  I have had to register customer debts with the court before, but this was the first time I had actually been to one, as it was a slightly different situation.  This time, it was a supplier who owed me money.

Last year, I sent some items of computer hardware back to one of my supplies for repair or replacement.  Unfortunately the supplier then filed for bankruptcy.

It took a lot of telephone calls to get my hardware dealt with, but one of the items, which I had luckily noticed was not working before I sold it to a customer, was gone for a long time.

In the end I called the manufacturer and was told that the item had been destroyed and a credit note issued, meaning that rather than getting a replacement I now had to register as a creditor (called a Gläubiger in German) to my own supplier. [Read more…]