Julian Allitt

For the second time, you have omitted the name of my local Apotheke, Lenné in Kark-Marx Str. Frankfurt Oder, from your ordering-map, thus depriving them of my business. It was included on three previous occasions and worked seamlessly.

I have just paid 38,68 Euro to an Inkasso (debt collectors) instructed by Strato.de over a missed 11 Euro payment.
I have several domain names with Strato and have dealt with the company for many years. I went into hospital in early November for a serious operation to reconstruct my left foot, ankle and lower leg. Since then, I have been convalescing at home under medical supervision and taking an array of strong pain killing drugs.
In recent days, feeling better, I have begun to address a backlog of business matters and correspondence, including with Strato. I had noted two fairly recent payments to Strato for a total of 75.02 Euro from our company bank account, so assumed we were probably up to date. But I called the company to ask if there were any issues outstanding which I needed to deal with. The lady I spoke to said she had no knowledge of the 75,02 Euro payments - these did not show up on her screen. She asked me to send her screenshots, which I did. She also mentioned "Delta" which it turned out was an Inkasso - a debt collector.
Someone else at Strato then wrote to ask why I had sent them screenshots!
Then this week I received the demand from the Inkasso for the 38,68 Euro payment (for an 11 Euro debt). It also included a form on which I was expected to set out details of my income and financial circumstances.
Crazily, it turned out I had actually paid a later 11 Euro payment. Was there really no-one at this company able to look at a printout and to have thought, "Hang on, our good client appears to have overlooked one payment" and alerted me, rather than shunting it across to a debt collector?
I have now written to Strato asking for full details of my/our existing accounts so that I can cancel or switch them to a better-organised provider which values its clients rather more. It really is frightening and Kafkaesque when different parts of the company do not know what other parts are saying and doing and I want to get out.

Like others who have complained, for many years I held an AMAZON credit card managed by Landesbank Berlin. Like others, I trusted in the Amazon brand but it turns out that was nothing more than a marketing gimmick and we were really dealing with LBB.
Its decision to cut the ties with Amazon (or was it the other round?) came at an unfortunate time for me. I went into hospital in early November 2023 for a serious operation to reconstruct my left foot, ankle and lower leg. I welcomed having the operation but it has meant weeks and months of severe pain, necessitating taking daily an array of strong drugs. For more than two months, I have been convalescing at home under medical supervision. I have only twice left the house in that time, for medical appointments. The letter from the bank advising me of its split with Amazon came on the day I went into hospital.
In the last couple of weeks I have begun addressing a backlog of mail which has built up while I was ill. I wrote to LBB explaining my circumstances and saying I wold like to transfer to the offered Berlin Sparkasse VISA card. I had used most of my 6,000 -Euro-plus limit on my card but totally within the rules and was used to paying back around 400 Euro per month. The curt reply, signed by two people, said I was too late to switch to the new card and that I was now liable for the full amount which had been referred to an Inkasso. In other words, the bank had sold my debt to a company of debt collectors which would now pursue me for the full amount outstanding and to which I would be expected to prove my financial circumstances and pay significant costs on top.
Just one final point; English is an official language of the European Union. I am English and LBB is out of order refusing to deal with its clients in English. (Its document setting out the terms of business of the VISA card of the Berliner Sparkasse runs to 64 pages of tightly-spaced German legalese).
I am now researching whether any regulatory authority is prepared to challenge LBB, which is a disgrace to business and to banking.

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