ciferecaNinjo @ ciferecaNinjo @fedia.io

Posts

187

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312

Joined

2 yr. ago

Moderating

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Yeah I’m not surprised there are subject matter-specific ombuds offices. I was hoping for one at the top of the tree for when those fail. I just found this page where the EU lists them for each member state:

https://www.ombudsman.europa.eu/en/european-network-of-ombudsmen/members/all-members

And for Germany, this office is given:

https://epetitionen.bundestag.de/epet/peteinreichen.html

The complexity in the description on the EU’s page indeed gives cause for concern.

Nonsense. This is like comparing the price of rice in China to potatoes in Ireland. Process serving is a legal process with liability. Process serving does not allow for dropping a slip in a box and waiting for the served to come to your office and stand in line at the convenience of the process server. Process servers must be resilient to track down a human, who may rarely be home. There is no lax rule of just waiting 2 weeks for the served person to appear and sending it back.

(edit) A registered letter can also be refused. Which amounts to a simple tickbox and returned letter.

BTW, this is not to say process serving is not also overpriced. But process serving /should/ cost much more than registered letter.

(edit 2) Process serving can turn into a man hunt. I’ve seen process servers dig around like private investigators to find out where someone hangs out, in order to track them down and get papers in front of them. And when it all fails, a process server has to publish the circumstance in a local newspaper to then be able to argue in court that the served had an opportunity to become informed that way.

Email delivery has never been designed to be reliable.

Indeed, not inherently. Though it /can/ be reliable only if sent a certain way. Sender emails a “digital notary” service and puts the ultimate destination in a separate header. The digital notary forwards the msg, timestamps it, signs it, and includes the sig of the previously sent transmission (to create a verfiable chain). A service called the UK Timestamper demonstrates this. It proves posting but not reception. There is a RFC (documented open standard) for read receipts whereby the recipient sends a signal when they open the msg. Of course it’s voluntary and relies on a willing recipient.

In the end, Belgium simply declares that a simple email serves as a registered letter.

Your situation, of course, is one you have created entirely by your choice and typically email delivery is very reliable - but the technological underpinnings absolutely are not.

My situation proves how catastrophic it is to presume reliability. I conciously traded off reliability in exchange for privacy (of a certain kind), control, and malice detection. Though I have no way of knowing how much reliability I am trading. Blackholing is borne out of incompetent design. Delivery cannot be guaranteed but a delivery failure should be signaled to one party or the other.

€10 for a registered mail is not extortionate. It is a reasonable price for the service, which also serves the necessary low barrier that prevents abuse.

It’s absurdly extortionate. It first requires prior class. Prior class within Belgium is more than sending prior from Germany to anywhere in the EU. Then they are charging an additional ~€7 just to collect a sig. The postal workers are quick to insert a slip into the mailbox that forces the recipient to go to the post office and wait in line. It’s very streamlined and convenient (for them, not us). In some cases they don’t even bother buzz the doorbell.. just drop off the slip with the rest of the mail.

If DIGI comes around to drill into your façade to add another cable, you then have a legal obligation to send DIGI a registered letter every time you renovate your facade in the area of the cables. If you have 8 cables attached to your house, that’s a cost of ~€80.

There is an easy opportunity here for a company like Deliveroo to expand and undercut them.

You’re referring to “basic” accounts. Those are crippled accounts (e.g., no cash services in Belgium). There is no way to get the cash into a basic account. Basic accounts are also not gratis. You generally pay more for less, as retail accounts are sometimes gratis. But retail accounts are harder to get.

There is also the scenario that some people are unbanked /by choice/. They should be able to retain their human rights like right to autonomy as they pursue their human right to a fair trial.

The ministry of privacy website uses Sucuri to block Tor. So they have a hypocrisy problem. But I’ll have a look anyway. Just because the web admin isn’t on par with their mission doesn’t mean they aren´t useful.

The cheque circulaire isn't offered since 2010, that's explained at the bottom of the current fees.

Circular cheques are still being used. I just received one. The articles you link say that the circular cheques will remain when the postal orders are eliminated.

Your links were quite helpful. This looks like the most relevant bit for answering my question (from this article):

(en translation)

…According to the office of the Minister of Public Action and Modernization, Vanessa Matz was able, via the circular cheque, to guarantee a concrete and free cash alternative for the most vulnerable. In particular, this measure concerns those who do not have access to banking services or who are isolated. Neither circular cheques nor prepaid cards will be billed to beneficiaries, says the firm on Tuesday.

(fr original)

…Selon le cabinet de la ministre l’Action et de la Modernisation publiques, Vanessa Matz a pu, via le chèque circulaire, garantir une alternative cash concrète et gratuite pour les plus vulnérables. Cette mesure concerne en particulier ceux qui n’ont pas accès aux services bancaires ou qui sont isolés. Ni les chèques circulaires ni les cartes prépayées ne seront facturés aux bénéficiaires, précise le cabinet mardi.

That seems to explain what I was misunderstanding. I thought if the fee for cheque cashing is going away, perhaps so are the cheques. That would be very disturbing but that’s not the case. Apparently the 4€ fee is going away.🎉 I believe that fee was always illegal. Glad something was done about it.

Remaining question: how does a postal order differ from a circular cheque? What do we lose when postal orders go away? AFAICT, they function the same. This article seems to say circular cheques require movement -- going to a bank or post office to cash it, which is a problem for some handicaps. But I don’t get why that would not be the case with a postal order as well. How does a postal order get converted to cash? Is it perhaps about showing ID? Is it a case where a family member could cash a postal order for their grandparent, but not a cheque?

The place to complain -- only if you are willing to solve CAPTCHAs:

https://survey.alchemer.eu/s3/90510992/en

I don’t do CAPTCHAs.

It was hard to get used to. I write a polite request for something and the machine translation looks as if I am rudely demanding something.

I wonder if your reversal is accurate:

🇫🇷 demander : 🇬🇧 to ask

To ask could be to ask a question, so I would say “to request” or “to place an order” would seem more accurate.

EU Directive 2014⧸92 was /supposed/ to make it easier. It at least shifts the effort onto the banks as far as moving all the mandates/domiciliations from one bank to another. But indeed the switching law has limited utility in situations where you are trapped in a bundled mortgage+insurance relationship scheme.

I wonder if you can use the “switching” mechanism without taking the final step of closing the original acct. So e.g. you move most of your money into NEW BANK as well as all standing orders except the mortgage & insurance. Then you setup a monthly standing order to feed the old acct just enough to cover the mortgage and insurance. The old bank earns less when the bulk of your money is elsewhere.

Indeed that’s another reason to avoid them. But bPost has their own ATMs and BNP Parabas does not. BNPP tries to direct their own customers to Batopin ATMs, which is bizarre if BNPP actually owns the bPost ATMs.

Indeed, you lose the convenience of a realtime chat. Which means the conversation will be slow because when they respond in writing it may trigger more questions.

In Brussels we have social interpretters. I’m not sure if they are paid or if they volunteer, but at no cost they send an interpretter to wherever they are needed. They do this for anyone, not just poor people. But there’s a limitation: they are not certified interpretters thus cannot be used in court.

I mention this because perhaps Berlin has something comparable. OTOH, if the legal advice /must/ be in German, it stands to reason that they would also reject non-certified interpretters. Otherwise I don’t understand the purpose of the law. If they would even theoretically allow a friend or anyone arbitrary to help you, it would somewhat defeat the point.

I can understand that a transposition of a directive might be flexible. But in the case at hand, I believe the German translation of the directive was not even true to the intended directive. So it seems some intent was lost before the German transposition was even drafted.

Whenever I have to deal with a French-only gov agency, I give them a bilingual letter with my original English directly next to machine translated French. The machine translation for French is good enough, which is likely the same for German. So the machine translation serves to get the letter past the 1st tier staff who just look for trivial reasons to reject a case. Then having the original English next to it enables the case worker to potentially have a chance at understanding what you mean whenever the machine translation is rough.

Not sure about Germany specifically but worth a try.

Reading it in the original German, it appears that this refers to when a receipt is given, but does not seem to behold owners of ATMs, or the service providers, to provide a receipt from an automated transaction.

That’s interesting. I assume you are referring to the directive in German and not the German transposition into German law. If so, then the translation of the directive is bad - so the transposition has little hope of being correct. I wonder what happens in that case. In the English version of the directive, the word “receipt” in that context means “upon receiving your cash” (receipt of cash, not printed receipt). But then the obligation is to provide the information after receipt of the cash. But they were sloppy and did not state whether the info had to be on paper.

(update)

It seems all the *.europa.eu sites are blocking Tor across the board now. Even this page is unreachable to Tor users:

https://have-your-say.ec.europa.eu/index_en

It’s a bit embarrassing at the EU level. You might expect a mom/pop shop to be unable to handle Tor users, but the EU (a government of nation states) should have their infosec shit together and have the security competency to serve Tor users.

I was told that by a lawyer who gives free advice. I do not know if it’s all circumstances or just some. This also came up in the parent thread. I would love to have a source to reference and to read myself.

Around 15 years ago I consulted a lawyer for some advice (before I knew about the gratis advice service), and was charged €50 if paying cash. Was told I could pay electronically but then it costs slightly more and gets messy with VAT or something.. I don’t recall the details. But I would be surprised if that law office still operates that way today.

Also, does some form of "legal aid" not exist in Belgium?

Some forms of gratis legal aid exist in Belgium. AFAIK:

• Gratis legal advice to anyone, regardless of income
• Pro-deo representation - only for people with very low income

Indeed lawyers are used as money mules for criminals. This is likely the excuse being used for the law. But of course an arbitrary hunt for criminals is not a good excuse to infringe on the fundamental rights of non-criminals particularly when there is no probable cause for a particular crime. If a specific lawyer is suspect of crime, then it would be sensible to deny cash payment to a specific lawyer. But an across the board ban is a gross injustice.

The EU mandates the availability of “basic” bank accounts. But then each member state introduces their own limitations that essentially defeats those accounts as an option in various situations. Does France allow their basic accounts to have cash services? If not, then they are useless to someone who has their money in cash.

Also noteworthy that basic bank accounts are not free, and generally cost more than retail accounts.

Did they do that test domestically or internationally?

I suspect it does not matter for international mail because (apparently) /all/ international mail is priority. At least where I am, there is only a service variation for domestic mail. I’ve asked a few different post offices for non-priority Europe-bound stamps. They do not exist. We have a choice between priority stamps and regular for domestic. As the world suckers for the digital transformation and postal usage declines, there are fewer deliveries per week for the lower class mail. It was announced that deliveries have been reduced to like 3 or so times per week for non-priority mail and I expect it to worsen.

Regarding the test you mention, 6 mailings is a tiny sample. A non-priority envelope can perhaps get lucky if the timing is such that it reaches the local post office on a delivery day. Whereas priority /should/ go out for delivery ~5 or 6 days out of the week, IIUC.

I have started using the Event Timer app (in f-droid) and set up a button for priority mail and non-priority. So when any non-priority mail comes, I log it as non-priority. It’s too small of a dataset to be useful but perhaps in a few months I’ll see a pattern.

A snip of it is attached. I would say it came from a medium size org which unlikely sends much mail. It was a personal response to a letter that I sent them. I doubt they would be sending enough to get a bulk rate because they wouldn’t be sending out mail routinely.

Because it’s internationally sent, I suppose English would be a norm for any standard indicators. But you could be right that writing priority was a kind of custom msg as opposed to a paid service.

It took 4 days to reach an adjacent nation, which is about twice as fast as mail moves went both endpoints are within my city.