Advice on Bailiff and Summons - Legal Aid

Questioner

We would like advice on the following: At the end of 2013, our telephone line was damaged by third parties outside the property boundary. We could no longer make or receive calls. That is why we terminated our contract with the telephone company. We clearly stated in the termination letter that we were going to take a new number with a cable operator. We simply served out the 3-month contract. On January 8, 2014, we received a confirmation email from them stating that they would terminate the service and stop billing as of March 19, 2014. That seemed to have gone well. However, since the beginning of 2017 they have been bothering us with a bill of around 1000 euros, supposedly because we continued to use their services. Apparently they had never closed the telephone line (whether or not on purpose) and are trying to recover this from us. To this end, they even created a Sepia authorization for which we never signed. We had the amounts reversed, of course. We have emailed, sent a registered letter, responded in a fully automated online collection process where you were always referred back to the company itself, etc. There is no response to anything. (This is standard, given the many bad reviews on Opiness). Today we received a letter from a bailiff, threatening a lawsuit. Of course we do not intend to pay anything, we would rather go to court. We do want to respond to that bailiff. Our question is: Is a bailiff obliged to include our objections in the summons that they may then issue? We also wonder whether you receive the summons via the subdistrict court or only via the bailiff. This is to ensure that we are informed of the summons and that we cannot be convicted 'in absentia'. As you can see, we take into account that it is one shady network. We have filed a complaint with the appropriate agency and police. Do you have any tips?

Lawyer

A summons always comes via a bailiff. The court is not yet aware of this. The objections should be included in the summons, but you should not expect too much of it. It will therefore indeed be important to respond to the court after receiving the summons.