ANWB debt collection procedure: Your rights and advice

Questioner

My question concerns a collection procedure that, in my opinion, was wrongly initiated by the ANWB. I recently received a reminder by email for my 2018 membership fee from the ANWB (100 euros + 48 euros collection costs). This reminder came as a surprise to me because, to my knowledge, I had not received any previous payment reminders by letter. After having had telephone contact with the ANWB, the following appeared: the reminders by letter had been sent to my old home address in the past months. However, I have reported my change of address >6 months ago by telephone to the ANWB from my work address; I spoke to an employee at the time. Something apparently went wrong here. The change did not go through and according to the ANWB the telephone contact moment was not registered by them either. Now the collection agency (incidentally an agency affiliated with the ANWB) demands that I prove that I have had telephone contact with the ANWB. This is impossible for me because I work in a large hospital organization with many different telephones and telephone calls per day, and I am also not authorized to request call data. The collection agency is now threatening to start legal proceedings and recover the costs from me. I now wonder whether the ANWB is within its rights. For example, is it true that in this situation I can actually be required to prove that a conversation took place? After all, the ANWB called in the collection agency and not me, and to the best of my knowledge they failed to properly register my telephone conversation and change of address, which resulted in them sending payment reminders to the wrong address. Wouldn't it make more sense that they, as the initiator, are held accountable and, for example, have the responsibility to prove that they did not make a mistake? A logical explanation could be that an employee made a mistake and did not register the change/conversation properly, or that a technical error occurred. Now they are completely shifting their mistake onto me, and then demanding that I take responsibility for this and prove that a telephone conversation took place.

Lawyer

You could argue that whoever claims must also prove, and ask for a reversed burden of proof of the existing telephone conversation (which does not exist). So it is word against word. This discussion can only take place in a court case, and are you going to let that continue for 48 euros?