Germany

Anyone know of any conventional banks offering free accounts these days? By “conventional”, I mean a bank with a vault that is not strictly digital/cashless, where you still have at least a fighting chance at getting over-the-counter cash services (to withdraw and deposit cash).

Or if none are free, what would be the bank with the cheapest fees spanning a year?

I can see from web searches that there are a lot of ombudsman agencies in Germany. But they are mostly private sector. I cannot find the national ombudsman that handles cases of a problem with a federal public service. Does that exist?

Reach out to your representatives on https://fightchatcontrol.eu/

I previously mentioned was surprised to see that many ATMs in Germany do not give receipts. Some have printers (indicated by output slots) but no receipt is offered, and other machines don’t even have the slot where a receipt can be dispensed. I thought it was bizarre and perhaps unlawful.

Well now I seem to have stumbled into a law that requires ATMs to give receipts:

(o) cash withdrawal services offered by means of ATM by providers, acting on behalf of one or more card issuers, which are not a party to the framework contract with the customer withdrawing money from a payment account, on condition that those providers do not conduct other payment services as referred to in Annex I. Nevertheless the customer shall be provided with the information on any withdrawal charges referred to in Articles 45, 48, 49 and 59 before carrying out the withdrawal as well as on receipt of the cash at the end of the transaction after withdrawal.

It’s written in a weird place -- in a section of those excluded from the scope of the law, but then it makes an exception inside that paragraph and the wording is a bit shitty. It seems to say the ATM must give you transaction info after withdrawing your cash. It does not say the info must be on a durable medium. However, the info is not printed on the screen after getting the cash either, so German ATMs are non-compliant nonetheless.

Caveat: that law only applies if it has been transposed into German law from the directive. Considering the weird writing of the law, it’s perhaps likely that the Germans did not transpose it as it is.

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/49372960

A priority letter from Germany arrived showing only €1.25 in postage. It’s the best price I’ve seen. Going the other direction I have to pay €2.90.

So I suppose Germany is a good origin from which to send snail mail to the rest of Europe. Are there any services for that, whereby they receive a PDF by email or via web portal, print it, and mail it?

cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/19137878

[...]

Bei einem AfD-Jugendabend im thüringischen Buttstädt wurde das Thema Remigration erneut diskutiert. Die ehemalige Landesvorsitzende der Jungen Alternative Thüringen, Carolin Lichtenheld, sagte, man könne darüber diskutieren, auch deutsche Staatsbürger abzuschieben.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/18341374

cross-posted from: https://endlesstalk.org/post/92597985

I wrote previously about German ATMs neglecting to give receipts.

After receiving my bank statement, it shows that an ATM charged a fee, which was not disclosed at the time of the transaction. Every ATM I used a non-SEPA card in mentioned no fee, which I found surprising because non-SEPA cards are almost always charged a fee within SEPA in my past experience. At the time I thought perhaps the ATM operators simply decided to treat all cards as SEPA cards, perhaps for simplicity.

Some machines indeed charged no fee in the end. None of them offered a receipt either. But one ATM charged €9, the highest ATM fee I have ever seen.

Can this be legal?

The link is to a Dutch site, but it shows that in NL producing a receipt is not an obligation. Which in the very least suggests the EU allows a situation where receipts are unavailable.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/14976606