Lothar
Maier
Consumer
Protection Collection Law
German
Bundestag, July 1, 2020, Plenarprotokoll 19/169, p. 21101
[Lothar Maier is an Alternative für
Deutschland Bundestag member from the western German state of Baden-Württemberg.
He is an economist and for three decades taught consumer policy at the School
for Applied Sciences in Hamburg. He here responds to a draft law proposed by
the government.]
Right
honorable Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen.
The
“Improvement of Consumer Protection Collection Law” overlaps the draft law but
I fear it is only a half-hearted improvement. It was also a difficult birth.
Frau Lambrecht, your predecessor in office almost two and a half years ago
announced such a draft law. That you have now presented it deserves
acknowledgment. Yet I fear you have remained at the half-way mark.
As
to the fee rate, it must be said: Clearly, it is a step forward that small
claims – demands up to 50 euros –in the future have only a maximum right of collection
at a fee of 30 euros. That, concerning cases of demands below 500 euros, it is
somewhat higher yet still below the previous value, is also clearly a step forward;
yet it is a gradual progress. The whole problem, in my eyes, is not yet solved –
nor actually are many of the inconveniences which we find in this branch and of
which you have briefly spoken.
The
legal technicalities assessment for which you have voted, we hold to be false.
It will equate the fees demanded by the collection worker, who for the most
part are scarcely educated people, with those of an attorney-at-law. The
attorney should after all undertake a legal examination which the semi-skilled
[angelernte] collection worker cannot
and indeed should not undertake. This equality of treatment appears to us to be
not in order.
And
in closing: This draft law does not assure a reduction in the number of
collection proceedings. According to statements of the collection industry, there
was in the previous year a total of 23 million warnings sent out by the
collection agencies. It is agreed that, due to the consequences of the Corona
situation, the number of these cases could increase from 23 to 25, 28, perhaps
even 30 million. That is a magnitude of scale which properly can no longer be
justified. Real relief would apparently only be possible if you had followed
our draft law, which was unfortunately rejected in this house and which for small
claims completely did away with the right of collection in cases up to the
second warning. It should have also prevented the presentation of further
accounting costs in addition to the collection fees. The collection industry is
exceedingly creative in finding such evidence of costs for data acquisition,
credit verification, telephone collection, etc., which can drive the costs
considerably above the level provided for in the law for the claims of the
collection industry.
I
say yet again: I fear you have remained at the half-way mark. If you could at
least, Frau Minister, rouse yourself and in regards the small claims, that is,
up to 50 or to 100 euros, strike out the right of collection, then you might
have our support. Though not yet.
Thanks.
[Translated by Todd Martin]
