The European Consumer Complaint Form

The European Consumer Complaint Form for consumer disputes was drawn by the European Commission in order to make easier an consensual settlement of disputes between consumers and tradesmen.

The form is meant to replace a possible written claim; it can be used independently from the amount in controversy or kind of object and it can be used on a national as well as an international level within the European Union.

The first step in a controversy with a tradesman should always be to get in a direct personal contact in order to resolve the problem. The form can help you to formulate your demand in an exact way.

The form could become a piece of evi-dence in eventual legal proceedings as any other documents, therefore you should fill it out carefully and you must not at all give wrong details!

The description of your problem to the tradesman should be perfectly clear. You can tick off more than one item to explain details of one and the same problem and there is a free field for extra information and /or the description of special cases, which are not mentioned in the listing of the form.

You should always add copies of relevant documents (contracts, bills, receipts, correspondence with the tradesman etc.) and keep a copy of the completed form. Do not send the form to the European Commission because they are not the competent authority for such cases. The completed form should be sent by registered post with reply to the tradesman!

In the form you ask the tradesman to answer your complaint within a specified period of time: you should give him at least 15 days. You should also make sure that the form interrupts the prescription of your claim (so that after this try of amicable settlement you will have enough time to go to law.)

In the last part of the form there is a reply coupon, which can be used by the tradesman to answer you and with which you can accept the offered solution. Furthermore this part of the form provides the possibility to hand over the case to an arbitral authority out of court, if no amicable settlement is found.

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