ࡱ> -/,5@ Ebjbj22 ""XXEjjjjjjj~ ~C $RKdjN NNjj 666Nj j 6N66JjjJ @D ˭ (J0CJ J~~jjjjjJx  6 S ~~"&~~"PTITION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT CAUSE OF CONCERN In **Insert Year** the European City Guide, S.L. of Valencia, Spain, (hereinafter referred to as ECG) sent me a form to fill in with my company details in exchange for an apparently free-of-charge entry into a European catalogue. It was only after receiving the first invoice that I realised that the form was actually a contract that purportedly tied me to a substantial annual payment for 3 years, The Contract is then self renewing in apparent perpetuity. Ever since ECG has been requesting payment of the 'overdue sum' both directly and through The would-be debt recovery company **Delete As Applicable** Premium Recovery AG/Gravis Inkasso Gmbh; despite rulings by the Fair Trade and Competition Authority in Italy and the Catalan Authority in Barcelona declaring various version of the contract to be deceptive. This has damaged us both economically (phone calls, faxes, registered letters, legal advice fees, loss of time) and mentally (anxiety, stress, etc.) The expenses borne by our company, multiplied by the number of affected companies (over 50,000 in the ECG's catalogue alone) amount to considerable damage to the European business sector! Combine this with the remarkably similar activities of Novachannel AG (Tourist Directory) (Switzerland), Construct Data Publishers Verlag AG (The FAIR Guide)(Austria), TVV Telefax Directory (Germany), Intercable Verlag AG (Switzerland), IT&T AG (Switzerland), Deutscher Adressdienst GmbH (Germany), EUCO DATA S.A (Switzerland) and IBS Limited (UK) and the number of European companies affected almost certainly exceeds 100,000 As well as affecting companies within Europe several of these guides also ply their trade elsewhere, affecting in total some 200 countries and perhaps another 100,000 companies, thus giving a poor impression of business practice within the EU. Research by one of the opposition websites (see end of petition) suggests that up to 15% of companies actually pay, usually under duress and as a result of receiving threats of legal action; the average amount paid is around a thousand pounds. Although legal action is often threatened there is no evidence that any of these guide companies has pursued the issue in the courts. REQUEST I/We request that the European Parliament intervene accordingly to prevent companies such as ECG from indiscriminately mailing contracts that can mislead and from demanding money where there is reasonable doubt that the contract was mailed in good faith. We ask for a law to protect us, and appeal to, when faced with such an increasing problem. Such Laws already exist in consumer protection relating to distance selling. These need to be extended to all Business To Business marketing I/We also request that the practice of knowingly mailing deceptive forms be expressly prohibited by criminal law. It should be a statutory offence to mass mail a form soliciting for entries in a database or directory, knowing or if the reasonable man would suspect that due to the layout, wording, or context of supply, of the form, a significant proportion of those people who respond will do so not realizing the full extent of the additional liability that the form purports to impose on them. This should include forms that give the impression at first sight that they concern an existing contractual or administrative arrangement, whereas in fact they are solicitations for new contractual arrangements. The offence should also include any steps to collect debts, purporting to arise as a result of the return of such forms, and the sale of such debts to third parties. We/I patiently await your strong stand against the present situation. Yours sincerely **Insert Name** **Insert Company** P.S. I hope you will take the time to read some of the many websites that have arisen in opposition to these guides http://www.stopecg.org (English) http://www.osservatorioaziende.it (Italian) http://www.beschwerdezentrum.org/ (German) http://www.arnaques.be.tf/index.shtml (French) http://sweb.cz/antiecg/ (Czech) http://www.svenskhandel.se/Default.asp (Swedish) http://obrona6.webpark.pl/ (Polish) 6CDE h9h9 h8_h#'h#'h(h%~#$56    i j gh\]67}gd#'gdXM.E}~&'HtCDEgd#' 1h/ =!"#$%@@@ NormalCJ_HaJmH sH tH DA@D Default Paragraph FontRi@R  Table Normal4 l4a (k@(No List6U@6  Hyperlink >*B*phE" #$56ijgh\] 67}~&'HtCDG00000@0@0@0@0@0p@0@0@0@0@0@0@0@0p@0@0@0@0@0@0@0@0 @0 @0 @0 @0 @0 @0 @0@0 @0@0 @0 @0 @0 @0 @0 @0 @0@0 0#$56ijgh\] 67}~&'HtCDG@0@0@0@0@0My0-0My0-0My0-0My0-0My0-0My0-0My0-0My0-0My0-0My0-0My0-0My0-0My0-0My0-0My0-0My0-0My0-0My0-0My0-0My0-0My0-0My0-0My0-0My0-0My0-0My0-0My0-0My0-0My0-0My0-0My0-0My0-0My0-0My0-0My0-0My0-0My0-0My00My00@0E }EE8@0(  B S  ?!)vJGG9*urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttagsplace RZfk?EhoG"G336DGGJules9##'i8,P).XM.~ B"SDXbbMh5p%~g-~ :;eU(R;N @E`@UnknownG:Times New Roman5Symbol3& :Arial"qh⚦⚦m m 24d==3QH)?;PROBLEM DESCRIPTIONJulesJules Oh+'0t  0 < HT\dlPROBLEM DESCRIPTIONROBJulesM uleuleNormal Jules 3leMicrosoft Word 10.0@^в@4@)ím  ՜.+,0 hp|  N/A=A PROBLEM DESCRIPTION Title  !"#%&'()*+.Root Entry)R:Y( Fle:/ ˭0OW1Tableolder.httWordDocument""SummaryInformation(DocumentSummaryInformation8EpP$+.bCompObjfile://C:\WINDOWS\we.httj  FMicrosoft Word Document MSWordDocWord.Document.89q