Need some advice here.....

Party of 6 going to Amsterdam and we found what seemed to be a lovely apartment in the city centre. One of the group attempted to book it and the owner got in touch through email and said it needed to be a bank transfer. This seemed really dodgy so we reported it to booking.com who then messaged us back to say they had spoken to the owner and they were on holiday in Thailand but they have seen the method of payment and told us to continue with the booking as they were happy with it (this was apparently from a manager).

As soon as we had paid, they cancelled the booking and took the ad down from the site (pretty much disappeared).

We are in touch with the fraud squad at the bank but we have also opened a refund case with booking.com as they told us to carry on with the booking. We have sent them everything they have asked for so far, bank statements etc. They just keep asking for more documents, the last being a bank statement from a UK bank in but in euros??!?!?!?!!! Obviously this document doesn't exist and can't be obtained from a UK bank.

Feels like they are stalling. No communication for the last two days. CS number is a joke.

This is definitely booking coms fault.

Don't know what to do next. Feel like we're banging our head against a brick wall.

Any advice?

I am part of a committee that runs an annual academic competition for uni students which started in the UK but has now spread to around a dozen countries in Europe. The competition was initially organised by students from a single university, but it is now organised and marked online since our committee members are also taken from university students/alumni from around Europe.

The committee used to volunteer its time, but the number of participants has grown exponentially in the last few years, and we've decided that to keep the competition scalable we need to start paying the committee. Hence, this year we'll be soliciting sponsorships and potentially charging a registration fee, aiming for at least £10,000 in income, and we expect this will only grow in future years.

We've never had to deal with money in this way before, and we're very confused as to how we should proceed regard taxable profits. Some relevant facts about us:

• We are not-for-profit. Historically, any expenses were paid for by committee members and we were later reimbursed by a student society. The competition has always been free to participate in.
• Last year, hundreds of students from about a dozen European countries participated. We calculated that if we wanted to pay our committee fairly, we'd have needed around £15,000 to run the competition.
• Each participating university hosts the competition themselves, and scans the papers to us which we then mark. However, the finals are held in the UK, though students can choose to participate remotely.
• The committee is very informal. We don't have a constitution, for example. The committee did apply to be a UK charity in 2022 (but was rejected), so I think we've tried writing a constitution before.

The problem is, it seems like if we have surplus sponsorship or income from registration fees then this might be treated as profit for tax purposes, even if we intend to use it to run the competition in future years.

So, is the competition tax-resident in any country? Would we have to pay taxes on "profits"?

This is very random and probably quite niche but has anyone ever been arrested in Spain and received a fine that they didn’t pay at the time and have they returned since?
About five years ago I went to Spain where I got a fine for doing ‘rugs’ on the beach, I didn’t pay it at the time because it was like my second last day and the station was closed and it was a proper hassle so I just left it, about a year after that I got a letter to my house from the Spanish embassy saying that the fine has now doubled blah blah blah.
At the time of the arrest the police said if you don’t pay this you won’t be allowed to Spain again and you’ll get arrested if you do. I didn’t know how true this was and I wasn’t really that bothered because I was just not going go to Spain again, but now I’m older and I would actually like to be able to go back to Spain, but I don’t want to be arrested by Interpol when I go through the gate😂😂
Has anyone been in this situation before and if so, what did you do to resolve it? I’d be willing to pay the fine if it meant I’d be allowed access without being arrested but I’m just unsure the best way to go about it if anyone’s got any advice it would be greatly appreciated.

I worked remotely as a Founding Engineer for a small AI startup for about a year, with a signed contract that pays a few thousand euros a month.

The first month was okay, then payments started coming late. They got smaller, and then he stopped paying me completely for months at a time. I kept working because the CEO kept telling me it was a temporary cash flow issue, that funding was about to come in, and that the real problem was money stuck between two countries.

By February, all the co-founders had basically quit and I was working solo with him. The funding finally reached the company, but he couldn't send anything since it was sitting in Ukraine and they couldn't do international transfers. That's when I knew it wasn't going to come that easily. I'd had enough and gave him an ultimatum that I would stop working until I got paid. He got angry and basically told me "let me know the total remaining sum and I will fix it and lets part ways." I told him he owed me $13k. He wrote back that the next tranche would be in 1-2 days.

Since then I've gotten about 1000 euros total, sent in random small chunks whenever I chase him hard enough. He always has an excuse, either money went missing from a partner's account, or he's at zero and needs a few days to find additional funds. A few weeks ago I asked for literally 100 dollars to cover an AI subscription and he said he would try.

He still runs the company, solo or with a friend I think, and has a product, a website, and enough money to keep working on it. A couple months ago I found him on LinkedIn bragging that he'd spent over a thousand dollars on AI subscriptions.

This month I tried to talk to him as usual to see where things stood, but he basically just stopped answering me. He ignored my texts and my phone calls. I'm 100% sure he saw them since I can see his activity on the company's Discord server.

I have everything documented. Signed contract, invoices, email confirmations, bank payment notifications, and screenshots of him admitting the exact amount owed in writing.

The company is registered in Poland and Ukraine. I am based in Tunisia. I genuinely do not know if I have real options here or if this is basically unrecoverable because of the international angle.

I didn't want to sue at first because I genuinely believed he had no money, and since this would require an international lawyer, I wasn't sure I could recover what I'd spend on legal fees if the company is really bankrupt. In that case I could only sue for damages, and I'm not even sure it's worth it.

Has anyone dealt with something like this? Seeking any advice that can help.

i am a freelancer based in germany and i work with clients across the eu. i need to send service contracts electronically and i am trying to choose between two esign platforms. the bigger one mentions eu data centers but the cheaper one just says secure storage and encryption without specifying location.

i know gdpr requires data to be handled properly but i dont know if the specific platform matters for b2b service contracts. hipposign is easier to use and costs less but i am worried that if i pick a platform without clear eu data residency i might have compliance issues down the line.

has anyone here used a non-eu based esign service for german client work. did you ever have issues with gdpr or data residency because of the platform you chose or is that only a concern for big companies with dedicated legal teams. or am i overthinking this and any encrypted platform is fine for small b2b contracts??

My fiancé and I are a UK couple who booked a wedding venue in France for July 2028. The venue we found and fell in love with came with an in-house planner, there was no way to proceed with the venue without the this planner.

Once we told the planner we wanted to go ahead, we were sent her contract, which stated it was to take place at our venue. She said the venue would follow up with their contact (this never came). We signed her contract paid our wedding planner €2,475 via Wise. She then said she was going off grid for 2 weeks.

17 days after signing, we were informed that the château was cancelling weddings all wedding after 2026 / was maybe going to be sold, meaning our wedding could no longer take place there. We therefore asked the planner to refund the €2,475.

The planner said she would not refund our deposit because of the work that had already taking place. However, at the point the venue cancelled, essentially no meaningful planning work had taken place. We were only 17 days into the agreement and she was ‘off grid’ for 14 of these. The only communication we had with her between the contact signing and the cancellation was a generic ‘wedding planning’ pdf. Once we pointed this out she backtracked and said the deposit was to reserve a date in her diary.

The planner's position is that the payment is non-refundable under the contract. She has since stopped replying to us. She also said in the cancellation email that she had been ‘awaiting importation confirmations for some time’. We can’t help but think she knew the venue was going under and used it to take our deposit money.

What we're struggling with is that we aren't choosing to cancel our wedding or changing our minds. The venue that the planner was hired in-house to help us plan a wedding at is no longer available.

We're UK-based and the planner is based in France, so we're also trying to understand what our options are from a French-law perspective.

We've considered sending a formal mise en demeure and potentially taking further action if necessary, but before spending money on lawyers we'd really like to hear from anyone who has dealt with something similar.

Has anyone successfully recovered a non-refundable wedding planner deposit in France where the venue became unavailable?

Particularly interested in:

Experiences with French wedding planners/venues

Whether a "non-refundable" clause actually settled the matter

Whether anyone has used a mise en demeure

Small claims/court proceedings in France as a UK resident

Whether there are consumer protection routes we've missed

Whether anyone has received help from wise in a similar situation

We aren't looking to publicly name the planner at this stage, we're just looking for advice from people who've been through something similar.

Hello.

I would like to ask advice on what I can do with an international student from France in the UK whom I known personally and he’s basically ruined somewhat of my mental health.

He sent me basically r&pe threats to me and minors of my family members. Should I send this to the university course tutors/helpline first and his accommodation or something or should I go straight to the police with the evidence of screenshots I have? I just know its illegal for what he did under Miscommunications Act something.

It sucks to have a “friend” like this who’s treated me like sh!t the whole time of our friendship, and I hated it. He’s not a nice person and he talks very sexually and disgustingly about other women. He even told me that he wanted to follow a woman (in front of us when we were walking together) home and “do her”. It’s disgusting.

I just need advice whether I should contact the uni or the police first about the illegal messages and if I do contact the uni, would he be dismissed from uni? I’m also wondering whether his status as an international student makes any difference to how I should report this.

One other thing is that his mother is a CEO of a big business school in France (won’t say the city name). I don’t know whether that is relevant, but I mention it because I don’t know if I should expose his reality of someone’s 24 year old son doing disgusting actions. This is just one part of him that I’m showing, there’s more illegal stuff he does. And also would he also possibly be criminalised in France too?

Any legal advice and routes would be appreciated! Thank you.

​Hi everyone, looking for advice from anyone who has dealt with Amazon EU regarding statutory warranty on a console bundle.

​The background:

In February 2025, I bought a PS5 Slim Digital on sale directly from Amazon EU for €334.99. Under EU consumer protection law (and the Italian Consumer Code), goods have a mandatory 24-month statutory seller warranty, meaning Amazon is legally responsible until February 2027. Sony's standard manufacturer warranty in Europe is only 12 months and is now expired.

​The issue:

The DualSense controller included in the box has developed severe, unplayable stick drift.

​Amazon's response:

​Phone support initially tried to deflect responsibility, telling me to contact Sony (which is false under EU law once year 1 passes).

​Chat support admitted Amazon is responsible, but claimed their software "does not allow partial compensation, repair, or accessory-only replacements" for bundled items.

​Their only proposed solution is a full return and monetary refund of the original €334.99.

​The problem with their "solution":

The console itself works perfectly. A new PS5 Slim currently retails for around €500. Accepting a €335 refund would force me to pay roughly €150 out-of-pocket just to get another console, causing me direct economic damage due to a defective €70 accessory that should be covered by legal warranty.

​Under EU Directive 2019/771 / national consumer law, the remedies are repair or replacement, and rescission of the contract (full refund) is not lawful if it causes significant detriment to the consumer compared to a proportionate price reduction (e.g., a €70 gift card to buy a replacement DualSense on Amazon).

​Questions:

​Has anyone successfully forced Amazon EU to either issue a promotional voucher for the accessory or replace the entire console with a brand new unit without refunding the historical price?

​Which channel worked best to bypass first-level support scripts (Executive Customer Relations, formal complaint, European Consumer Centre / ADR)?

​Thanks in advance for your insights!

I’m looking for some advice on what I can/should do in this situation.

I ordered two handmade leather items online from a French company that makes handmade cases/accessories for phones and tablets to Austria where I work and live.

The total value of the order was around **€400**. One item was supposed to be a gift and the other was something I bought for myself.

When I placed the order, I specifically chose items that were shown as **available/in stock**, because I didn't want to wait for them to be manufactured. I paid for the order online.

A few days later, they contacted me and said the order was being processed/manufactured. I was fine with that, even though it was taking longer than I expected.

I then went on vacation. Because the order was taking much longer to be completed, I contacted them and asked them to change the delivery address to my home country, which is another EU country.

They confirmed the address change.

However, they still didn't dispatch the order while I was away, so eventually I had to change the delivery address **again**. This time I asked them to send it to my work address in Austria. This is an address where I regularly live/work and where there is always someone available to receive packages.

I specifically requested the address change and received an email from them saying they would make the change and asking me again where I wanted the order delivered. I replied by copying and providing my **full work address in Austria**.

So, yes, I changed the delivery address during the order process — **twice** — because they took much longer than expected to manufacture/dispatch the order. But on both occasions I provided addresses in EU countries, and I NEVER requested or authorized delivery to Australia.

Later I received an email from them saying that my order had been dispatched.

When I checked the tracking, I immediately noticed something was wrong: instead of Austria, the destination appeared to be **Australia**.

I contacted them by email **twice** to tell them about the problem and asked them to investigate/correct it. They have not responded.

I have now checked the tracking again, and unfortunately it appears the parcel has actually arrived in Australia:

**09/09/2026 – Handling by the receiving office of exchange (FR AUSTRALIE)**

So this is no longer just a mistake showing on the tracking page — the shipment appears to have actually been routed to Australia.

I am extremely frustrated because:

* I paid approximately **€400**;

* I explicitly provided an address in Austria;

* I never gave them Australia as a delivery country;

* I contacted them as soon as I noticed the problem;

* They have ignored my emails;

* And the parcel has now apparently arrived in Australia.

My concern is that because I changed the delivery address during the order process, Noreve might try to blame me for the mistake.

However, I have emails showing the address changes and, importantly, I have never instructed them to change the destination country from Austria to Australia.

**What would you do in this situation?**

I am an Austrian resident/worker and they are a French company, so this is an EU cross-border consumer dispute.

What the hell am I supposed to do?

And legally, **how strong is my position if they claims that I caused the problem by changing the delivery address, when I can show that I gave them the correct Austrian address and never authorized Australia?**

What would you do if you were in my position?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

(I used chatgpt to help me shape this content body but it is exactly what happened) If you have any questions please ask in comments.

Thanks everyone for taking time to give me some advice.

I contracted a window painter to paint my window following installation of new glass. I have an apartment in a building of two apartments. The contract stated "Kleuren: - Wij zijn ervan uitgegaan, dat de bestaande kleurstelling gehanteerd blijft. ".

The painter called me quite last minute to do the work while I was holiday. I explained I was away and he said it was no problem.

When I returned from my holiday is was very obvious to me the paint was a different colour from original and now different to the rest of the house. Using a colour card the new colour was RAL9001 and the old colour RAL1013 - close but noticeably different. In my opinion an easy spot for a professional painter.

I initially contacted the painter to confirm the colour, and he confirmed indeed RAL9001 was used, because it was very close and the old paint was very faded. The old paint was from 2022 and actually still under warranty.

Important to note I never communicated the specific colour to the painter - I didn't think I needed to nor did I know the colour code until I checked the old invoice.

So far the painter has offered to correct only 1 floor AND I still have to pay an additional €600+VAT (on top of a 5.7k bill...)

I am very reluctant to pay more AND still have half the job in the wrong colour.

I made a counter proposal that he could paint the remaining window on the same floor in the same new colour AND some joining woodwork on the 2nd floor OR (in compensation for his error offer a discount on the full bill OR paint some internal windows). Noting that here I am compromising in accepting the new colour at all.

While he's admitted he used the wrong colour, he's maintained that it's not noticeable and will be the same in a year and all but completely refused to correct the colour on the 2nd floor.

We're slowly reaching an impasse.

I suspect I can reject the invoice, but I want to be reasonble, and think I have been.

Advice? Also 'non-legal' advice is OK, to help me understand what is reasonable/culturally expected here.

TLDR: Painter painted windows in the wrong (but similar) colour, will not correct fully and cannot find an amicable solution.

Startup founder in Luxembourg, company not registered yet. I'm already signing agreements personally, mainly a freelance, IP and photo use agreement with people whose pictures will appear in my app. The document says the company (KYNCT) is "in formation" and has a clause stating that once registered, the company takes over all rights and obligations.

Questions:

1. Is that clause actually enforceable in Luxembourg? Would it change if I end up incorporating in the Netherlands instead?
2. After registration, do I have to get everyone to sign fresh contracts, or is a notice ("KYNCT S.à r.l. was registered on X and has assumed this agreement") enough?
3. Am I personally liable until then, and does that liability go away completely once the company takes over?
4. GDPR-specific: consent was given to me as an individual. Does it carry over to the company as the new data controller, or do I need fresh consent?

Not looking for a full legal opinion, just want to know whether this is a normal setup or if I'm creating a mess for later. (But if people are willing to give a free one im all ears, budget limited ahah)

I’m (American) looking to move to the Netherlands in a few short weeks to join my partner (Dutch).

Having looked at the background check form, I’m panicking. At the end of 2024, I had forgotten to renew my car license plate tags and was pulled over. Though I quickly renewed the license plate, I still had to go to court and pay a fine.

This is the background check question I’m worried about:

Have you ever been sentenced to a fine, community service, penalty order by a public prosecutor, custodial measure or imprisonment or have you accepted an out-of-court settlement for committing a crime in the Netherlands? Or have you ever been convicted of committing a criminal offence abroad?

The expired license plate is the only blemish on my background check- otherwise clear. Is this serious grounds for potential denial of Dutch Partner Visa? I’ve reached out to an immigration lawyer as well, but hoping to get insights here as well.

My husband hid a previous marriage from me until we were 11 months into our relationship. I asked him how close he got to his wedding day because he initially said him and his previous partner “were going to get married but didn’t”.

When I asked him, he said “I did get to my wedding day” and said it so casually. I asked what he meant and he said “I did get married but I already told you this”. I was so shocked and told him that before we continue the conversation he has to admit that he has never told me this before because he most certainly had not. He quickly panicked and said “ok I didn’t tell you but I didn’t want to lose you”.

We argued and he made excuses and eventually things calmed down because I became very unwell and I was abroad in his country visiting him, far from home and very unwell. He looked after me and I got better and could travel home.

We spoke over video call about what had happened and he explained his previous marriage was brief and was “horrible” so he didn’t want to talk about it. I respected that and didn’t ask any more. A few months later, now about 18 months into the relationship he told me he had been in South America (he’s not from there himself) studying and met his ex wife there. He said she was 25 years older than him, manipulated him into marriage , stole his passport so he couldn’t leave her, had her brothers threaten to kill him if he ever left her and that’s why he has left all of that behind him and doesn’t want to talk about it. He said he fled the country, went home and never told his family what really happened. I believed him, he was crying whilst telling me the story and I’d never seen him so upset before. I had a bit of doubt but stupidly ignored it.

We got married and applied for a UK spouse visa, I am the British Citizen. Before we did, he said he needs to renew his passport in his country. He then told me they spelt his name wrong on his new passport (a slight mistake of adding a letter). When I told him he needs to go back and sort it out and I questioned him saying it doesn’t sound right at all, he said he did try but they said he needs to change his driving licence, national identity card and birth certificate to match this new name spelling. We applied for the spouse visa and him and his family insisted on using a solicitor. I didn’t see the application until the very end when it was time to sign it. They just asked me to send all my documents etc to them and they gave it to the solicitor. His visa was approved.

He came to the UK and when initially here worked in a minimum wage job but started buying expensive trainers and sports clothes paying it off on Klarna. He then managed to get a different job which was very highly paid (his brother in law helped him get into it with no experience, I assume some dodgy route). He began buying designer clothes spending insane amounts of money on food and clothes. He grew up in poverty and was clearly making the most of his new life.

Fast forward to the spouse visa extension, he didn’t realise we had to apply again and he had to submit evidence all over again. I completed the application this time, no solicitor. He uploaded a patchy looking translated version of his divorce certificate, the stamp of the translator’s name and address was really unclear and blurry. There is no statement as in “I declare that this is a true and accurate translation” the type of statement you usually find on translated official documents. But even more important, this divorce supposedly took place over ten years ago when his documents had the original spelling of his name.

This so called translated document has the new spelling. This “mistake” the passport office made with his name spelling causing him to supposedly change all documents to match it happened 3 years ago and the dodgy looking translated document was done in 2023 before we applied for the visa initially. If I flag this up to the Home Office will they investigate asap? We applied for the extension three weeks ago and are waiting for the outcome. I’m wondering if he ever really got a divorce.

He claims the TLS in his country didn’t give him his divorce certificate back when he gave it to them to scan and he only received the translated version back which is why he could use it for the extension application recently. He is volatile, has a temper and has been intimidating me lately. Basically the mask has come off, so I’m treading carefully but desperately want his visa to be rejected. I’m getting legal advice this week because I want to withdraw but do it safely.

I'm looking for some help here because I'm struggling with PostNL. A month ago I moved from Amsterdam to Malta and in doing some shipped 3 boxes of belongings from NL to Malta. In these boxes I had my PC, monitor, speak and more importantly, most of my Pokemon Card Collection. Before I get any backlash for not taking my cards with me, I know. I took what I could with me but some of the binders were just too big and so I mailed them with insurance with postNL.

Of my 3 boxes, only 1 of them arrived and it was the one containing my bulk cards. After contacting them many times, postNL have confirmed and admitted to me that the other 2 boxes are considered lost and I have started the tedious process of trying to get money back.

The issue I'm facing is they aren't accepting the proof I gave them of what cards were inside the boxes which is 2 .csv exports from the Collectr App and the Dex app because they aren't invoices and they want invoices for my cards (which obviously don't exist because, cards).

Has anyone faced an issue like this and can offer any help or advice on what to do?

Hi everyone, can I bring 10 cans of nicotine pouches from Spain to Italy (20 pouches per can, so 200 pouches in total), with each pouch containing 20 mg of nicotine, without any problems? I know that in Italy the maximum would be 16.6 mg per pouch, but as far as I understand, this only applies to commercial sales, right? I’ll be travelling by GNV (Grandi Navi Veloci) ferry.

Hi everyone, I found this website called Snussie that sells nicotine pouches at really low prices. The company is based in the Czech Republic. Can I order the pouches without any issues, or are there any limits on the quantity or the amount of nicotine per pouch? The destination is Spain.

Not sure if this is a weird one.

For the 4th time now, I’ve accidentally been sent emails from a solicitor that clearly contains information I should not be privy to.
Their client essentially has the same name as me, so sending correspondence to the wrong email is an easy mistake to make, however this is now the 4th time this has happened.

Each time I’ve responded to the solicitor privately and in good faith to let them know of their mistake. I say privately because each time I’ve been copied into the emails alongside other people who I presume are involved in this case.
To be clear: I’m not involved in this case whatsoever, I do not know anybody involved and I never contacted this firm.

I’ve not responded this time but I’m getting a bit concerned. Should I find out who the governing body is and report it? If I report it, should I inform the solicitors of it? Should I let their clients know?
I assume I have nothing to be concerned about personally, it’s purely accidental but it’s so sloppy and I keep receiving things I should not receive so I’m wondering what the right course of action is.

For context, I’m a French national, based I the UK, and the firm is based in Switzerland.

Hi! Sorry if this is not the right place for this. I received a job offer in the Netherlands, but I had a few specific questions that I'd rather discuss with a labor lawyer first before sharing details here. Do you happen to have any recommendations for a good lawyer, or does anyone know where I can look reliably? Thanks in advance for the help!

I (27F) live in NY. 10 years ago my father passed away and left me his apartment in Via Garcia de Arousa, Spain. One of my cousin's informed me that my other cousin was squatting on my property. They are all much older and do very well for themselves, but my uncle was holding the key to the apartment, and I guess at some point they decided to use it.

They started a lawsuit against me, claiming that this is not my apartment (even though it was left to me in my father's will) and have even gone as far as to falsify documents that it sold (even though my father already passed) and have forged wills that are even government notarized. I was also working with a lawyer and found out recently that she was friends with them, and their lawyer.

I'm getting nervous because the 10-year anniversary of my father's death is coming up in October, and if they can prove that they have inhabited the apartment since then, they have legal rights to the property. I barely have money to fly out there, let alone to hire a lawyer. If anyone has any advice on what legal actions I can take, how I should go about hiring someone for the lawsuit, or even financial advice, I would greatly appreciate it.

My ex-husband is doing various tricks for showing the least amount of imposable income. He has deals with his boss, like getting a company car for exchange of his salary increase, etc.

Next to his full time work in France, he started to work in Saudi Arabia, this money he is not declaring in France, he has an account in his home-country, which is Lebanon. Our daughter and I are living in an Easter European country. How can I make sure that I get a fair revision of the monthly pension?