PatrickSweeney Offline Upload & Sell: On
|
OK, not to be a nudge, but pay attention to the signs if you drive overseas. I just got done sending a bundle of money back to Italy, to take care of a ticket. In the scheme of things, the price wasn't all that much (apparently, you can rack up hundreds of Euros of fines, easily) but the process was annoying.
If you find yourself in this predicament, here's the drill:
Parking tickets, you'll get a notice under the wiper. If that goes missing, they'll mail you a form telling you what you owe. The rental car company will rat you out, the municipality will get your address, no way around it.
By EU law, they have 360 days to notify you. Once you sign for it, you have 60 days to pay, or it doubles. The form is supposed to be in a language you understand, but mine came in Italian and German.
They want the money via bank transfer. OK, no checks and no credit cards, because of various hassles and a past tradition of skimming.
Your banker will have to suss out the various numbers for the transfer, and he/she will also need a physical address for the municipality, so save the envelope. No address,no transfer.
Oh, and by the time I had given up trying to call someone over there (no one answered the phone, and the city page was not in English) I had missed the "early pay discount" period. Rats, that was 30% I could have saved. Oh well, now I know. And so do you.
I've driven there now twice, for a month-and-a-half, and there's only the one ticket. A cheap education. Oh, and the offense? Driving into a pedestrian-only zone. Oops.
|