I made a flight from EDDW to EKRK in July 2017 and got billed later for the terminal charges by DFS via the EBilling system. I paid this by Transferwise as usual. Then yesterday I got this email from DFS;
[Deutsche Flugsicherung GmbH “DFS SecureMail Messenger”] WARNING: Your message will be deleted in 10 day(s)
Notification from "Deutsche Flugsicherung GmbH “DFS SecureMail Messenger”".
From: Charges DFS <[email protected]>
Subject: Gebührenbescheid-Nr. / Invoice No. : xxxxx960
Date: Aug 17, 2017 1:23 P
The message refers to the invoice for the July 2017 flight. So I checked that it had been paid and sent the Transferwise receipt to DFS. I got a reply this morning which is rather strange.
Please note you are a user of our „EBilling – System“ that means each time a new invoice is created,
you receive an e-mail that a new invoice is available in your mailbox. For this reason you receive our invoices on electronic way.
The below mentioned secure mail notification is not a reminder for payment. It is a reminder after approx. 1 year that you did not request invoice 38813960 electronically
So is it usual in Germany to remind someone one year later about an invoice which has paid ? Very confusing!
This “demand to pay something which was paid” unfortunately happens too often for me to remember all the cases. And it can easily happen a year later. Dinard would take a year to issue an invoice, for example, so the pilot would probably no longer be able to establish whether he paid originally. Having had to pay twice at La Rochelle a few years ago and with a load of hassle from Caglieri I now keep all relevant flying trip paperwork basically for ever…
That’s a very useful link for CC payment of DFS bills. I have also found Transferwise to be very good for paying any small bill where you get the IBAN number; we have been looking at it at work but it doesn’t look so good for large payments.
If understand the DFS E-Mail correctly, it is just a means of reminding you that you didn’t request an electronic copy of your invoice, which they seem to delete after one year.
Also found this kind of weird, no other German organisations except for banks maybe do something like this.
Yes it seems to be a reminder but I had actually downloaded the invoice from the site when I paid it last July. I checked it in my file of invoices. One good thing about DFS though is the speed with which they respond to emails.
