yes you do and you keep the top copy which is your proof, Annette. I use the cash boxes daily and have never had a problem ;-)
Hold on now, James, some of us have french OHs, kids etc and reading between the lines it seems like a case of the pot and the kettle....
Hi Glyn
It strikes me that it is THEFT and as such I would have been straight to the Gendarmerie to " DEPOSER PLAINTE CONTRE X " (you will need proof of your own ID) for the process.
You should contact the " QUE CHOISIR " association, the French Watchdog and even better, the Great " Répression des Fraudes " AKA " DGCCRF ":
http://www.quechoisir.org/droits-justice/organismes-de-defense-des-...
http://www.economie.gouv.fr/dgccrf
Go to their offices and explain your case. You can do that in writing to and add "justificatifs" (any proof ) you might have.
Good luck and keep us informed !
If the Gendarmes ever refuse you that right for some reason you don't agree with (as the Gendarmes here - I found out - can be quite judgemental with their side remarks, although it is not their job... You can address a letter of complaint straight to your the Procureur de la Réplique. I suppose it has to be in French.
You can even choose to do nothing... and then let them win and do it again and again at leisure.
Feeling better now James ? :)
Careful, you sound just as grumpy as a proper Parisian !
....Of course, I could add as lot more to all that with pleasure, but since it's getting late...
James Graham if you say the french don't want to work why are they more productive than the english?
If we have cash to deposit we use a counter not the chute! I feel happier with that.
What a completely disgusting and rude statement to make about ANY nation, let alone that which, presumably, you have chosen to adopt for your own! Get thee back whence you came forthwith!
This attitude by expats is precisely that which is responsible for the French becoming increasingly xenophobic! Am disgusted!
Associated but not quite the same thing: are you aware that for transactions up to 20E, the pin number may no longer be required? ie, someone could nick your card and rack up several hundreds of debt, without even knowing the PIN and before you realise - AND there is no redress from the Bank.
This is a nice way to make money ;~)) Thats funny, you give your cash to something, maybe even to someone, with nothing whatsoever in return. Trust is good, control is better. Why not pay with this new currency "bitcoin"?
Haha, they just stole it of course! What do you think, that bankers and their employees are innocent these days??
They saw it belonged to a English person, or yet another unwanted nondescript foreigner, who they assumed would know nothing about the system and not even bother to complain, and then they stuck it in their pockets...howling with laughter not all the way to the bank from all the way from the bank! All the French banks are the same not just the Credit Agricole, and watch out because England is fast catching up. I learned that my super-saver's deposit account at the RBS was earning me the staggering interest rate per annum of 0.1% last month when overnight bank money in the City was probably several percentage points!
I have never been able to send from the South West France where I am, tins or pots of things like Foie Gras for Xmas presents to the UK because they never arrive, all being stolen by the local postmen at the local post office or the main sorting office. I can't even send a Frenchman a side of smoked Scottish salmon for an Xmas present from the UK to here without this being stolen by the post. Even throughout the year, I never received a single item like a CD or a DVD that I ever ordered on the net if this was addressed to my house, which is a farm in the countryside.
So now everything has to be sent to my local tobacconist in the village and they all arrive like magic and the name is never my own but the tobacconist's who is French of course so I am not another silly Englishman who they can steel form. Thank God I smoke like a chimney so she willingly grants this service for free! I'd better not give up smoking.
Listen, have you tried cancelling a contract in France like for a mobile or an insurance one? Its a nightmare. Lettres recommandees/accuses de reception are sometimes not nearly enough. You know you can send a recommended letter in France (that's not worth a damn without an 'accuse de reception'), which isn't even in an envelope, because the recipient could argue that there was no letter inside! The entire massively bureaucratic almost autocratic and frequently menacing system which consumes 56% of the Gross National Product, requires countless documents (and there is always yet another one missing), and the long and the short of it is that this presupposes that everybody cheats. Guess why? Because they do!!
I have a friend who has run serious companies in France and abroad for 30 years. He always says the same thing. There are 2 ways of doing business in the world 'the right way or the 'French way so take your pick!' I have added though that there is also a third way in the world, and thats 'the way that works!' So when in France, a cross between what you could call their left-wing adoration (ruled by unions who feed of their innate jealousy) worthy of 'La Coree du Nord Bis' and the corruption of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, you will just have to do not what the Romans do, but what the Parisians do which is itself dominated by 3 very powerful cliques almost like mafias, the right political camp, the Free Masons and I will leave the third to your imagination.
With more laws than any economically advanced country on earth, which are exponentially increasing every year, with 4 times more civil servants than any industrialised nation, if you don't cheat like the French do you will have to consider the possibility that you will get precisely nowhere. Unless of course this is the rapid reversal of your fortunes all the way to the bankruptcy court having also been massacred by the highest taxes in Europe!
At least the crickets keep chirping and the sun shines more often, and if you've got a lively sense of repartee, when a French person is arrogant and rude yet again (they are always right never wrong and highly superior relative to you) you can also howl with laughter making them feel like damned fools! Funnily enough this often makes them have more respect for you and like you more, because you've become like the French yourself, the world's greatest ever culture since the dawn of human civilisation!! Caveat emptor, when they guillotined Louis XI's head, every Frenchman stuck a replica clone of this on top of his own shoulders! If you can't understand this you'll never understand the French.
Never mind, we live here so we can magnanimously tolerate them on occasions if we are feeling charitable. Console them if you want about their collapsing economy, due to their aversion for work, by telling them that there famous colonial 'mission civilisatrice' is still very much in tact despite losing so many colonies.
There are nearly 450,000 French now living in Central London, a lot around Kensington and Chelsea (near the French Lycee). So London is currently therefore the 5th biggest French city in the world (many more than in Bordeaux), and haha...if you still want to rub salt into the wound, this is primarily a French brain-drain pouring into the UK (hope this wasn't a contradiction of terms, lets give them one more chance!)
Joking apart, this is also a great bonus for the UK, because these are very frequently the would-be entrepreneurs and young graduates or French 'engineers' attracted by higher wages not decimated by exorbitant National Insurance charges (cotisations), young people who want to get on in life who are sick to death of being treated like delinquents in France.
Never forget that most of the French hate the rich, and so entrepreneurs are also guilty of trying to commit the heinous crime of personally trying to make pots of money!! People like Richard Branson are demi-Gods in the UK adored like a football star. In France, they are loathed by the great majority for having committed the wicked sin of individualism as opposed to the virtue of collectivism. President Jospin was always complaining about the evils of French individualism. One reason why Francois Hollande won the election was his famous televised speech when he pandered to the masses by telling everybody that he does not like the rich or 'je n'aime pas les riches!' He knew who he was talking to...he just got himself another few million votes!
Anyway I can't go on for ever. Bonne chance in France, and lets see if we ourselves can also be British missionaries by teaching the French at least the basic meaning of civilised manners and so how to be more polite, then we might really make exceptions to the rule and deign to being friends with some of them...if they are lucky!!
I am always worried when we deposit cash into our CA bank for exactly this reason....there is no proof whatsoever that we have actually put the money in....I do not know the protocol for taking all the envelopes out and counting the money but assume it must be checked by at least 2 people....like the sound of La Poste and might change banks...is it difficult to change banks???? Hope you get it sorted out Glynn....
We must have been lucky. I don't like the (CA) system, but we have been using it to pay in cash takings at the hotel for five years with no mishap. So far.
Sooo true, I was with crédit mutuel de bretagne but changed to la poste when I was living in Aix-en-Provence because it was easier than "moving" from one crédit mutuel to another. Plus they started charging for basics! Crédit Agricole Nord Midi-Pyrénées are fine, good for businesses and you can negotiate hard with them ;-)
parents in law are the same with crédit agricole - over 70 years with no problems. La Poste simply wouldn't have funded our latest business project and crédit agricole beat all the others hands down. I do agree on the general attitude to sell, sell, sell at all cost, saw it in the UK in the 80s and 90s. It's the norm now in French banking too from what I've seen. OH's uncle is an area manager with la banque postale and he confirms this - targets, targets, targets... :-O
been with la poste for over 10 years for private banking - can't beat them for cheap nationwide service ;-)
I had an incident where I put several bags of cash in the machine at a local CA and was originally credited for all of them but then was debited for the contents of 1 bag as they said they didn't actually have it. After complaining in writing, they took the machine apart and found the missing bag.
What law?
I have had cash deposited in a bank that has been stolen? Where is my protection?
a little easier for me as a commerçant as i have the crèdit agricole lockable deposit boxes and whoever is counting just gives me a call if i've miscounted which is very rare. Everything is filmed in my branch too. BNP Paribas have a different system where the machine counts/registers what you've deposited but their pro banking fees are enormous plus crédit agricole beat all the others for our business, OH's family have banked with them for generations too.
The laws for cash payments are not new - see here. The new laws are that they are limiting the amount in cash to 1500€ per transaction - non-residents have a slightly higher limit.
I did actually ask the manager in the bank about paying the money into the account, stupidly thinking he would actually take the responsibility. Despite the sum involved he told me to use the clear envelope system. Mu gut was telling me not to, but I had to make a judgement at the time and put my trust in it. Should have listened to my women's intuition! Next time it will have to under the mattress!