The Collection Agency (innkasso)

Yesterday, I realized something interesting... in all parts of the world, when someone is about to "break the rules", it almost always starts with a "sigh"

The previous afternoon, I had to deal with the MOST dreaded of all Norwegian entities, "Inkasso" or the friendly neighborhood "collection agency"

It turns out, before I left Oslo, I forgot to pay for a small 48 NOK Get.no cancellation charge, which has now turned into 854 NOK.

So I first called the collection agency; it seems to me, adding a "late fee" that's twenty times the original charge is a bit excessive, even by norsk standards.

I initially spoke to a lady that didn't speak English, so we talked in Norwegian.

"Beklager, det er ingenting som vi kan gjøre. Du må betale. Ha en fin dag!" ... she basically told me in a very nice way, "to go to hell"..

So, in a final attempt, I called the internet company.

This time, I spoke to someone that did speak English.

She told me that the 48 NOK charge was indeed a cancellation charge. I explained to her that originally, three years ago, I seem to remember calling and having this fee taken off.

"That is correct." she replied. However, she went on to explain that in Norway, when you get a credit, it is always added to the FOLLOWING month. This means, you still need to pay the original bill, they will just "credit" you on the next. They will never just remove a charge on the current statement.

"Okay, you didn't explain that to me last time" ... that was the truth, however, I didn't tell them I already knew this. "And I was leaving the country. There was no way for me to get next months invoice. "

There was a LONG pause, of almost 2-3 seconds... she then sighed ... and that was the sigh I was looking for. It's almost like she was terminating the customer service application and entering "real mode" ...

"I can see that for such a small charge, having an 800 krone late fee is .. not so nice... " she replied.

"That is correct.", I answered back.

"All right, I suppose I can remove this charge... "