E-paravolo - how to pay?

[GlennB]

Desperate for advice here. We're dealing with a government agency (CITES) to get an export licence for our pet parrot. These idiots will not give clear instructions on what to do, they just wait for you to get stuck or do something wrong, wait an age before answering your email, then get you over the next hurdle of an endless series of them.

We just applied for an E-paravolo payment, successfully, but there's absolutely no indication on the form of who to pay or how. No 3-part code so we can do it through e-banking, in fact no code of any kind.

Any clues very gratefully received.

Glenn

[Yin&Yang]

Perhaps a vet may have some experience? Also, it might be worth visiting your bank, who may also know how to process this?

[GlennB]

Perhaps a vet may have some experience? Also, it might be worth visiting your bank, who may also know how to process this?

As it happens our local KEP just referred me to a bookshop that can process e-paravolo payments. Silly me! Should have known! The bookshop Now the CITES* office will reject the till receipt, even though I converted it to pdf format as requested.

*Convention on trade in endangered species. The stupid parrot is of a species that's at the highest level of risk. However, EU regulations state clear and loud that such animals, if pets, are free to come and go in the EU with just a vet's health certificate. The CITES office has accepted our statements and photos of the bird with MrsB over the years but ... but ... they just can't resist the opportunity to be obstructive bureaucrats.

We will miss Greece a lot, but be glad to be rid of the jobsworth attitude of many (most?) bureaucrats here.

[Kilkis]

Every time I've had an e-Paravolo, typically for driving licence applications or buying a car/motorbike, it has had a payment code on it. This is a link to a pdf document that explains it all in Greek. Pages 6 through 10 show you what the online forms look like and pages 11 and 12 illustrate what the printed off e-paravolo looks like.

Looking at page 11, the page is divided into 3 parts. The top part is headed "Για χρήση από τον Πολίτη" and the first item is headed "Κωδικος Παραβολου" with a 20 digit number next to it grouped into three sections. The middle part is identical to the top part but all the headings are in English, i.e. it is headed "For Citizens Use" and the first item is headed "Administrative Fee Code". It has the same 20 digit code next to it.

The bottom part is like a payment slip. It is headed "e-Παράβολο" and the first item is "Κωδικός Πληρωμής" with a 24+ digit number next to it. The first 20 digits are the same as the Administrative Fee Code, although grouped differently, and the last 4+ are the amount paid in cents, i.e. no decimal point. I say 4+ because I assume some are for more than €99.99

According to page 13, any e-Pararvolo can be paid at any bank or post office. At the big five banks the payment is effectively instant, i.e. you could go straight from paying at the bank and give the receipted e-Pararvolo to the relevant office. I have done this so I know it works. For the other banks, e.g the cooperative banks, and ELTA there is a delay of 1 to 2 working days. If you pay at these banks/ELTA with a credit/debit card then it is also instant. I have never paid one online so I don't know what sort of receipt you get to prove you have paid or how you get it.

Warwick

[Kamisiana]

Perhaps a vet may have some experience? Also, it might be worth visiting your bank, who may also know how to process this?

As it happens our local KEP just referred me to a bookshop that can process e-paravolo payments. Silly me! Should have known! The bookshop

We will miss Greece a lot, but be glad to be rid of the jobsworth attitude of many (most?) bureaucrats here.

Good luck and hope you get it all sorted it's another worry where pets are concerned.
As for jobsworths / bureaucrats (civil servants) they are the same the world over servants with a chip on their shoulder.

[Kilkis]

In Greece any political party needs people to vote for them in order to get elected. To get them to vote they need some presents to give out which often means a job. Therefore any political party that is elected will design the civil service so that it always needs more people, i.e. more jobs to give out. Any government that set about making the civil service more efficient and so needing less people would never get elected again so there is no incentive. I exaggerate but not very much.

Warwick

[GlennB]

Good luck and hope you get it all sorted it's another worry where pets are concerned.
As for jobsworths / bureaucrats (civil servants) they are the same the world over servants with a chip on their shoulder.

Well, I dunno. MrsB has made excellent progress in getting us registered with a local GP and renewing her UK disabled 'blue badge', almost entirely online. The people at the other end see it as their job to *help* and are cooperative.

[Kilkis]

While I agree that the systems here are extremely bureaucratic and highly inefficient the vast majority of the people I have met in having to deal with those systems have been friendly and helpful. The people you deal with are not the ones who designed the system. They can do nothing about the system. It is tempting to blame them for your frustration but usually it is somebody else who designed the system and it is they that deserve your anger not the person behind the desk.

Warwick

[GlennB]

While I agree that the systems here are extremely bureaucratic and highly inefficient the vast majority of the people I have met in having to deal with those systems have been friendly and helpful. The people you deal with are not the ones who designed the system. They can do nothing about the system. It is tempting to blame them for your frustration but usually it is somebody else who designed the system and it is they that deserve your anger not the person behind the desk.

Warwick

We've found, through personal experience and hearing/reading about the experiences of others that it's the interpretation of the system by 'the person behind the desk' that varies wildly

For example, we had no trouble at our local police station in obtaining the beige residence permit, and then upgrading to blue years later, whereas other police stations drive applicants mad with demands that are *not* part of the system.

Or like when our local tax office, after we'd happily been filing E1s as a married couple for several years, demanded proof that we are married. We showed her our marriage certificate and a lawyer's translation and she homed in on the words 'bachelor' and 'spinster'. No amount of explaining that that was our status when we walked in the register office, not after, would convince her and she set us on a path that involved apostile stamps from the UK and a trip to the official translation office in Athens (from the S Peloponesse where we live, meaning an overnight stay).

And so on ... the stories you read on the Facebook groups for Brit expats are full of such events.

So, no. The obnoxious, obstructive individual behind the desk is often the source of the grief, not 'the system'.

So it is in the case of our parrot - EU rules on the movement of CITES-listed pets are clear, and our import papers from 13 years ago, showing many times that the bird is a *pet*, were accepted as genuine by the Athens CITES people but that wasn't good enough for them. At one point my contact there emailed me in a 20-point bold font after *she* had made a factual mistake and I'd gently pointed it out. I have been unfailingly polite to her while she is plain nasty. A licence for nastiness is not a part of 'the system'.

[Kamisiana]

have put this on before sums up front line civil servants, even more in Greece
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYcZc62Gf6w

[lDm]

In my very recent experience, the most efficient (easiest & quickest) way to pay it, is to print the form, then with it in hand go to the national bank division (eleniki trapeza) and ask someone English-speaking for assistance. The reason is that they have ATM-looking machines that do the job (not the clerk) and only in Greek but it's like a 10-step process... once done, one inserts cash and gets small change + receipt which is then attached to the printed form. And that thing is then scanned/e-mailed or directly handed to those...egh... officials needing to see it. After this, things get done (before this, it's like they don't care).
NB: several people told me it's only the national bank, nowhere else..

[Jeffstclair]

In the almost 15 years I have lived full time here I have alway found most of the people in the various offices that I have had dealings with, to be unfailingly cheerful and helpful ... putting up with my dreadful Greek and steering me through the minefield of Greek bureaucracy ...apart from the guy at the customs office when I was trying to get Greek plates for my UK car ....he was not helpful at all ....

[Kilkis]

Are you really talking about the machine being in the National Bank of Greece, which is a normal commercial bank just like Alpha, Piraeus etc, or the Bank of Greece, which is like the Bank of England? The Bank of Greece does have seventeen branches, e.g. Chania, and a number of other Agency outlets around the country and does provide some services, e.g. currency exchange, but does not operate accounts.

At one time there was a non-electronic method of payment that preceded the e-Paravolo and originally those payments could only be done at the National Bank of Greece. I had to do this the first time I renewed my Greek driving licence. Eventually they opened up the non-electronic form to other banks, i.e. you went in, told the teller what you were making the payment for and they would provide a suitable receipt. I used this method when I was buying a car and a motorbike. When they introduced the electronic form it was also payable at all banks. I don't see the problem with going to a bank counter and paying? Why go through the hassle of an all-in-Greek machine and a 10 step process? How is that easier than handing the form and a wodge of notes to a bank teller?

As far as I know the ATM like machines exist in other places. For example there is (was?) one in the office at the driving centre where you exchange ownership of vehicles. The problem is that it does not always work. I turned up at the office when I bought my motorbike intending to pay using the machine but it was out of order. I then had to go back to a bank in order to pay the fee. The nearest branch was about 200 m from the motorbike shop I had just come from.

Warwick

[Jean]

Can't you pay an e-paravolo at a post-office? I seem to remember doing so not that long ago.

[lDm]

Warwick, it's my experience 1 month ago in Athens. I just followed instructions as told by competent people. The process I describe was relatively painless, compared to the usual. So if this process really works elsewhere etc, amazing. But I did not experiment with it =)