Anecdotally, I've also never encountered as many scummy and cheating companies and GmbHs as in Germany.

Granted it's just another data point but I feel there's real substance behind this Germany bashing and it's not uncalled for.

Also, Germany is the only EU country I've encountered where scummy law companies break citizens privacy hand in hand with ISPs to spy on your internet traffic and send you fines if you torrent anything copyrighted, while at the same time marking huge fuss about how important privacy is in Germany. Ironic.

If you move to Germany make sure to get defense insurance to protect yourself if you ever need to use a lawyer.

> Anecdotally, I've also never encountered as many scummy and cheating companies and GmbHs as in Germany.

Compared to where?

I had been working in Austria for last 15 years. From Europe I had to work with companies from Serbia, Croatia, Romania, Bosnia, Greece. Not even one single bad experience!

From my three bad experiences two are from Germany and with both we lost a lot of money and time on lawyers.

Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands.

Might be a matter of statistics: All countries you mention are significantly smaller than Germany, i.e. have fewer companies, so the chances of you encountering a (fraudulent) German company when doing business in the EU are higher(?)

You are free to distrust GmbHs, I'm free to distrust HN comments. One is more warranted than the other.

By all means, feel free to do that, I'm just some random guy or gal on HN. I'm just sharing my life experience.