Wrong exit stamp
 

Hi everyone! I have a massive problem and I feel so upset and desperate.

Basically, I always use the Schengen Calculator to make sure I’m not overstaying and based on the actual, correct dates, I should have 56 days left in the Schengen Zone.

However, I came to Germany yesterday and first they told me I overstayed, and then they said to me that I can only stay till 6th of March. My plan was to stay until the end of March but they said it's not possible, and after speaking to the police, I realized what the mistake was.

On the 3rd of January I was leaving the EU from Greece and the border officer put in a completely wrong date both on my passport stamp and in the system. Instead of putting the exit date as 03/01/25, he put 13/02/25, causing me to barely have 15 days left, and on top of that making it look like I overstayed 12 days. I have flight tickets to prove I left the EU, and I can request entrance stamps from my country of residence (everything is electronic there now). I told the police I can get this proof for them, but they said the only thing that counts is what's in the EU system.

Is there anyone I could lodge a complaint to? I was thinking to contact my country's embassy in Greece to explain the situation, to see if they could help?

I really think I shouldn't have to suffer for someone else's terrible mistake. I wouldn't bother if the only issue was a shorter holiday, but the fact I may be accused of overstaying when I never did that is something I am extremely worried about, and that in the future I will have big issues.

Also, I’m not sure if this is relevant but up until November 30th, 2024 I had a valid Spanish residence permit. I showed it to the border control yesterday, even though it was expired, and then they said that I didn't overstay and it's fine as I had a valid permit. However, I am worried I did because I traveled a lot between Germany and Spain (whilst having my residence permit) and so I always counted all the dates I've been to while in Germany (despite there being no border control, I still counted them since my residency permit was for Spain, not Germany), and then it shows on the calculator that I overstayed by 12 days.

There's no EU wide system in place yet. Some individual member states have them in place but these only cover entries and exits from their territory. So, it's basically just the stamp.

I've seen a note (handwritten annotations on wet stamp plus a seal) done by German federal police next to a wrong French exit stamp. So that could be an option of course, one will need to proof the correct date of exit though. This could be done through boarding passes etc. for instance.

Italy once didn't stamp my wife's passport upon entry which subsequently led to questions by other countries when leaving Schengen, e.g. from Greece. Showing them the booking confirmation of the flight to Italy turned out to be sufficient every time she was asked about this.

Oh I didn’t know there is no wide EU system. Anyway, what I mean was, the police from Germany called the police in Greece and the Greek police saw in their system that the date there is 13th of February and that’s the only thing that counts. I showed them my return ticket and even offered to show them proof from my country of residency, that I did enter it on the 3rd of January but they said that won’t help me. I don’t know what to do..

I am almost 100% sure that the Greek police will never accept a mistake. If it's in their system, they will insist that there was no mistake on their side. Moreover, the stamp is a stamp, but the "system" is electronic. If that also shows the wrong date, anything you produce as proof will not convince them to change their records. The only "good" thing about this mess is that you can be certain that nobody will accuse you of overstaying.