Debt Collecting

[lady macbeth]

How do you do it?

My customers are usually good at paying up !!

BUT this last week I have had two customers who have ignored letters, wont reply to phone calls and have seriously gotten under my skin. To the point that yesterday I was in tears and today I am sitting in bed feeling rather ill and listening to angry thrash metal music lol !

My partner says I take it personally and that its nothing to do with ME - they just dont see it as a priority. BUT it IS personal. Its MY business and I want to keep it healthy. I provided the service on time and at the price quoted and in every way, shape and form fulfilled my side of the contract and then some. All I ask is that they take their side seriously!

I was going to put this in rant corner and then decided that rather than just moan about it I would ask how you out there in SBS forum land deal with people who just wont pay? Do you take it personally or am I just a strange one?

Tomorrow I am putting together a proper credit control process and will make sure we stick to it. Hopefully more specific initial written correspondence will encourage those that dont think our little company high enough up the list to pay on time. Grrr - dont mess with Meaco ;)

[Dr.Jose Sebastian]

Hi,
In this part of the country(India), this is quite usual. To entrepreneurs who come with this kind of problems, i suggest to go to the place and intimidate!. but may not be easy for all. Another tactic is the threat of blackening the image of such people. just tell them that you will send e-mail to as many businesses as possible. This will have some effect. In tradditional business communities like Gujaratis, nobody will do business with such people. You can also find out the customers and suppliers of those guys and inform them.

I think this is an issue which deserves an 'entrepreneurial' appraoch.


Jose Sebastian
Institute for Enterprise Culture & Entrepreneurship Development

[CIDCouriers-dot-com]

How do you do it?

My customers are usually good at paying up !!

BUT this last week I have had two customers who have ignored letters, wont reply to phone calls and have seriously gotten under my skin. To the point that yesterday I was in tears and today I am sitting in bed feeling rather ill and listening to angry thrash metal music lol !



Send the boys round with baseball bats :eek:

OK, seriously, a friendly solicitor may draft a letter for you for a few pounds which might do the trick...

You could write them a letter before action (LBA) giving them seven working days to respond or you'll follow up with court action. This usually works as obviously no company wants to seen to be dragged through the courts for not paying their bills.

You need to be prepared to go through with the action just in case they still decide to ignore you. I'm not sure how much it costs to start a claim, but remember you can add these costs to your claim. You can make the claim online at MCOL

The downside of threatening court action is that you could lose their business, is that something you're prepared to do?

As for the suggestion of threat of blackening their image, I'd steer well clear of that one, as they may decide to sue you for defamation/slander/libel or something... :(

[Rob]

A good site I mentioned in a previous post is http://www.payontime.co.uk

It has a good list of templates and tips for this sort of issue.

PS - my first post for a week or so as am on holiday in the UK for two weeks and have managed to 'steal' someone's laptop for a quick look see! Officially back on line on 11th Aug!

[lady macbeth]

YAY !!!!

Finally - after many a phone call they paid their bill. BUT they didnt pay the interest or debt collection fee. So I rang them to check whether they ever intended to as they said they would following receipt of my recorded delivery letter outlining the additional charges - if not it would lead to an o/s balance on their account and that would cause them problems placing orders in the future. They promised to get back to me but as usual I heard nothing. Until this morning when a lovely £97 appeared into my account!!!!!!!

I am not happy that i had to go to so much trouble but thanks to a little perseverance and some well worded letters I feel that its a victory for little me ;)

Hopefully this isnt an action I will have to take many times but at least now I know it works to some extent I will feel more confident in imposing charges again. After all as the man from the accounts dept said - I did everything they asked of me and its only fair that they honour their side of the contract.

Yay, yay and yay :):):)

[Rob]

Good news - and getting a cheque to cover your other costs - can't be bad! I think Caroline in this post (http://www.smallbusinesssuccess.biz/forum/showthread.php?p=320#post320) may need some of your tips!

[FionaFell]

I have a fool proof way to get people to pay.

Make them do it upfront.

Yep, no credit terms.

I know this may be extreme but it lets me pay my bills on time, and ensures I have a clear mind when working with my clients.

I am in the process of developing a custom in-house credit card processing database so it becomes more hands-off for my regular clients, retainers, and hosting clients.

But upfront is a must.