My first non-paying customer

[Stu]

Well it has finally happened, after 16 months in business as a mobile tech, I have my first non-paying customer.

I did some virus removal work for this guy last June on his office PC. Three months later he called back because he was re-infected. I had put a trial version of NOD32 Antivirus on his machine, but he had let it expire. Turns out the guy also has teenagers who download everything under the sun and visit dodgy websites. I carried out another virus removal, plus some additional minor work in his office. I got the feeling he blamed me somehow for the second infection, and attempted to educate him as best as I could.

This was in early September. Normally I bill onsite, but on the return visit to drop his PC off, he was away in the city with work, so I left it with his wife. She told me she would get her husband to send payment on as she knows nothing about his PC, but signed the invoice anyway.

I give customers 21-days to pay, with a 1.5% per day interest charge after this. So we get to 21-days and I still haven't received payment. We call him up and he says he has forgotten to claim it on his work expenses. He apologises profusely and claims he will sort it pronto.

Fast forward beginning of November and still no payment received. However, we get a call off him; he thinks he has another virus and wants me to go out ASAP. So we politely tell him we cannot do any further work for him until payment has been received for the last job. No problem he says, he will have a cheque waiting for me.

So we get him booked in, I go over to his, and surprise, nobody home except a teenage son who just crawled out of bed and knows nothing of my visit or the cheque awaiting me.

By now I am pretty furious so call the guy and he claims to have been called away to his other son's school and he's not going to make it back. OK I say, but I'm going to have to charge a callout fee for my time.

So I get home and write him a fresh invoice, this time with the original September work, the interest on that, plus a callout fee for the missed November visit. The invoice is now about twice the original amount.

I have not heard anything from the guy since, and he is not answering my calls. It looks like he has no intention of paying.

The amount he owes is not a massive amount and it is not going to kill me if he doesn't pay, but it's the fact I put in hard work to get this guy's PC working again, even worked on a Sunday to get it back to him. And then he goes and treats my time like it is worthless. I'm not really sure what to do. Do I continue to hassle the guy until he pays, or should I just forget it?

Regards

Stu

 

[nonchalant]

Sounds like you need to go the legal route.

Write him a formal letter on a letterhead (if possible) requesting payment within 14 days (not sure what the minimum period is in the UK but Im sure your legal aid service can tell you over the phone) together with a copy of the invoice & send it registered mail so you get a signature on receipt.

This way you have proof of service and he has no excuses if you have to go the next step, which is to lodge a formal complaint with your country's business & consumer affairs department (at least this is how it works in Australia).

At the end of the day its all about putting pressure on him to cough up. Most people will when they get legal/formal requests for payment. Unfortunately if all this fails the next step is the small claims court (however you can claim expenses for serving a summons).

 

[gunslinger]

I agree its time to go the legal route. This is why I always get paid onsite.

 

[bagellad]

Yes, I would go the legal route he doesn't sound like a customer you want anyway.

Gunslinger what would you do if after servicing the customer's computer they say they don't have any money you want you to come back the next day? Then the next day they also didn't have money. This happened to me the other day but i decided to just let it go because it was pretty much the poorest apartment ive ever seen.

 

[sonyw810]

What if you got a credit card number when the client calls to schedule a service call? Maybe offer a 10% discount if they do it this way or something along those lines. I wouldn’t charge the card unless they didn't call and cancel, if the didn’t show up to the set appointment or the big one if they didnt pay onsite.

It would be the same as a lot of doctors do their scheduling, if you do not give a advanced notice that you're going to miss a appointment they charge you $xx amount of money.

 

[sonyw810]

I agree. We are thinking of a credit application for business customers. It will require we first run a credit check on the business / owner. From there it will decide the approval status. We also have a credit card form they can fill out for us to have their corporate credit card on file.

For residential clients, we accept cash and credit cards, so they have no excuse to pay. Before we show up on site, we are going to start asking how they prefer to pay, cash, or credit? We do NOT take personal checks.

"To insure we can continue to offer the best price possible we require a credit card before we send a technician to you, the card will not be charged untill the work has been completed"

"Will you be using a mastercard, visa, or discover card today?"

lol. I dont know maybe you can say something along those lines. When you call a hotel to reserve a room they require a card, they still let you pay cash if you want after check out but still same concept.

 

[robomonkey]

Stu,

Those issues sound familiar but if you take it into the grand scheme of things. At least you're aware now of the issue and can learn/improve from the experience. The real drag usually is the time and energy expended on trying to straighten things out which usually is non compensated stuff. Dealing with legal issues, phone calls, hunting down the payments, etc. All of which could have been spent on a customer/job which does return some investment of your time.

Plus, we never really consider the emotional/mental issues that drag on a tech as well. None of which a price tag can be placed for the cost of well being.

One avenue I have used in issues with virus infections is tracing down the time of infection though timestamps within the file system. Having a kid download an infected app, executing it, and wreaking havoc within the system can leave a trace. Especially if the person is sitting there and confirming what happens... "Let me guess... the issue started on XX date around XX time and got worse from there."

I always go back to my "Come mow my lawn for free" analogy. Which I sometimes pop up in responding to tech issues and compensation. Unless the customer is willing to take time out of their day to come over to your house and mow your lawn, do your laundry, wash your windows, completely free of charge. How in the world can they expect you to drive to their destination, and work on a system (for an hour or more) using experience that you have earned and not expect to be compensated?

So ya, stick to your work ethic, but make sure you don't tax yourself too great.

~Robo