Time to Make Enquiries

So. You've dropped a chatty e-mail to a 'friend' or two and attached a Statement, written a reminder letter and posted it (and perhaps e-mailed it, too), and made a telephone call, but you still haven't been paid. What now?

Time was, you could have written one or three more e-mails, sent out one or three more reminders, and made a whole series of chasing telephone calls and still have been pretty sure that, in most cases, the cheque would turn up one day or another, better late than never. But this isn't time was and, post 2008, you can't afford to behave as though you are still living in time was.

Debtors fall into three categories:

1. Will pays
2. Always late pays
3. Won't pays, and
4. Can't pays

When 'will pays' and 'always late pays' suddenly don't pay according to their usual pattern, and your collection efforts meet with no response, the question arises as to whether these category 1 and 2 customers have dropped into category 4.

Moreover, it's worth considering whether any of the category 3 'won't pay' customers are using complaints to disguise 'can't pay' situations.

The only way to answer those questions is make some background enquiries. Getting a Credit Report from a credit reference agency, and making searches of The Register of Judgments, Orders and Fines, The Individual Insolvency Register and any one or more of the many available debtor registers will enable you to find out more about your customer's real situation, and make a decision as to how to proceed.