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Question
Have you experienced customers that won't pay they overdue invoices? how do you handle that?
We provided consulting services to a firm for several months, everything was normal, they were super happy with our work and payments were perfectly on schedule.
Their sales weren't as expected mid-year, so the CEO started complaining about our rates and accused us of over billing him (all the work done by us was previously budgeted and approved by him, so no over billing possible).
This company owe us about 20k USD for work completed as requested and approved.
Any suggestions?
Their sales weren't as expected mid-year, so the CEO started complaining about our rates and accused us of over billing him (all the work done by us was previously budgeted and approved by him, so no over billing possible).
This company owe us about 20k USD for work completed as requested and approved.
Any suggestions?
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Go through a collections service company , like Respaid
Thanks Ale!
You probably have three options. Work something out with the CEO that looks like a payment plan, hire a collection agency (expect to only recover 25% to 50% of it), or hire a lawyer to send them a letter and possibly take them to court. The letter is worth every penny, but taking them to court might not be.
In the future, make sure you get enough upfront that saves you from the last bit, and I would work out some level of, if we don't get paid, this code never going into production.
I would avoid all drama and if you have access still to anything. Delete that access and don't do anything that gets you in trouble. Short and long term, it's not worth it.
Thanks Jeff. We have attempted the payment plan but he is just ghosting us.
They were paying on schedule, invoices were rendered bi-weekly to avoid this kind of situations.
We're bringing a lawyer in to send them a letter.
The lawyer normally works, but sadly, once you get this far, they might be running on vapors. Good luck with it. We haven't had many of these over the years with my agency, but it's sadly non-zero. Long term, we have more than made up for it, even with former employees giving us referrals or work with their new companies over the years. I know a few who have got put in bad situations when the company ran out of money and couldn't pay them either. Bad deal.
Unfortunately, we learned this person has been following this practice with other vendors in the past too. Seems like a pattern.
Good luck and lawyer up then. Make sure you add damages to what is owed if you have to go to court. Might be worth reaching out to other vendors too.