Customer won't pay up....

[stusgsx]

OK heres the basic story:
Back in August i think it was I started a travertine wetroom (you might of seen my thread about this i will find the link in a min)
Anyway the customers son had "prepared" the room ready for me to tile but had not stuck the floor membrane to the floor and also all of the UFH wires were crossing over eachother.:mad2:
I told them it needs to be stuck down and advised them the UFH will fail. Meanwhile I got the walls tiled after being told they will re do the floor that evening lol.
2nd day on job and all they had done is cut around the perimeter of the room and stuck down the edges so now its not only just not stuck but now not waterproof and they had spoke with their sparky who told them the UFH would be fine.
Told them i wont tile the floor until its prepared properly and I emailed them the membrane spec sheet to prove them wrong as the customer had told me that the membrane supplier told them it doesnt need to be stuck!
After not hearing back from them I emailed to ask how they were getting on and got no reply.
A couple of weeks pass so I send an invoice for the walls (2 Days labour + materials).
Few more weeks and send a reminder
90 days I send a final invoice

Now I need your help as this is the first time I have been in this position. The customer is pretty local so the last thing I want to do is start a war and have my tyres slashed or some cr@p but I WANT MY MONEY!!!:incazzato:

 

[charlie1]

Ser what happens closer to the final day, if you need to then send your final warning , still no joy then take them to court but send another recorded delivery letter informing them of your intentions.... Or you could be more direct and go round in person to discuss matter. They are hoping you will just away, i doubt they will have the stomach for a fight anymore than you.... Just chancers mate, keep at them one way or another

 

[Alan.P]

Call round and ask what the problem is, if you still get no joy as above, take them to small claims but do it right, there is a thread somewhere with the details on how to posted here somewhere.

 

[peteablard]

Do a search on here and you'll find a template for a 7 day letter, basically giving them 7 days to pay or you'll proceed with legal action. I've had to do it with a couple of companies and it worked both times.

 

[beanz]

The only problem with small claims court, is if they know their stuff, you won't ever see a penny! Seen it a couple of times now.. You win your case, the judge says they have to pay, but the money never comes!?! Our legal system is a joke!
As above, go round and talk to them in person, if for no other reason than to see if there's a problem that they can use against you in court. Good luck with it mate 😉

 

[Dan]

Small claims court would be the way I'd go. £60 to register the claim.

 

[charlie1]

we should (together with other forums) build a database with details of non paying customers. Its time to fight back against these chancers. If one of us for whatever reason does a job thats not up to scratch then we are open to public damaging our rep. Now before we all start saying ... my customers all love me bla bla... yawn... lets be honest, you can sometimes do a great job and for whatever reason, they mess you arround. Im still 40 quid short of ballance due for job i done in nov, all because he couldnt lift anymore from account, now i recieve text to go back and collect the rest, this is just messing arround!!!

I would like us all to get together with other tradesmen and start something good... Dan, we will need your help!

A database that could be queeried before starting anywork to see if there have been any black marks.

the data could include the following:

Company name / client name, previous names / aliases, details (selected from drop down), address.

 

[Diamond Pool Finishers]

I would love to see the same Charlie ,it's about time mate!!!!!! so roughs out there,and we tradesmen are easy targets ,as you say the law is a joke most of the time!!!

 

[Dan]

As cool as that sounds, it'd need managing properly else you'd end up facing legal battles.

How many times have we heard the non-payers are solicitors that are well clued up on their rights and how to find loop holes? Too often. I'd not like to list their name on a website publicly or access-only.

It'd need funds holding to fight cases amongst other things.

If it worked it'd be awesome though. You could even include the details of the database on the invoices. 'Failure to pay on time may result in you being listed on the YADA YADA website that all tradesmen use' - I'm sure just the warning alone would make some think twice about it.

The best thing you can do without such a database is to make sure you have terms with your invoices, signed and agreed to, that are strong enough to stand in court. Then just make sure you get a reputation of ensuring you get paid via the courts. And then perhaps even note those successes on your own website or something. So a page dedicated to it, and you list the names the court gave the case, so Tiler v Customer on 2/1/2013 - Result: Win for Tiler. And then touch on the details provided to the court. So amount owed, reason the customer gave as to why they're not paying, and reason you gave as to why they should pay, and the decision the court took.

You'd not be liable for a thing that way.

 

[DHTiling]

Terrorise them 🙂..

 

[Dan]

Just to add to that; one of my biggest issues with forums and solicitors letters is related to comments made about a company or person. And only about 50% turn out to be genuine. The other 50% are often tradesmen who got paid less due to a snagging list or something as normal as that, and he's just got a grudge, uses loads of websites to blame the person who should have paid them X amount but never gives details of why they didn't.

When we play letter/email tennis for a couple of days I tend to quickly find out that the person who left the comments doesn't want anything more to do with it and wants me to remove the comments made.

You'd fall foul to a LOT of that as the whole website would be attracting attention for that type of scenario.

And I think to be honest, that's why such a website doesn't exist already, because the problem has certainly existed for longer than the internet has been around.

 

[charlie1]

Dan, each customer + address could be combined and assigned a uid, all that would be visually seen on the forum would be a uid, customer names and sddress would all be hidden appart from a select few. any queeries would flag up against the uid ... i hope you understand

ps, there no smoke withouut fire imo

 

[Dan]

I hear you.

I certainly wouldn't have it as part of one of my forums to be honest mate. No point pulling down something established with something new. It'd be it's own company (or charity even) with it's own set of websites if I had anything to do with it.

But I still stand by my reasoning, it is certainly something needed but it'd be ripe with flaws and people abusing it for their own gains or grudges.

blagger.com, whocallsme.com and a bunch of other amercian based websites would be somewhere that you'd be able to name and shame somebody and them not manage to easily get it removed. Not really exactly what you're thinking of but it's perhaps a start.

What you'd need for it to work well is a search facility that lists their name and street or something, else it's going to be hard for a tradesman to actually check it. And that means the customers name and address is searchable. And that's where it'd faul under loads of laws inc DPA.

 

[Diamond Pool Finishers]

yes when you put it like that Dan,it would be a nightmare to do !! legal fight everywhere !! open to abuse !! it's a shame really as tradesmen always get the bad-press from everyone!.....

 

[stusgsx]

Blimey this got busy!
Thanks for the advice.
I have tried calling the customer today and left a message which was proberly a waste of time.
Think I'm going to search for the letter to send them.
It's not major money and I thought about leaving it but it ****es me off thinking about it and all because I wanted to do a good job and not lash it up how they wanted.
Oh and the name and shame website sounds good can I be the first to add a non payer?!

 

[Bubblecraft]

I've a name to add too! 😉

 

[widler]

i had 1 before christmas,only 8 weeks over due but was messing me around.
all i did was go around every day,knock on the door and ask for my money,on the friday i just said i be back tomorrow,if i don't get the money im going to knock the render off the back of the house and they can pay someone to redo it with the money from the bathroom(i plastered the house, rendered it and tiled 2 bathrooms,they were not paying me for the 2nd bathroom).
went round sat and the husband was waiting with money,i said thankyou and off i went.
im not a big lad or threatening in any way,im quite gay really 😉

 

[Brian the Tile]

ha ha ha nice one wilder i like the way you put that ,at least you got your money:lol:

 

[Dan]

See my previous posts in this thread. Please don't name and shame customers on this forum, the post(s) will just get erased.

Unfortunately too many dodgy tradesman (and customers) are about for us to manage the hassle that comes with doing that.

I am sorry that this is the case, but it just is. 🙁

 

[John Benton]

i had 1 before christmas,only 8 weeks over due but was messing me around.
all i did was go around every day,knock on the door and ask for my money,on the friday i just said i be back tomorrow,if i don't get the money im going to knock the render off the back of the house and they can pay someone to redo it with the money from the bathroom(i plastered the house, rendered it and tiled 2 bathrooms,they were not paying me for the 2nd bathroom).
went round sat and the husband was waiting with money,i said thankyou and off i went.
im not a big lad or threatening in any way,im quite gay really 😉

love it Widler, you sure you only threatened to pull off his render :lol:

 

[stusgsx]

Hahaha Widler!
I would go and knock but they have 2 massive rot weilers and I'm a cat person :-/

 

[widler]

A few things what got me mad was they rang me the week before and asked to go finish a bit of boxing in which was not there when i finished it all,it was a after thought, saying they will have money for me, went and did it, at no extra cost,and still no money, i also got all the plastic beads and EML for the rendering, i had to EML the old half of the house, i saved them nearly £500,i went up for the money and they asked if i could overskim a wall for them which was a old wall, so i did for nowt, i got the cash for the gear and it was £60 shy with a note in saying its for the beads and EML which was left over and i can take them, couldnt believe it, some people eh

 

[White Room]

A few things what got me mad was they rang me the week before and asked to go finish a bit of boxing in which was not there when i finished it all,it was a after thought, saying they will have money for me, went and did it, at no extra cost,and still no money, i also got all the plastic beads and EML for the rendering, i had to EML the old half of the house, i saved them nearly £500,i went up for the money and they asked if i could overskim a wall for them which was a old wall, so i did for nowt, i got the cash for the gear and it was £60 shy with a note in saying its for the beads and EML which was left over and i can take them, couldnt believe it, some people eh

The EML is'nt cheap and I would'nt have left it there to be honest.

 

[stusgsx]

Well quick update. I tried calling the customer a couple of times last week but as I only have their mobile they could see it was me calling so got no answer but I left messages to call me.
Today I withheld my number and they picked up! They sounded shocked to hear it was me I think as they didn't know what to say. I asked what the problem was and they came out with the excuse of they keep meaning to email me back but forgot. No mention of getting payment to me they just said they will email me back tonight but I would rather thru paid me tonight!
Let's see what the email says no doubt it will say they are not happy with the price as I didn't (I couldn't!) finish

- - - Updated - - -

Well quick update. I tried calling the customer a couple of times last week but as I only have their mobile they could see it was me calling so got no answer but I left messages to call me.
Today I withheld my number and they picked up! They sounded shocked to hear it was me I think as they didn't know what to say. I asked what the problem was and they came out with the excuse of they keep meaning to email me back but forgot. No mention of getting payment to me they just said they will email me back tonight but I would rather thru paid me tonight!
Let's see what the email says no doubt it will say they are not happy with the price as I didn't (I couldn't!) finish

 

[Andy Allen]

theyv'e had plenty of time to email you, i would of just asked for the money...

 

[Sean Kelly]

I know exactly what you are going through stusgsx. Same thing happened to me a few months back. I had my phone on redial and hounded the bloke every day. I was phoning his shop, mobile and I even tracked down his home number (the power of the internet!) I was even ringing him at 21:00, but he was always out! His poor Wife had to put up with my ranting about my money. I think she must have put the pressure on him to pay up! He did in the end. Hopefully your next update will be a positive one. Good luck.

 

[Dan]

^ that's the way to do it. Hound them until they feel it's not worth not paying you anymore and they give up and pay up.

 

[kilty55]

hi i would send a recorded delivery letter with bill immediately asking for immediate payment.....if nothing comes of it start a small claims

 

[AliGage]

The only problem with small claims court, is if they know their stuff, you won't ever see a penny! Seen it a couple of times now.. You win your case, the judge says they have to pay, but the money never comes!?! Our legal system is a joke!
As above, go round and talk to them in person, if for no other reason than to see if there's a problem that they can use against you in court. Good luck with it mate 😉

If you're going SCC then be prepared to get baliffs in. Don't just accept judgement. I mean im usually happy knowing i have put a CCJ against there names. But i'd still want my money.
I'm going through an issue like this at the moment which iim pretty confident not only will i get the ammount due but i've also asked for a resonable ammount of compensation as well. Not sure if i'll get the compo, although i can put a very very good argument forward as to why i should be granted it. Regardless, people like this make my blood boil.

One way or the other they will pay. Get the courts to enforce the debt and they'll send baliffs round for you.I think some of these people are not fussed other there credit score, experian report or anything like that. When big, bald Barry steps in their house and lifts there 50" LED from the wall as part payment. Then they take notice.

 

[beanz]

When my mate went through it, it got to the stage where he was going to have to pay for the bailiffs out of his own pocket... He gave up in the end, as it was gonna cost more than he was owed!?!

 

[stusgsx]

Hmm no email yet lol