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had a couple of customers who had not paid bills for several months (talking private jobs not contracts) Both quite well off and falling into the cannot be bothered to pay group rather than the cannot pay group. Got a bit fed up with sending reminders, even phoning one up 3 weeks ago and they promised a cheque in the post…. needless to say noting arrived. both debts in the £90- £100 mark.
So, after the threatening letters of CCJ’s did not bring results and after a few glasses of wine last night while doing my vat return, I sent an anonymous (ie no “sent from” number) text to both customers claiming to be from a debt collecting agency (no name mentioned) that have been instructed by us to call around and collect the debt and when would be a suitable time…. Hey presto, 2 hand delivered cheques in the post box this morning – one delivered by Porsche apparently! result and a method I will use again.Re: debt collecting
Brilliant idea Mark. Perhaps you could advise a suitable ‘standard’ text we could adopt and try in cases like this?
Re: debt collecting
Care here!
Unless collecting B2B debts, acting as a DCA on B2C debt is illegal and can lead to imprisonment of upto 5 years and or a fine of £5000 per instance.
Jackal
Re: debt collecting
DCA? B2C? WTF I got paid!
one was along the lines of:
Mr ****, We have been instructed by Anglia Electrics to collect an unpaid sum of £90.60 + new additional late payment charges. CCJ forms are now prepared and will be submitted on September 1st.
Nothing untrue in there other than it was from me rather than a 3rd party debt collector. CCJ forms were prepared online and I always follow through on them if only out of principle, Took a Viscount to CCJ on one occasion.
The other text was much the same but with the invite to call round at a convenient time.Re: debt collecting
DCA = Debt Collection Agency, B2C = Business to Customer.
Going round to his house, kicking the door in and threatening to rape his 13 year old daughter, may also have gotten you paid, doesn’t make it legal though.
Fact is, your actions could be construed as impersonating a DCA, whom must be licensed to engage in such activity and THAT is illegal and you run the risk of a criminal conviction but that is your choice.
I would simply caution others to think carefully about the consequences should they wish to follow your actions.
A correctly obtained CCJ is enough to obtain payment if you know what your doing and importantly HOW to have one enforced.
There is no need to be underhanded and if your feel it acceptable to engage in underhanded and illegal tactics then frankly your no better than the rip off, won’t pay merchants we all despise.
Re: debt collecting
Jackal wrote:There is no need to be underhanded and if your feel it acceptable to engage in underhanded and illegal tactics then frankly your no better than the rip off, won’t pay merchants we all despise.
Whoa! Let’s not get too carried here. We all get well wound up when, after all our attempts on getting paid for work done. After all the bull shoosh promises by our customer to put the cheque in the post. The County Court judgements in our favour. In spite of the seemingly trivial amounts of money owed us and the exhaustive legals means adopted in the attempt to secure the money. We still are well out of pocket and are frustrated beyond measure to a point where desperation kicks in.
We all have seen (on TV) where County Court Bailiffs get Court Orders to evict tenants or obtain ‘goods to the value of’. They have the advantage of ramping up their fees to over their costs to enforce the order. But the poor lowly engineer wanting his 100 quid is ignored by the system and so forced either to accept the loss or resort to lawless actions such as this.
I congratulate Mark for his inspired result, illegal though it was. So so very many times have I been so incensed by, in spite of CCJ’s awarded in my favour, I have been the looser. It is a sickening feeling and the law is an ass.:(
Re: debt collecting
It was something I done several times. In the early days of SMS on-line I found it rather useful as the recipient’s screen would show the caller as written text, not a number.
So their phone would ping, and the screen would show “collections” Message would read something like “Ref Invoice 012345 Repairs to Washerdryer dated 01/01/2001. Your debt has been passed to escalation. Please call on 01234567890 with payment details in order to avoid legal action.”
Worked every time, and always within minutes.
Perhaps rather unethical, but not such a crime as bilking.
Alex
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