[BDCS]

I have had a couple of bad debts one of which dates back to last June, which after somes considerable chasing remains unpaid. I have now found a very satisfying way of getting even because I had written the money off in my own mind. I had one of my suppliers tell me about a debt recovery firm he uses. They charged me £350 which is "one off" and will now supply legally enforceable terms for my invoices and advice on the recovery of debt. If you have a customer who don't pay by the term you send them a template letter and if that fails you start charging interest, and a £40 fee, and you file the details of the firm online and they do the rest for you.
   They ask if you wish to carry on with the customer as it effects how they deal with the case and if you wish to carry on they will work a payment plan to resolve it. If you don't wish to retain the customer they start proceedings. If the customer pays the original amount after recieving the fee and interest letter its deemed to have paid your fee and interest and still owes the remaining original amount.
  The customer in my case started by owing £266 and now owes me over £400 for the three invoices.
   Does anyone else use this type of service ?

[cleaning-team]

I have had a couple of bad debts one of which dates back to last June, which after somes considerable chasing remains unpaid. I have now found a very satisfying way of getting even because I had written the money off in my own mind. I had one of my suppliers tell me about a debt recovery firm he uses. They charged me £350 which is "one off" and will now supply legally enforceable terms for my invoices and advice on the recovery of debt. If you have a customer who don't pay by the term you send them a template letter and if that fails you start charging interest, and a £40 fee, and you file the details of the firm online and they do the rest for you.
   They ask if you wish to carry on with the customer as it effects how they deal with the case and if you wish to carry on they will work a payment plan to resolve it. If you don't wish to retain the customer they start proceedings. If the customer pays the original amount after recieving the fee and interest letter its deemed to have paid your fee and interest and still owes the remaining original amount.
  The customer in my case started by owing £266 and now owes me over £400 for the three invoices.
   Does anyone else use this type of service ?

We have just ended our first legal experience with a non paying customer (customer has fled abroad so no chance of getting money despite having a CCJ awarded etc) but one thing we were told by a solicitor was to make sure we did nothing which could be deemed unreasonable by a court and we were advised that using any sort of debt collection companies before getting judgement can be seen by a court (especially the Small Claims Court) as a step too far.

Its worth beaing in mind that most of these companies insist you pay their fees up front and they then try and claim it back from the debtor meaning the only guaranteed wiiner in all this is the debt collection company. If you eventually have to go to court while the court may rule in your favour for the original debt (£266 in this case) they may not rule in your favour on any additional costs so you could be left out of pocket.

[BDCS]

There is no further payment on my part - any costs are payable by the customer. I have heard very few good reports about the small claims procedure so thats why we took this route.  The chap who told us about this firm said that by just having the small print on the ivoice makes the customer more likely to pay you over someone who dos'nt. I doubt if any court would see applying the late payment legislation as being unreasonable - Why would it be there?