Bad Payers

If you have known this customer for two years then I assume that she has always paid you.

What has changed this time? You probably caught her on a bad day so go back and talk to her.

It is not viable to go to small claims court for such a small amount. It may work against you as she could put a bad word out about you in the area.

Not worried about what she says about me, the point being that she has always paid, on time, this time she is being silly and so it will go down wherever it goes, according to her attitude at the time. I have chased less money than this through the small claims court and because everything i do is in writing i have always been paid.
I wont be working in her area anymore anyway and as we are vetted by the office of fair trade i have to keep a paper trail of all that goes between me and the customer.
She has a large house which doubles as an expensive B&B, as well as a business in her own right, Her husband has made his fortune and i mean fortune in his business, and so neither could afford the risk of me taking it to the small claims court.
They have always been good payers and so a lot more coprrespondence will take place before that is even suggested to her.
My payback comes when she tries to get a local pestie cheaper than me to carry out the same work, most of them wont touch her now they know she pays for so long, then stops paying. Even her housekeeper has stated in front of a witness that if she pays on time it will be a first.
I am not too worried about it but we will see what her response will be after the next letter.

I have been paid for the last visit, presumably my diplomatically written letter worked. However i wont work for them again.
the best of it was over a 7 week period they had 5 visits to sort out moles and we caught some on every visit after the initial laying of traps. and as i was paid for the first 4 i could not understand why i was not paid for the last one. but hey thats business.

Congrats on getting paid.

For the life of me, I can't work out how she expected to benefit from being a slow payer. She's in business for herself so she'd know the risks.

Great result & thanks for the update.

Maybe rather than blanking her that price hike with discount for advance payment might work?

Best of luck moving forward.

How to get rid of moles....

We had a similar problem in the past when quoting over the phone. We now ask for confirmation of acceptance of price and job spec prior to confirming bookings.
Small claims court is an option we have used but is time consuming and costly.