Does anyone know if there's anything I can do short of going to small claims court to collect money owed to me by a past client? I'm not talking a few hundred bucks either. I know small claims is any amount under $5000.00 & its under that amount.
In a nut shell I revised my payment terms because this customer has had 10 months to get on track with making payments on time but they've chose not to honor the original service agreement, their always late, I don't mean a day or two sometimes its two or three weeks and generally I have to stay on top of every single invoice to get a payment. I've even offered to revise invoices to reflect longer service periods but I still ended up with the same results. I think if they couldn't ensure the payment as agreed upon then maybe they shouldn't of partnered with us. Anyhow, I feel 10 months is long enough to get it together so after two weeks of emailing back and forth I finally had enough and sent the building manager a final email giving her until the end of the business day to accept the new payment terms which were presented to her nearly two weeks prior & to pay all past due amounts immediately, otherwise we'd have no alternative but to terminate our service agreement immediately. I received nothing back from her that day so at the end of that business day I emailed the person above her to provide a notice to terminate services, typically we'd give a four week notice so the customer can find an alternative service provider, but given we'd had so many problems with this company paying their bill OHHHHHH &&&&& I forgot to mention they sold the business and the doors close officially at the end of the year & they didn't tell us, instead we found out through the grapevine so honestly they were already in default of the original service agreement by not complying with the original terms and with all this news I felt no responsibility to provide them with any further opportunity to take advantage of us. I honestly didn't like doing this but I'm struggling greatly to get what they owe us now and I knew if we stuck around for the upcoming service period with them (Mnday would of been the beginning of a new service period) and were going into the second week and I'm sure that will be strung out too. Anyhow, the following morning, I get a message from the building manager asking me why I didn't service the property the night before. As if she didn't get the email. I knew darn well she had tho, she's gotten all the other emails so why wouldn't she of received that one. I politely informed her that we have an unresolved matter which must be resolved before services can continue. I ask her to kindly take a look at the email I sent her the prior morning and to resolve the matter so that we may continue on. This has been a devastating ordeal for the ppl that work there too because they've all just been told their loosing their jobs (one lady was set to retire this year) so I didn't want too make things worse and I offered to carry on as long as they accepted the revision. So, I ask the building manager to please consider the unfortunate circumstances this will have on her staff and ours. Shortly thereafter I got an email informing me that no notification is grounds for termination, we're terminated & to not come back to the property. WOW! I have equipment & supplies there. And, it states in the service agreement the client agree's to not hold any equipment, supplies or payment. In so many words that's what it says. I just don't know exactly what to do about this. I don't want to hire an attorney because obviously that will cost me too. I won't let this go though, they owe it and I will see it through to the end& their not going to get away with keeping the equipment we've purchased. I can't allow that either. I just wanted to hear how others have dealt with this sort of situation. What a mess!
Thanks
In a nut shell I revised my payment terms because this customer has had 10 months to get on track with making payments on time but they've chose not to honor the original service agreement, their always late, I don't mean a day or two sometimes its two or three weeks and generally I have to stay on top of every single invoice to get a payment. I've even offered to revise invoices to reflect longer service periods but I still ended up with the same results. I think if they couldn't ensure the payment as agreed upon then maybe they shouldn't of partnered with us. Anyhow, I feel 10 months is long enough to get it together so after two weeks of emailing back and forth I finally had enough and sent the building manager a final email giving her until the end of the business day to accept the new payment terms which were presented to her nearly two weeks prior & to pay all past due amounts immediately, otherwise we'd have no alternative but to terminate our service agreement immediately. I received nothing back from her that day so at the end of that business day I emailed the person above her to provide a notice to terminate services, typically we'd give a four week notice so the customer can find an alternative service provider, but given we'd had so many problems with this company paying their bill OHHHHHH &&&&& I forgot to mention they sold the business and the doors close officially at the end of the year & they didn't tell us, instead we found out through the grapevine so honestly they were already in default of the original service agreement by not complying with the original terms and with all this news I felt no responsibility to provide them with any further opportunity to take advantage of us. I honestly didn't like doing this but I'm struggling greatly to get what they owe us now and I knew if we stuck around for the upcoming service period with them (Mnday would of been the beginning of a new service period) and were going into the second week and I'm sure that will be strung out too. Anyhow, the following morning, I get a message from the building manager asking me why I didn't service the property the night before. As if she didn't get the email. I knew darn well she had tho, she's gotten all the other emails so why wouldn't she of received that one. I politely informed her that we have an unresolved matter which must be resolved before services can continue. I ask her to kindly take a look at the email I sent her the prior morning and to resolve the matter so that we may continue on. This has been a devastating ordeal for the ppl that work there too because they've all just been told their loosing their jobs (one lady was set to retire this year) so I didn't want too make things worse and I offered to carry on as long as they accepted the revision. So, I ask the building manager to please consider the unfortunate circumstances this will have on her staff and ours. Shortly thereafter I got an email informing me that no notification is grounds for termination, we're terminated & to not come back to the property. WOW! I have equipment & supplies there. And, it states in the service agreement the client agree's to not hold any equipment, supplies or payment. In so many words that's what it says. I just don't know exactly what to do about this. I don't want to hire an attorney because obviously that will cost me too. I won't let this go though, they owe it and I will see it through to the end& their not going to get away with keeping the equipment we've purchased. I can't allow that either. I just wanted to hear how others have dealt with this sort of situation. What a mess!
Thanks
