OT.... Collecting debts.....

bulk of my customers have noticed slower payments last few months, don't know if its sky high gas prices or a general business slowdown coming on but its pretty widespread

might be good time to weed out your good customers from your deadbeats and keep your good customers happy

if you aren't going to get paid, better to drink some cold suds under a shade tree than throw away the parts and labor

You might check with your State but here in AZ we have a "theft of services law"

Basicly it's a law for when you provide a service and the customer refuses to pay. If the customer refuses to pay then they can be arrested on the spot.

This keeps people from ordering work done that they can't pay for or had no intention of paying for in the first place.

If the customer is unhappy with that service they still must pay the bill but then must go to civil court to collect on the disagreement of that service.

The only one I know personally that used the law was a service station owner. Customer ordered new tires, belts and hose, complete oil service, etc. then refused to pay because the bill was too high. Told the owner to take off the tires. Owner called the sherrif and the customer got to see the judge. The customer found the money to pay the bill, plus court costs by 5pm that day.

On the other hand, a business can not remove the service provided for non payment or the business is in trouble.

I had a nattional hambuger chain call me on a huge refer problem. I got done with the job several thousnads dollars later. Owner refused to pay, a franchise.

I called the national headquaters and talked with the CEO. It's very easy to talk with them believe it or not. CEO said what can I do there a franchise.

Well I said, If I was the franchise owner and got a call from the CEO asking why I hadn't paid T_Bone's bill, I think it would get my attention. The CEO agreed.

Two hours latter I get a call to come pick-up my check but was that owner ever pi$$ed. He was trying to borrow more money from the Corp. for another store.

I aksed the owner why he wouldn't pay my bill? He stated he could call every referman in Phoenix and never have to calll the same one twice!

T_Bone

One, ironically I heard on the radio this morning that Corporate cash reserves (savings) in the U.S. are at a FORTY year high! The analysts are all trying to figure out why they're sitting on the money instead of investing in new equipment, buying out competitors, etc.

Two, many years ago a friend's family owned a concrete pipe company -- not huge, but big enough they even had 2 corporate helicopters.

Before the downturn of the early 1990s, they saw it coming about 18 months ahead. It was a classic warning sign their business had seen in every other downturn of all of a sudden their accounts receivable would start to grow across the board.

Basically, the little guys started having less business and less cash flow. Less cash flow, wait longer till they could pay (typically when they're busy, the house they built today could pay for the materials for the next...when it slows down, they'd have to wait for the bank to release money from the construction loan on the current one)>

I dealt with the engineer guys and had no control over paying the invoices.

When you would go to company x to work with their guys to develop something and my company hadn't paid it's bills from the last thing their company had supplied, it made for an uneasy relationship.

Said that I never would be a sub contractor to them.

I think in corporate america, anything to keep the stock up is considered legal. Stealing, theft, grand larceny, deceipt..... whazzat?

And then there are those cute little innocent names for the same kinda thing like "Phishing". And then there's identity theft and all the trauma that goes with it. Seems like the more popular it is the more accepted it is in society

Doesn't make it right.

After awhile you just get tired of people being people..... $crewing each other. The older you get the worse the feeling gets. Just makes you crawl up in your hole and avoid it as much as possible..... playing with your old iron out in the country.

My 2c

Mark

Most problem I ever had was with a minister. Had hauled a tractor for him twice and took forever to get paid. No big deal there.

He wanted me to rework a loader and mount on a tractor for him. I did the work including putting all new hoses and a valve which I had to buy. With my previous experience I put a note at the bottom of the bill that no work was to be removed from my premisis until paid for.

Took me nine months and finally a threat of small claims court but I finally got paid.

Good luck.

jt