Need advice on customer's bounced cheque

Tion

We run a small food business and recently two cheques were sent back to us (on separate days) marked 'refer to drawer'. They were from the same customer, but the cheques were 6 days apart.

I've visited them twice already asking (politely) for the money from the first cheque. She said something along the lines of .."I need to check my statements, it should have cleared". A week passed, nothing happened and a second cheque she made out to us (from a different order) got returned. We now had two cheques: one for £27.90 and another for £16.80. I returned a second time, with both cheques, this time a bloke told us that he would get paid the following Wednesday and we would get the money Thursday...needless to say he didn't turn up.

The amount may seem pretty small, but it's the sheer principle of the thing that ticks me off. I’m not going to let these douche bags get away with it! It seems quite obvious that this woman knew she didn't have enough funds in her account but wrote the cheques anyway...isn't this fraud of some sort? Goods by deception?

I was thinking of writing a formal letter demanding the money and if it has not been received by a certain date, I will go through with a small courts claim. Hopefully this will scare them in to coughing up..

Do you people think this is a reasonable course of action?


Any advice/suggestions would be appreciated.

mqandy

Very reasonable.

I would personally have done this first without visiting, as they could spin a line about harassment or something crazy.

Chasing bounced payments took a huge amount of my time at work until we managed to get on top of it all. Well worth being firm to start with - one sweet talking customer managed to string us along for over 6 months before we realised how ridiculous this was and pursued them with money claim online.

In the future, ensure cheques are marked on the back with customers postcodes or debit card numbers -- or don't accept them!

olly300

I would be tempted to send debt collectors after them. Mainly as small claims court costs and your time for that amount of money outweight the amount owed. Also lots of people pay up once they realise you are going to court but you still have to stomach the court costs yourself.

noelphobic

mqandy wrote: »

In the future, ensure cheques are marked on the back with customers postcodes or debit card numbers -- or don't accept them!

In order to be sure the cheques will be paid the payee needs to write the guarantee card number on the back, preferably with the validity dates of the card also. The postcode won't help if you already know where they live or where their business is situated and not all debit cards are also guarantee cards - eg Electron is just a debit card and does not guarantee cheques.

[Deleted User]

Hi,

shame her, stick the cheques in the shop window with a notice, bounced cheques won't be removed until paid in cash, you won't need to add any info, as folks will see her name on the cheque. She may be doing same thing with butcher, baker etc.

apt

I also think the shaming route is the best tactic, but tell her are going to do first giving her a last chance to pay up without public humiliation.

Dr.Shoe_2

It might be an idea to ask other businesses in the area if she's done the same thing to them.

A friend of mine used to run a burger van and he would get a number of lads from the nearby industrial estate run up credit tabs which can run into hundreds of pounds in some cases. Some would pay up on payday but a couple would make him wait and he'd see them crossing the road to get to a certain well known burger outlet rather than come straight round and pay their bill.

Tion

Thanks for the replies...I think I'll write her a letter asking for payment first, if she still doesn't pay up, I'll go to a debt collecting agency. The one I found only charges if collection is successful, and its min. £40 charge..which seems OK.

Pinning the cheque up in store seems a novel idea, but I don't think many customers would care much to be honest. Plus she doesn't come in store to buy (we do deliveries)...not that she would be welcome from us anymore anyway

Olipro

the general procedure should be to write 1 written payment reminder that's not threatening.

if they don't respond, write a second one, write "final notice" and state in it that you will take court action if they don't pay.

I recommend sending both of them by recorded post so that you get a signature (that's recorded, NOT special delivery)... but either way, definitely send the final notice by recorded