Threatening letter from vet!

daish

Hi there.


I received a letter on 12th June telling me that due to an over sight on my part I owed my vets £15.03 and that I have 5 working days to make an arrangement to pay or they would do the following:
1. Give me an £18.00 charge to my account
2. Send me a solicitors letter for £19.99
3. Send my debt to a recovery company for £50.00


I don't know about anyone else but this had put my back up instantly! So I called them and was told in August 2013 my cat had treatment for her eye and I had eye drops so when I asked which cat it was she couldn't tell me. I also couldn't understand her due to her thick accent she has so I asked for a manager to call me back ASAP and when I asked who would call me back she kept saying "him" so with that I sent a rather stern letter back myself.
In my letter I asked them to forward on all transactions with their practice as I have always paid at the end of each consultation or had pet insurance to cover any outstanding charges. I also asked them why it had taken 10 months to notice this over sight and why no one had contacted me sooner and emailed it to their practice marked as urgent as I was already into Day two of this Five day count down. At the end of my letter I asked them not to pass my details onto any collection agencies until this matter was resolved and that I was so offended by their letter I would cease any dealings with them in the future and I to would extend the same curtsey of allowing them five working days to contact me or I would assume this issue was resolved - I've not heard a bean and my husband is in melt down in case they send the wolves!


Can anyone share with me what they would have done and if they found this letter over kill on the first attempt to contact myself. If needs be I am willing to upload the letter onto here.


Thanks!!

System

If you owe it, pay it and change your vet. Simple.

comeandgo

They only asked you to make arrangements to pay,

mountainofdebt

Actually I would be pretty p!ssed off with their letter as well.

Regardless of whether the OP owes it or not then the polite way of going about it would have been to say sorry but due to an error the OP owes the money and can we have it please within say a week.

2nd letter may be a bit more stroppy say cough up or else

3rd letter would be cough up or we take you to court.

Also if the vets can tell me I owe the money the least I would expect them to know is which animal it related to!

mrcow

Sorry you haven't said, do you agree that there is a debt?

Just go in and ask at reception for a statement on the account. If you owe £15 - pay it immediately and get a receipt.

Obviously you know whether your cat had eye drops or not. So it should be clear whether any money is owed. Whilst you're there, you can stick a complaint in about not being called back.

With regards to the wording of the letter, it's probably a standard letter for amounts usually totalling much more than your amount.

meritaten

I think I would have sent a similar letter. at the end of each consultation I paid for both consultation and any medications. if you did the same then its hard to understand why you would owe any moneys.
you are within your rights to ask for clarification.
and a threatening letter such as you had would be unusual if there was indeed a genuine oversight.
I would NOT pay any money until I had received a letter explaining how the money was owed. checked it with my own bank statements and decided if it was owed or not.
if not then ignore the letter.
or any subsequent letters - but KEEP them all. if you are quite SURE you don't owe any money then you need to produce these at court to show how you were harassed over money you don't owe.

Gold_Dust_2

I'd be peeved as well. While I understand that vets need to be quite firm in getting any money that they are owed, I think that that letter was overkill. Three days to pay else they'd more than triple the bill?! There are probably some more lenient loan sharks out there!

donnac2558

My vet sent a letter out to me about 2 years back, saying I had an outstanding bill. I phoned spoke to the receptionist and said I had paid at the time of the appointment. She said sorry but the computer was having a hissy fit and saying a number people had outstanding bills. Told not to worry and ignore which I did.

Since that I just hang on to the itemized bill which shows I paid in full. Only shred them after a year.

lostinrates

What is your relationship with the practise like?

As a repeat customer with several animals I'd be a little frustrated to receive such a letter without a call first. My vets actually called ME this week to say they'd overcharged me ( again!) and would send me a cheque, but I asked them to keep it on account. Similarly they've once waived an out of hours charge, and on a couple of occasions when the practise has been busy said to me out of ear shot of other customers ( lostinrates, we know you'll pay, if you'd rather leave it on account or pay over the phone later that's fine).

We've had a few miscommunications. If I received this letter I'd call and say, I'm a bit upset about this, you know I'm a good payer and I wasn't aware I had anything outstanding......' And I'm pretty sure they'd apologise and say its standard procedure ......

lostinrates

Gold_Dust wrote: »

I'd be peeved as well. While I understand that vets need to be quite firm in getting any money that they are owed, I think that that letter was overkill. Three days to pay else they'd more than triple the bill?! There are probably some more lenient loan sharks out there!

I think the reason I would query this in my situation with my vet is that three days people could easily be away on holiday or whatever. I would feel it was unreasonable if I was not aware of the debt.

Most places now ask you pay before leaving/ submit insurance forms if its not large animal don't they?

daish

Glad I am not the only one who found this over kill!! I rarely go in there unless its boosters but when I have needed to take them the staff were always really nice and I always paid at the end of each consultation skint or not. If the insurance has paid then I have paid the excess and they have done the rest so when I had this letter I was gobsmacked. Still not heard a peep from them but will give them a call tomorrow to see who I can speak to. I keep all invoices and in my letter I did ask them to send me all transactions because why should I pay them just because they said I owe them?! It may be their over sight after all. I just don't appreciate feeling like I've robbed them out of £15 and now they are going to make me "pay" quite literally by selling my debt.... and I thought politicians and banks were bad lol