Customer Cancelled Booking - Pay or Not?

[Deleted User]

Hello, we have a customer (catering and events), who booked for next Saturday.


She completed our booking form, was sent a copy of our contract and paid her deposit following this.


Our terms and conditions state that cancellation under 30 days will still require 50% of the total balance.


Her booking was a good proportion of our weekly sales, and in fact took most of our staff and services on one of the busiest weekends of the year.


Do we ask her to pay and then chase this with collections, or do we say fine and keep the £10 deposit she has paid us.


We don't want bad publicity or negative feedback, but people do this very frequently and do not even bother to tell us - we have to ask them what's happening.


Any feedback or opinion would be great thanks :-)

POPPYOSCAR

If you are worried about bad publicity from this then just keep the £10 deposit, if not then invoice for the 50% as per T&Cs.


However, if this is happening to you on a regular basis I would insist on the 50% being paid 30 days before the event, or even earlier.

motorguy

POPPYOSCAR wrote: »

If you are worried about bad publicity from this then just keep the £10 deposit, if not then invoice for the 50% as per T&Cs.


However, if this is happening to you on a regular basis I would insist on the 50% being paid 30 days before the event, or even earlier.

+£10 deposit for an event is not a good idea.

POPPYOSCAR

motorguy wrote: »

+£10 deposit for an event is not a good idea.

Quite agree.

[Deleted User]

Thanks for your feedback, we always ask for £10 because so many people have lost money because of thieving companies so to speak and so people are vary wary of making payments, especially for weddings.


We don't want bad publicity, but equally we have been left out of pocket, our staff are paid for the work they do, and they also now have no work.


I suppose I was hoping everyone would say charge them and make them pay, but of course that's what I want to hear.

POPPYOSCAR

You cannot run your business worrying about people being wary of losing money.


You say that it happens frequently so you have to put up with it or face possible aggravation of protracted legal action.


I think you need to change your business model or be prepared for the above.

[Deleted User]

So would you make them pay or not?


I'd say that we have this once per month, we have around 30 customers per month roughly.

POPPYOSCAR

What was the reason for the cancellation?

Marktheshark

It is how you would make them pay ?
Lost profit is not a loss, the new EU consumer contracts directive gives people a real defence tool for such claims where a contract is a perpetuity unfair term to the position of the consumer.

You could really only claim for any actual losses, staff don't need to be paid that don't work, if they are on salary then that costs is the cost of running a business unaffected by the customer.

I would suggest revising the contract and deposit to scope in cost of perishable items such as raw ingredients and make it clear this is a loss caused to the service provider and not refundable.
Can you charge them 50% of the booking ?
Yes.
Will they have to pay it if you sue them.
Most likely no.
Why ?
Because you wont be paying the staff or doing the work.
The loss can be mitigated.

Look at the contract and take a larger up front payment for raw materials.

[Deleted User]

We use Control Account to do our collections and claims, so we send them a copy of the invoice and they start the debt collection process with the normal, letters, calls etc. And then a letter before claim and so on...


Customer says they cannot afford to pay, which I appreciate, but I don't appreciate not being told and having to contact them multiple times to get even this answer.


Thanks again.

[Deleted User]

We have also used our Solicitors before, but I don't like the cost of that very much! :-)


Also appreciate the advice about the contract, I'll look at this, and ask our Solicitors to update it.