Dog walker didn’t pick up my dog

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I’ve been using this dog walking company weekly for just over a year, they’ve been great and my dog loves going.

I’ve had no problems except in May, because of the bank holiday the dog walk was cancelled for the Monday so it was agreed to walk on Thursday instead but then my dog wasn’t picked up. I text the company owner, she apologised profusely and said it was a mix up and wouldn’t happen again. It wasn’t the end of the world and I just said no worries, these things happen but I did have to leave work an hour earlier as my dog had been at home without a toilet break.

Anyway, today he was due to be walked as I’m at work. August has completely run away from me and I got into work, logged on and realised it was the 4th already! I was due to pay the dog walker on the 1st so straight away paid her and text to say really sorry (I’ve paid on time every time before this). I didn’t get a response, his usually pick up time came and went but I left it for a bit, after an hour I messaged again to ask if the walker would be coming soon, she replied with
“In keeping with our policy, a reminder will be sent on the day a payment is due. If payment is not received, a late payment charge of 2.5% will apply for each subsequent day of delayed payment. We then consider the contract to be paused until payment is received and will not honour any services scheduled during this time. We apologise for the inconvenience and hope you understand that prompt payments are vital to the success of our business”

I understand I was late paying and therefore owe the charges, but to not tell me they would not be picking my dog up seems really unfair, this is the only time I have paid late and the reminder they sent was via email (which I didn’t think to check) when all other communication with them has been over text. Im confused because they have been so great in the past. I didn’t make a fuss when they forgot my dog in May, but now it’s such a hardline approach to my delayed payment. AIBU?

I changed vets after 18 years with them because the new practice manager gave me that “you don’t pay you don’t get served speech” after I asked to pay on the phone when I forgot my wallet, after 18 years being on first names basis with the vets and after paying on time literally thousands and thousands of pounds . She said I wouldn’t “be asking such favour at the supermarket”.

I thought she was right after all, if I no longer liked the service because they chose to be patronising, I could go to another “supermarket” that offered better service. And that is exactly what I did… stoped at another’s vet on the way back, registered my dog there, got 5 missed calls from previous vet’s office asking me to reconsider after she was asked to transfer my dog’s file. I didn’t bother answering.

Interestingly, my new vet is not only offering a much better service, they have appointments after working hours and on weekends and are cheaper than the previous one, so I would say… take the opportunity and choose a better “supermarket”, I wouldn’t trust that dog walker again with my dog.

My friend ran a small business in which customers paid for the product after they had received/collected it. A lot of customers were people she knew/friends of friends, etc. After approx. a year of being nice and giving people the benefit of the doubt, she had to just take a really hard line approach to payment and we helped her devise a policy to put up on her page and message to any late payers. She hated it, it made her really uncomfortable but it had to be done. It got to the stage where so many people were late paying that she was basically using her own personal money to keep things going. In the end she got so fed up with it that she shut the business down.

My point being, that you are of course just one person who has made one late payment. So this seems small to you. But for all you know, the dog walker has had 10 late/non-payments this month and that might be typical for them.

I don't know why people think that small business owners should do favours/be charitable/be nice when they are so very reliant on people paying for their services. You wouldn't expect your mobile phone provider to be ok with late payment, or to walk out of Tesco with your shopping and say you'll ping the money over to them later.

2.5% per day late payment fee is extortionate (to the extent it may be unenforceable).

I can see why they didn’t walk your dog. I don’t think it was “wrong” of them, but given you’ve been a good customer until now it’s not what I would have done in their shoes and I’d be looking for another dork walker.

That is an absolute cheek when you've always paid promptly in the past. I think I would be looking for a new dog walker. Of course they shouldn't have just not turned up unless you were a habitual late payer. People like them don't deserve customers.

Yikes! You have just reminded me I need to pay my vet for toothpaste.. I didn't have credit card, only cash- They don't now take cash, but let me take paste away on trust.
So easy to forget stuff like this.
Will pay right now.

I think personally that was a ridiculously hard line to take. I pay someone for lessons for my children. 99.9% on time. Once or twice over a number of years I forgot and I got a gentle text reminding me and I of course paid. He is also very generous with lessons running on sometimes and says it is because I always pay on time. The point being that people muck him about and don’t pay him a lot of the time but my regular paying has built up a clear relationship where he knows I will pay and accepts that occasionally I might forget but as soon as I am prompted I pay. The same goes for you- it seems ridiculous of them to take such a hard line for the first missed payment. A gentle reminder would have sufficed and you clearly would have paid. They potentially now lose your business which seems rather silly as you are a great customer.

How do the company know that the OP isn't about to turn into a habitual late payer? What happens if 5 customers "forget" to pay and their cashflow drops off?

All this stuff about it being "harsh" is just a joke. You want a service, you pay for it. The company had a policy the OP was aware of, they sent her a reminder, she still didn't pay.

Absolute bang to rights they stop providing their services.

Yep, they can be as harsh as they want, that doesn’t mean however that the OP can choose other dog walkers that do not forget to pick up dogs.

My dog walker would never do this to me. In fact, we have been in your position precisely and she messaged to ask if all was OK. we'd forgotten. It happens to people and I think that to dump your dog like that shows a lack of care for your animal. Find another provider

They didn't forget in this case. The earlier incident is irrelevant, the OP was happy to continue with this company after that.

OP hadn't paid. That is 100% her fault. If she was that concerned about her dog's welfare she should have paid on time.

I am yet to work for a business that suspends service without warning, despite it being written in contracts. Please let me know if this has happened to you or youve seen it happen in real life

Businesses do this literally all the time when payments don't go through, and they have every right to do so.

Why should a company continue to provide a service without payment. It's cheeky as fuck to expect otherwise.

I think that is really poor customer service from the dog walker. You paid first thing in the morning the working day following the day on which payment was due. You have been a long-standing customer with a history of paying on time. You showed flexibility when they broke their obligation to you by failing to show up.

They are legally within their rights to impose late payment charged a and not pick your dog up but I'd personally be finding another walker. They clearly don't value you as a customer.

I think you need a better dogwalker. Forgetting to pick a dog up as they did before and leaving it all day with no toilet break was very bad. I would not trust them after that. it sounds like the message you got today was just a form message and you should talk to them personally about the late payment issue. As you were forgiving of them before it's the least they can do to be forgiving in turn. However, any company dealing with a live animal that can forget to pick it up and leave it all day with no toilet break would be ringing bells for me anyway. dogwalking is not mechanical and requires peopel who take responsibility and can deal with a variety of situations in a calm and fair way. I would look for a more personal approach and a dogwalker I felt I could really trust and could speak to personally not just by text or email to make sure there were no misunderstandings.

As someone who is self employed I'd say yabu.

But they did message her - four days ago when payment was due. She didn't reply or pay her bill until this morning, and when she did pay her bill, she didn't pay the late payment fee either.

If I was the company I'd think she was taking the piss, tbh.

Op, when you send the additional payment in, why not ask very nicely if they have a setting so that any reminders go to your WhatsApp instead of (or even as well) your email please? That way if you have another month where you don't notice that it's the end of the month, you'll see the reminder immediately and be able to take immediate action, rather than fortuitously stumble on the email several days later and miss out on their service. Would benefit both parties.

Might also be worth asking if there's a reason why they send via email but not WhatsApp - there might be some weird legal reason that means they have to send by email for it to be valid for example, in which case it would be understandable that they send an email but not why they couldn't also send you a WhatsApp notification too... If it just that it had t occurred to them that people don't check their email every day, then discovering that you don't might be new information that helps them to refine their service to make it work that little bit better for everyone.

DH is self employed and he would NEVER do this to a regular customer who has always previously paid on time.

I think the issue is this isn't a sole trader who deals with payments themselves.

I suspect (reading between the lines) that all the day-to-day communication is with her regular walker via WhatsApp, but any official communication about payment comes from "head office" via e-mail.

OP has a good relationship with her walker and expects to be treated with a bit of understanding over this, but the person who deals with payment just sees her as a name on a spreadsheet and doesn't have that personal relationship or history to fall back on.

Urgh, They sound v arsey. I wouldn't want my dog walked by them tbh. Can you find someone else?

Sure, perhaps the admin team doesn't talk to the walking team. And yes, you were late with the payment, but when you paid (before the walk!) and apologised for the oversight, that was the time to message you back with a - 'really sorry, we do have a late payment policy so we haven't scheduled Fido in this morning. Here is the policy for info. Look forward to seeing you next week.'

Instead of the rather passive aggressive 'terms and conditions' reply.

(or they could have just picked up your pooch!)

Sure, you don't want customers to take the piss. But you don't want to piss them off either.

Im sorry but I don’t think it’s unreasonable that I missed the reminder sent on the 1st considering it was sent via email, they have never before communicated by email with me, it’s always been text.

And as I’ve said multiple times, I paid this morning without even thinking about the extra charge. I was just like oh crap I forgot let me quickly pay the amount I pay every month. I let them know I had paid and was sorry (via text), didn’t receive a response and then when I messaged to ask about todays walk they replied within minutes (which reminded me about the email which included the late payment charge info). I have now paid the outstanding amount, I wasn’t deliberately not paying them

Would they have seen the payment straight away or would it take a day or two to hit their account?

I used to run my own dog walking business and YANBU OP. If you are otherwise a lovely and promptly paying customer, to not turn up to your dog is a bit crappy IMO.

I used to have a 2 week rule, payment 2 weeks overdue and I'd stop walks but there would have been many reminders up until that point and if I knew the dog wasn't going to get walked on the day due to non payment I would always text this so owner's knew.

However, they are being professional and just trying to run a (probably already) tight ship. If you're otherwise happy with them, I'd probably send them a message/ email apologising again for the late payment, but in future, if it were to ever happen again, could they please text/ whatsapp you on the day to inform you.

(I think it's an agency thing though. I had a cleaning agency like this. Used to let me down frequently, but v terms and conditions with me. Then my regular cleaner left and went self-employed and cleans for me and it's brilliant working directly with her now - a much better relationship. Mutually respectful, normal communications and no drama).

It’s not that hard to pick up the phone / text you sooner to let you know about a late payment. Yes, you should’ve paid earlier but that’s quite crappy of the dog walker not to a) reply to you sooner and b) to not collect your dog. I totally get they don’t want to be taken for a ride and essentially let people have “free” dog walks but honestly, your poor dog is the priority here. I wouldn’t use their services again imo x