GRRRR! Very, very late payment of invoice. I've been polite and it's not working. What now?

[Spidermama]

I did two days work on 27th March and 3rd of April this year. I've sent several polite emails and have now re-sent the invoice, as they requested, three times.

Last week I emailed to ask again, politely, when the invoice was likely to be paid, but was never emailed back.

Time to charge interest perhaps? But how do I go about this?

They are a big glamourous media company, I'm a foolish, ignorant freelancer. Help me sound like I know what I'm doing please.

Threaten interest, at the very least. Email them every day. Email as many people in the company as you can. Pepper them. This is what I did with a consistently hopeless payer till I finally got totally pissed off and flounced (with my money).

send them a letter stating times and dates you worked, paymnt due in 14 days - marking it as a late payment notice and that x% increase every 14 days they are over due paying the bill.

also mention you have spoken to a solicotr/ or had legal advice etc if you feel its necessary.

cx

Will email you with my standard invoice. You are entitled to interest, legally (not that i've ever actually claimed it)!

send them a letter before action requiring payment in a week or you take proceedings
then in a week issue a claim on moneyclaim online
(assuming you are within the financial limits)

Do you want work from them again? If not, maybe write letter saying that you will charge interest if payment is not forthcoming within two weeks (giving them reasonable time to do something about it)? Threaten them with Small Claims Court?
If you do want to work with them again, you should talk to the accounts department and find out what their usual payment terms are. I've worked for companies that demand 90 days - which is OK, so long as you know that in advance.

Send me the details, I got two very old freelance invoices paid for Carmenere a few weeks ago.

WWW is also good to get onside here!

I've emailed you a couple of things.

B*strds

I've had this happen to me but usually managed to get it sorted out much more quickly when I've phoned, instead of emailing. Can you phone them? Try and get the name of someone in Accounts and call them every day - time consuming but they'll want you off their back asap. Also, maybe call the person you did the work for and ask if there was any problem with it as you haven't been paid.

The issue of charging interest is not that easy - unless you have it in your terms and conditions/contract, I'm not sure you can insist on it.

Wow! What a great response. Thanks.
Thanks so much for the email MI.

I thought the late payment of invoice act of 2002 meant I could start charging interest on, or even above, the base rate after a certain time. I've googled but haven't found anything I can actually understand.

I will try phoning. The people who give me the work are embarrassed and nice about it. I'm not quite sure who's to blame.

SpiderMama

Let me know how you get on. My nickname in my industry is the Rotweiiler.

In your industry, Bree? I thought it was just your nickname

I do this all the time, pretty much as PPH said, mainly to solicitors. Some genuinely are crap and/or bent as £9 notes, others I think have a deliberate policy of deferring payment to improve their cash flow. Some are lovely but not v. efficient. Whatever. They agreed to your terms in writing (presumably), you've done the work, and it's time for them to pay up.

In the first instance I do various combinations of telephone and letter, always keeping notes of the dates on which I tried to make contact and the response (if any).

If they clearly are making no effort to pay (and failing to return calls/emails is an aggravating factor here) then it's time to get heavy. My heavy letter reads pretty much as follows:

Dear ABC

Further to my invoice of xyz date for £amount in respect of abc work, I note we still have not received payment of this amount, nor have we received any response to our numerous attempts to contact you to discuss this matter.

As a result I must inform you that if we do not receive payment in full of the outstanding amount within fourteen days from the date of this letter, I shall have no option but to make a Claim against ABC corporation/individual in the County Court.

I look forward to hearing from you very shortly.

Yours sincerely

blahdiblah

I give it three weeks, just to be on the safe side, then I issue a Claim using moneyclaimonline (you can find it in a link from the Court Services website). I've never had someone not pay up at that point. I have had them pay up via bouncing cheques, but that's another story.

hth

yes you definately have to phone, and speak to someone in accounts at first.

Also if the people who commissioned the work are embarassed, then ask them to put pressure on the accounts dept. Give them the name of the person you speak to in accounts. Ask them to chase it PLEASE.

Is there likely to be any more work coming your way from this source? If so show all the usual interest, get right to the point of getting the order, get the spec for the job and everything, then say that you can't actually start until you get the outstanding payment.

Like Bree, I have a reputation for getting my money. I have been known to turn up at a customers site with sleeping bag and sandwiches, making it clear that I would camp in front of their reception desk until I had cash or a bank draft for the overdue amt, after they had bounced a cheque on me twice.

Only one customer got away without paying, and thats cos they were put into liquidation about an hour before I got there

Be assertive and be persistant, thats the secret. NEVER apologise for asking for money that you are owed.

I'm newly enthused. I will crack on with this in the morning and let you know how I get on.

Thanks so much. I swear there are no RL people I can talk to who would be able to help me with this. x

Spidermama - Phone them - it's much harder to fob someone off if you are speaking to a real person on the phone than being on the end of an email. Escalate the calls, i.e. start off with accounts dept, then speak to supervisor, finance director etc., and speak to your contact there and embarrass them into escalating within finance dept. If you're close enough to the company, tell them you'll be coming in to pick up a chq on Wednesday at 11.40 am. Do it, and sit in their reception loudly reminding the receptionist why you're there every few minutes. As a last resort, tell 'em you'll be round with a baseball bat!

Has this been sorted out yet? I do this all day every day. Phone is definately the best way forward. Also making sure that you get a timetable out of them.

Ask the accounts department when they do their cheque run. Speak to your contact and make sure they have signed off the invoice and past it on to the accounts department. Back up all conversations with an email. 2 days before the cheque run, contact the accounts payable devision and get them to confirm that they have the invoice and it is signed off for payment. If you can't get hold of them, get your contact to confirm that they have signed the invoice off for payment and get them to check that it is going to be paid in the next cheque run; again back up with an email confirmation. On the day of the cheque run do the same thing.

It sounds like a bore but I tell you, you need to create a paper trail incase this doesn't work and you have to go to the next level. Usually pure doggedness works, always keep all correspondance polite but firm. I have never lost any work doing it this way, it generally gains respect. More importantly a client that doesn't pay is not a client worth having!

You're welcome to mail me if you want me to help. Very likely they're all being a bit crap and it almost certainly isn't deliberate but for example a b and c need to happen before payment is made and your contact has only done c or a or any other crap combination. wickedwaterwitch a t g m a i l d ot c om