Are there any small business owners/managers in this forum that may have had experience dealing with a collection agency to collect money owed to your business by a customer?
Here's the situation I'm dealing with: We own a hotel in Missouri and had a contractor from Florida who brought his crew to work on a contracted job they had in the area. The crew of that contractor stayed at our hotel. Initially they were paying the hotel room rent on a weekly basis with a credit card. After 2-3 weeks they requested a direct billing arrangement to be set up. Hotel was to bill the contractor for the crews' stay each week and the contractor agreed to will mail the check on friday along with the paychecks for their crew.
Unfortunately the contractor did not mail the payment as agreed. After 1st week's bill when the payment did not come thru their excuse was that the accountant screwed up and will sent two weeks' payment after the 2nd week. At the end of the 3rd week when the payment for the prior two weeks wasn't received we demanded full payment. They in turn decided to skip out to a different hotel.
The three weeks' lodging bill was in excess of $15K. Repeated bills, reminders and phone calls from our hotel staff were all ignored. Finally when the account was over 90 days old we decided to send it for collection on October 1, 2015. We telephone interviewed several collection agencies and found it interesting that most all but two of them were from Dallas TX, the other two were from Orlando FL. We contractor with one of the agencies who claimed to "Collection Company" having attorneys on staff and claimed to have the highest collection rate in their area.
Unfortunately, we have not seen any money collected in the past 5 months and today I get an e mail from the collection agency that states "we have been working collections for you. These guys are professional debtors and do this type of stuff everywhere they go. They know how to play the system and I think that if we show them that we are serious about filing suit against them that will light the fire we need to motivate them.I want to lite a fire and File suit against the debtor and his company. Its 800 dollar court cost and the rate will go up to 40%, Our attorney will sue him and he will have no choice but to pay. The judge will see in you favor for sure, I’m sure it won’t go that far because as soon as he sees that he is being sued he will do whatever to make it got away. He is still in bizz but he’s only paying the people he has to pay and that’s the people he needs something from or has leverage on him. I think this is the only way you will get paid."
I hate to throw good money ($800) after bad at this point. Does anyone have any experience dealing with a collection situation like this? Please feel free to PM me at your convenience. I appreciate any help/guidance you can extend.
Thank You!
Here's the situation I'm dealing with: We own a hotel in Missouri and had a contractor from Florida who brought his crew to work on a contracted job they had in the area. The crew of that contractor stayed at our hotel. Initially they were paying the hotel room rent on a weekly basis with a credit card. After 2-3 weeks they requested a direct billing arrangement to be set up. Hotel was to bill the contractor for the crews' stay each week and the contractor agreed to will mail the check on friday along with the paychecks for their crew.
Unfortunately the contractor did not mail the payment as agreed. After 1st week's bill when the payment did not come thru their excuse was that the accountant screwed up and will sent two weeks' payment after the 2nd week. At the end of the 3rd week when the payment for the prior two weeks wasn't received we demanded full payment. They in turn decided to skip out to a different hotel.
The three weeks' lodging bill was in excess of $15K. Repeated bills, reminders and phone calls from our hotel staff were all ignored. Finally when the account was over 90 days old we decided to send it for collection on October 1, 2015. We telephone interviewed several collection agencies and found it interesting that most all but two of them were from Dallas TX, the other two were from Orlando FL. We contractor with one of the agencies who claimed to "Collection Company" having attorneys on staff and claimed to have the highest collection rate in their area.
Unfortunately, we have not seen any money collected in the past 5 months and today I get an e mail from the collection agency that states "we have been working collections for you. These guys are professional debtors and do this type of stuff everywhere they go. They know how to play the system and I think that if we show them that we are serious about filing suit against them that will light the fire we need to motivate them.I want to lite a fire and File suit against the debtor and his company. Its 800 dollar court cost and the rate will go up to 40%, Our attorney will sue him and he will have no choice but to pay. The judge will see in you favor for sure, I’m sure it won’t go that far because as soon as he sees that he is being sued he will do whatever to make it got away. He is still in bizz but he’s only paying the people he has to pay and that’s the people he needs something from or has leverage on him. I think this is the only way you will get paid."
I hate to throw good money ($800) after bad at this point. Does anyone have any experience dealing with a collection situation like this? Please feel free to PM me at your convenience. I appreciate any help/guidance you can extend.
Thank You!
