Customer not paying

[Pjj]

Do you know the guys address ? Roughly where hel be at times?, someone ripping the **** with a 2 grand Bill shouldn't be allowed to get away with it. If I wasn't willing to do anything myself, I'd be paying the local lunatic £50 quid to go get my money.

It’s not that simple he knows the law and has managed to stay one step shy of it he’s now living abroad but when he sells any prophecy owns then the courts will take what he owes in debts straight from the sale but again he knows this and isn’t selling he’s renystuff out and that cannot be legally touched , it’s very complicated but one firm he’s ripped off have him down up when he does sell or come back to this country there is a warrant out for his arrest, but again I expect he is aware of that .

 

[ashley1337]

We generally just write dept off, just not worth the time or effort to collect it. We just put not though saying you own and we have stopped cleaning them. Yes it's highly annoying regardless of how much it is, but every window cleaner will at some point have money they just never get

Problem is where they tell there friends to come to you for a one off and ignore you when you ask for money and you do nothing about it...

Ive just had another ignoring me once the windows where clean. Been round and tried to collect but nobody was in, checked all windows and was all perfect still so no excuses. After my wife went round for the 2nd visit, she bank transfered whilst she was at the door ?

 

[Millsy]

Just tell them you’re going to add their name and address to the “local non paying customers Facebook page” and they’ll struggle to get another window cleaner or tradesman at their address

 

[Pjj]

Just tell them you’re going to add their name and address to the “local non paying customers Facebook page” and they’ll struggle to get another window cleaner or tradesman at their address

Lovely thought but would breach data protection laws ???

 

[scottish cleaning service]

Why are we even talking about this, probably less than £30. All you do is move on and put it down to experience. Last week an old guy called me to clean his windows after reading my advert. I told him a tenner a month and then 10 minutes later he called and said it was to expensive. I turned this negative into a positive and decided to cancel my £60 a month advertisement because I'm too busy to take on new work. I realised that the old man had done me a favour and actually saved me £60 a month. If he hadn't called then I would have continued the advertisement and wouldn't have thought about it. Sometimes a thing happens and it changes our Mindset and starts us thinking on a new tangent. The new tangent is for first cleans we ask for money up front before we begin, if not we only have ourselves to blame.???

 

[Mattlekim]

Problem is where they tell there friends to come to you for a one off and ignore you when you ask for money and you do nothing about it...

Ive just had another ignoring me once the windows where clean. Been round and tried to collect but nobody was in, checked all windows and was all perfect still so no excuses. After my wife went round for the 2nd visit, she bank transfered whilst she was at the door ?

We have honestly never had this problem.

Also we don't always do first cleans without been paid first. You kinda get a sense of what type of customer they will be. Not always but often.

 

[Mattlekim]

Why are we even talking about this, probably less than £30. All you do is move on and put it down to experience. Last week an old guy called me to clean his windows after reading my advert. I told him a tenner a month and then 10 minutes later he called and said it was to expensive. I turned this negative into a positive and decided to cancel my £60 a month advertisement because I'm too busy to take on new work. I realised that the old man had done me a favour and actually saved me £60 a month. If he hadn't called then I would have continued the advertisement and wouldn't have thought about it. Sometimes a thing happens and it changes our Mindset and starts us thinking on a new tangent. The new tangent is for first cleans we ask for money up front before we begin, if not we only have ourselves to blame.???

Agreed I have better things to do than worry about the odd customer here or there who doesn't pay, maybe 1 or 2 a year.

We have enough work, and since iv adopted this way of thinking about it my stress is way less

 

[ched999uk]

Agreed I have better things to do than worry about the odd customer here or there who doesn't pay, maybe 1 or 2 a year.

We have enough work, and since iv adopted this way of thinking about it my stress is way less

Stress is a big killer. On the one hand people trying to get away with not paying isn't on, getting stresses and angry at them won't help yourself.

I treat it as a balance, remind them a few times via txt and email and if that fails then, as long as not a massive job, I chalk it up to experience and try not to give them another thought. Keeping myself calm and stress free is worth more to me than the 20mins of my time I haven't been paid for.

 

[Part Timer]

Agreed I have better things to do than worry about the odd customer here or there who doesn't pay, maybe 1 or 2 a year.

We have enough work, and since iv adopted this way of thinking about it my stress is way less

Everyone is different, the thought of allowing some rip off merchant to do me would stress me far more than chasing them

 

[Pjj]

Everyone is different, the thought of allowing some rip off merchant to do me would stress me far more than chasing them

Totally agree with you and I feel the same but sometimes you can spend so much time and effort chasing theses people for a small amount you could have earn 10x what they owe you , it is frustrating though

 

[Chris34]

Totally agree with you and I feel the same but sometimes you can spend so much time and effort chasing theses people for a small amount you could have earn 10x what they owe you , it is frustrating though

It depends on how you look at it from your own perspective. For me I like to think I'm a thorn in their side that won't go away until they've paid. They will keep on getting me contacting them and I could turn up on the doorstep at any point without warning. It's going to be very stressful for the person being chased.

 

[adamangler]

Ive told a couple of customers recently to shove the payment and to **** off.

When its the same customer over and over that ignores your texts just get sick of it sometimes and lose my rag. Tell them exactly what i think of them and bin them off.

 

[Pjj]

It depends on how you look at it from your own perspective. For me I like to think I'm a thorn in their side that won't go away until they've paid. They will keep on getting me contacting them and I could turn up on the doorstep at any point without warning. It's going to be very stressful for the person being chased.

I don’t think it bothers that type of person as they have no conscience and are very self centred, but again I agree with your centiments but if it’s £20-50 is it really worth all the stress and hassle it’s easy to earn that amount in less than an hour on another job I feel you are just putting good money after bad , it cost me several hundred ££ to take the guy I mentioned to court time and effort and it’s got me no ware , yes he’s got numerous CCJ s against his name but none of us have got a penny and I doubt we ever will , it infuriates me what’s happened I don like being ripped off , or taken for a mug but we have to move on .

 

[Chris34]

I don’t think it bothers that type of person as they have no conscience and are very self centred, but again I agree with your centiments but if it’s £20-50 is it really worth all the stress and hassle it’s easy to earn that amount in less than an hour on another job I feel you are just putting good money after bad , it cost me several hundred ££ to take the guy I mentioned to court time and effort and it’s got me no ware , yes he’s got numerous CCJ s against his name but none of us have got a penny and I doubt we ever will , it infuriates me what’s happened I don like being ripped off , or taken for a mug but we have to move on .

That guy you're talking about isn't really a good example, it's like a big job and obviously you're dealing with big numbers on that one job, it's more like dealing with a business to business situation. In that situation it's like you say you have to move on as it's unlikely you will see anything if the guy has fled the country.

I think the discussion is more about the regular window cleaning domestic jobs. For me I've never not been paid but my approach is to not let it drop. I honestly don't know how far I'd take it but what I've done seems to be sufficient to get most people to pay up.

I think the key to it is to have a planned strategy and to follow your strategy when you have an unpaid job. Like I say I've never had a job not paid so I'm either incredibly lucky or I have a balanced approach that works. I think if I had been more relaxed and 'move on' then I'd have a lot of unpaid jobs by now, I've had many of them where they've not made contact even after the second text, but my persistence pays off.

Another thing, the more you tackle it and don't give in then the more experienced you get with it all. You become less stressed because you have plenty of experience of people eventually paying up.

I never let the debt build up though, before continuing cleaning I have to have contact with them. When I hear of some building up 3 or 4 cleans of debt... I just don't understand it, the warning signs are there.

 

[ashley1337]

We have honestly never had this problem.

Also we don't always do first cleans without been paid first. You kinda get a sense of what type of customer they will be. Not always but often.

Yeah I should really start doing that.

I think because so many people have had the £6 window cleaning old guy who just comes and goes and collects money whenever the customer fancies paying, they assume I'm the same and don't have to pay straight away.

Only issues I've had with people so far are the ones that also mentioned there last one was less than half the price and stopped coming...

Learning curve for me to watch out for these ones I suppose haha ?

 

[Mattlekim]

Yeah I should really start doing that.

I think because so many people have had the £6 window cleaning old guy who just comes and goes and collects money whenever the customer fancies paying, they assume I'm the same and don't have to pay straight away.

Only issues I've had with people so far are the ones that also mentioned there last one was less than half the price and stopped coming...

Learning curve for me to watch out for these ones I suppose haha ?

I love that, yea they were so much cheaper.

And you wonder why they stopped coming, maybe because it was too cheep for the money. They just quite because it's to much work.