where do we stand?

brundlefly

a little help please:
i work for a small company and on 7/11/07 we supplied goods to a person who issued a cheque which then quite literaly got lost amongst the cracks only to reappear on the 14/5/08.
upon finding the cheque and seeing that it was out of date i immediatly called the customer to inform him of the situation .
on that occasion i got several assurances that the bill would be settled and that he would drop down to me and write out a new cheque provided i had the old one to give back,which i did....so an agreement was made that he would be out that weekend...
1 month passed and no sign of any cheque so a colleague rang and again was given assurances that the bill would be settled.
2 weeks after that we made another phonecall requesting settlement and again the answer was" yes i will drop down to sort that out."
finally ,today when asked whether he would be paying the customer got quite irate and said that he wasnt going to and to just take the product back and if we have anymore questions they were to be directed at his wife and when asked for his wifes phone-number he said he didnt have it ?!?!
the product in question is a rather large special order garden shed ...which is now 8 months old,second hand and now useless to us .
the money involved comes in at E2500...E500 above the small claims court cutoff point and E2500 more than a small company can afford to be down in the current climate !
do we have any come back here ? we have aknowledged that the original mistake made was ours but he has said a number of times since that he would pay ?
and before anybody says it i know it was bloody stupid to lose the cheque for 6 months but these things happen.
cheers in advance

Oryx

You are a business, so SCC is no use to you anyway.

I would get a solicitor on the case, get their opinion and get a letter sent to your customer.

My only other thought on this involves dates on cheques and would not be above board...

mcaul

Don't waste any more time on this guy - get solicitor to issue summons for recovery of amount due. He cannot give back the goods.

The cost is quite small. - If you knwo your solicitor, it will cost about €100 and the customer will ahve to pay that.

If he does no give a good reason of defebce within 21 days the judgement is immediately put against him - that means no loans / mortgages / mobile phone accounts etc etc until 3 years after he pays you.

Have the same situation myself currently and we have just issued summons against a casino & racenight events company based in ballycoolin.

Small claims court doesn't apply to companies.

brundlefly

Oryx wrote: »

My only other thought on this involves dates on cheques and would not be above board...

oh yeah thats crossed my mind a few times....


was hoping there was some kind of guidelines for when this happens to a small business(or indeed a large one) besides going the old solicitor route or to the "we break legs" debt collecting agencies.

Oryx

brundlefly wrote: »

oh yeah thats crossed my mind a few times....


was hoping there was some kind of guidelines for when this happens to a small business(or indeed a large one) besides going the old solicitor route or to the "we break legs" debt collecting agencies.

Have been in business years, and cant say Ive heard of any guidelines bar legal action, or, as you say, strong persuasion. This may sound awful, but if you turn up of a weekend with some mates (to help you lift the thing, not bang heads together) to recover your goods, right in the middle of a family barbeque or something, you might actually get paid when they see you mean it. But I dunno, its a dodgy route to take as it can backfire badly.

So many small companies actually go to the wall because they cannot recover bad debts like these.

mayordenis

if you still have the old check bring it to him ask if it's possible he would re-date it and initial the change - the bank have to accept that - and if he doesn't your there anyway have the letter forom your solicitor in your other pocket.
stung.

brundlefly

mayordenis wrote: »

if you still have the old check bring it to him ask if it's possible he would re-date it and initial the change - the bank have to accept that - and if he doesn't your there anyway have the letter forom your solicitor in your other pocket.
stung.

hmmm ... i like the way you think,i would love to see the look on his face !
would the solicitors letter not need to be sent by registered post?

and as for lifting the shed with a couple of lads its 12ftx20ft with a pump for the well connected inside so even if i lured 20 guys out of the woods with raw meat we still could not lift it.

brundlefly

forgot about this ...done and dusted.
turns out the wife was quite nice and a bit of a looker too so bonus !!!

thanks all