Thankfully, almost never.
Good People
Great customers, our high success and satisfaction rates, professionalism, sensible pricing and clear communications combine to deliver a non-payment rate of virtually zero for us.
We operate ethically and this actually generates goodwill that generally shields us from non-payers and other undesirables. I also carefully filter enquiries and avoid assisting those who I think might be flakey. That being said, I’ve had two non-paying customers in a decade.
Bad People
The first was a crooked real estate agent. I repaired his turntable, but he simply failed to respond to emails about collecting it. For months, despite our 7-day collection window. My final warning after 12 long months stated that I would sell his turntable to recoup funds if he did not collect and pay for it immediately, no discussion, do it or lose. He suddenly wanted to collect his equipment 😉
Even the collection was a drama, with a crying baby, a screaming wife and a strange, sweaty man attempting to wiggle out of paying the storage charges he has accrued over 12 months. Luckily, I had customer and neighbour witnesses, none of whom could believe what they had just seen and all happy to support me if needed. He’s very lucky I didn’t sell the deck after a month, as I am entitled to. This ex-customer is now on the blacklist.
The second non-payer asked me to service and repair his turntable as a high-priority job. I did that for him of course and had his deck running perfectly again, but he then disappeared, never responding to attempts to contact him or thanking me for fixing his turntable. We sold his turntable of course and recouped around double what he owed, but what an unnecessary waste of everyone’s time and energy. This gentleman’s is name is Mr J-o-h-n Messina. If you know him, tell him Mike would love to catch up with him.
Takeaway
There are some bad people in this world who, no matter how much you try to help, won’t or maybe can’t behave ethically. My colleagues and I have a simple policy for dealing with people like this which places them on the aforementioned blacklist. Strangely, these guys sometimes see themselves as the victims and those working honestly to help them as the villains. You can’t reason with people like this, you just have to try to identify them before they inflict harm.
