We often get asked to collect old accounts. Collecting old accounts isn’t always that easy.

A successful litigation case

However we like a good contest in recovering our Members money. A member in the Print trade sent us a debt for £1.5k in March 2017. At that time the debt was almost SIXTEEN months old and there was some doubt as to the correct identity of the debtor. We investigated and identified the debtor’s correct trading style, which turned out to be an individual using a trading name and passed the case to our solicitors.

After the debtor ignored the Letter Before Action (LBA) , a Claim was issued. The debtor responded to the Claim form and after a bit of back and forth, we’re delighted to report that a cheque for the full debt amount, interest, CPA’s remuneration, late payment compensation, court fees, solicitor costs and even a contribution to our Membership subscription and solicitors costs was sent to our Member in June 2017. The total payment to the Member  came to £2.7k. Yes £2.7K! That is £1.2k higher than the original debt of £1.5k!

We always advise Members that the sooner they submit the debt to us, the more chance we have of recovering the money owed to them.

Successes of our Overdue Account Recovery Service

A chemicals company asked us to chase a January invoice in June owed by a manufacturer. We had to write our whole series of letters but the debtor finally responded to the final demand and our member reported yesterday that they had been paid in full.

The same member also asked us to pursue two March invoices from two other manufacturers last week. Both those debtors paid n receipt of our first letter/email.

A printing company reported being paid in full yesterday on a February invoice to a London based printer that they passed to us in June. That invoice had been ignored for months but we had payment with two letters.

A media company submitted a debt to us owed by a London based advertiser. The invoice was raised in February and we don’t know why the debtor had waited so long to pay it but after just one letter from us, our member reported payment being received in full.

An air conditioning company also asked us to chase a large debt owed from February 2016, (over a year old) by an engineering business. We had to go as far as send our final demand to prompt payment. However on Thursday they reported the invoice as paid in full.

A publisher asked us in June to chase various invoices from November to March that were owed by an Antiques dealer. Payment in full was received on all the invoices on Monday.

Last week a member in the food industry reported payment in full on a debt that was almost a year old (from September 2016). We had written just one letter.

And our Overdue Account Recovery Service is included without additional cost in our members’ subscription

Summary

There are just a few of the cases reported in the last couple of days. The majority of debts we are asked to chase are “only” a month or two overdue but as the above shows we have success with older accounts too.

Do you have any old accounts that need chasing?

Why don’t you give us a call on 0330 053 9263 or get in contact.