The Secret Diary of a Credit Controller – Day 2 – The Serial Late Payer
Dear Diary,
If there was an Olympic medal for bad luck 🥇🍀, one of my customers would have a trophy cabinet full of gold. Honestly, they are the most “unfortunate” people I’ve ever come across.
Month one: “We’ve had a bereavement.” ⚰️
Month two: “There’s been a car crash.” 🚗💥
Month three: “Our director had a heart attack.” 💔
Month four: I was half expecting them to tell me they’d been abducted by aliens 👽.
They’ve exhausted every excuse known to man 🙄. Meanwhile, the invoices still sit there, unpaid 💸, getting older than the cheese at the back of my fridge 🧀.
Now, I don’t mind being sympathetic once in a while — I’m human too (Don’t tell anyone). But after six months of drama 🎭 that would make EastEnders blush, it’s time to stop sending condolences and start sending reminders 📩.
So here’s what I did:
Logged every excuse 📝. I kept a neat little collection of “reasons” in my notes and I referred to them when new excuses came up – it lets them know, I know what they are doing.
Stopped playing along 🙅. Empathy is okay once, but i decided to keep it professional! My new line is: “I’m sorry to hear that, but the invoice is still overdue. When will payment be made?” (Spoiler: silence usually follows 🤐).
Escalated ⚖️ If it remains unpaid, tell them “I’m sorry but my hands are tied, after a month i have to refer all unpaid invoices to are referred to our friends at The Credit Protection Association”
Added consequences 💰I told them I am afraid we are going to start adding late payment compensation and interest to your account for the unpaid invoices which will accrue until it is brought up to date.
Tightened the reins ⛓️. Next up – We’ve had to put your account on suspend. From now on, we are going to need a payment up front. No cash, no service.
And guess what? Miraculously, the emergencies started to fade away the moment the work stopped 🎩✨. Turns out it wasn’t fate… just habit.
The Lesson
Sympathy is fine — but systems and boundaries are better. A good credit controller knows when “bad luck” is really just bad habits.
Yours in disbelief,
The Credit Controller
Read Day 1 – Welcome to my world