Monday, January 26, 2009

Frustrated

Here's my problem. Over Christmas break a girl ordered a sign from me. I had made some stuff for her in the past and have had no problems. The problem now is that the check she gave me bounced. So the bank withdrew the $20 that I had cashed as well as charging me a $20 processing fee. So I called the girl and she said no problem, she would bring by the money. Well she didn't show, twice. On my third attempt to reach her I got voicemail. It's been about 3-4 weeks now and I haven't heard from her. So...do I continue to try and reach her. Do I just eat the $40? I'm so frustrated, $40 is a lot of money and I feel cheated. So what would you do?? Any advice?

7 comments:

Stephen Robbins said...

You have a right to collect, of course. If I were you I would draft up an invoice and mail her one every couple of weeks.

Anonymous said...

I've never understood the bank charging YOU for a bad check someone else wrote. I would continue to contact her.

Amanda Davis said...

I am having the SAME problem! In fact not only did my bank charge me but now they are holding my husbands pay checks for a week to make sure they clear before they will release the funds!!! Makes it really hard to pay bills on time!!!

Alison said...

As a former collector, here is my advice... "YOU GET THAT BLOOD FROM THE TURNIP!"

family member said...

Hi, It's Mom. I would call again. Talk to her or leave a message asking for your sign back if you can't collect the money. If I were the lady, and couldn't pay, lost job, etc, I would offer to give it back. If that doesn't work I would sic Alison on her or give Sarah a call. Don't forget you have powerful and talented friends!

Ditto Family said...

I wouldn't give up quite yet either. I like the idea of the letter, followed up by a phone call.

When I was in charge of a Super Saturday a couple of years ago one of the instructors would ONLY take cash due to previous experiences of Super Saturdays and several women's check's bouncing...getting the $20 charge from the bank...etc... Maybe from now on you should only take cash.

Jonna T. said...

I very much feel your pain. We actually post the bad checks underneath our glass counter in our store. Not sure if it's legal, or not....but....writing a bad check is illegal to, so all is fair in love and war. We finally had to get a new system where we can electronically process checks like you would a debit card. In your case, that is not something that would work. You could certaintly try calling her again, and sending her invoices, and having collector friends help out is fabulous. I have always tried and tried to call, and unfortunately for us, it never worked. I even had one lady write me a bad check for $56.00 a couple years ago, and I found out a few months ago from someone who knew her that not long after she wrote that check, they had some sort of settlement go through, where they received $70,000. Really, if you are going to get that kind of money, pay off your bad debt. It may only be $56.00 (which is the smallest of my bad pile) but to a small business, every bounce hurts.