that old chestnut - balance overdue and...silence

[tavi]

Guests, enquired, booked and paid deposit two months ago. Fast and simple - on Iphone, using bank transfer.
Sent info, contacts, flight details, and taxi request. All done in a matter of hours.

Balance is actually now a week overdue (I usually send a gentle reminder but overlooked it last weekend as was travelling).

Sent email reminder last night. No answer.
Sent text today. No reply.
Unusual behaviour based on her previous speedy communication.

Annoying as have someone about to book the following week, who is also looking for these booked guests' dates so I could prob re-let it.

What do I do now? Sigh.

[AndrewH]

Give the lady a deadline without seeming unsympathetic. My experience is that they usually come up with the money in the end plus reasons (real or imagined). Only two total drop-outs in 8 years, but then late payers have parted with a heavy non-returnable deposit, so it concentrates the mind.

[COYS]

Try a real life phone call? Difficult to ignore or put off 'til later.
We sometimes have people tie in payments with their salary schedules, more often early than late but as long as we know either way it's not too bad.
Per AndrewH, deadlines tend to focus the mind & if it all blows out at least you'll have a bit longer to try for a re-let

[tavi]

Thanks all, she's just emailed and made the transfer.

Silly old me for panicking.

[Annew]

It's been awful this year and I hate chasing payment.

I'm hoping things will improve after the referendum!

[AngloDutch]

We have the same going on right now.

Elderly guests booked via VR in January, but we had to call them in Michigan when no deposit was received. When we spoke to them it appeared that they thought that they had already settled the deposit via HA payments.

It seemed that they didn't understand the HA's online booking system at all. In the end we sent them a PayPal invoice as they found it too complicated to complete via the HA system.

We received a copy of the automated balance payment request on Sunday from VR. It states that payment is due by the 19th.

Based on the previous payment problems, we sent an email to them that same evening, saying that we would send another PayPal invoice as before. We double checked the email address linked to their PayPal account and made sure that the invoice went there.

Since then no response, no payment. They have until this Sunday to pay but we already know that it will be overdue...looks like we are going to have to call them again

What we are seeing more and more fequently is that guests are paying the balance as late as possible, often waiting until 1 or 2 days before the deadline until they settle. It's not as though you still get any interest these days by keeping it in your bank account?!

[Nigel Goodwin]

It's not as though you still get any interest these days by keeping it in your bank account?!

The problem is, they don't have it in their bank account.

I had one drop out today, partner was just made redundant, perfectly reasonable excuse.

Who ever said the recession is over? Who ever said we are not about to enter another one?