One of my clients' payment is due tomorrow and just in case he doesn't pay up what should I do??

My invoices are sent 7 days before the payment due date and my policy is that payments must be sent within 10 days of the invoice date, or the account is suspended. The client has paid before the due date the previous month, but he hasn't responded to any of the billing's e-mails.

We always give them time after the date to pay. You never know what may have happened and getting screwed every once in a while for a months hosting is worth the extra time you give the ones that are just late. Because the "Fair Host" gets word of mouth out of it and word of mouth is what builds our business.

Originally posted by Sesran
We always give them time after the date to pay. You never know what may have happened and getting screwed every once in a while for a months hosting is worth the extra time you give the ones that are just late. Because the "Fair Host" gets word of mouth out of it and word of mouth is what builds our business.

Good point...I may end up giving him an extra week or so as I do know (or i'm pretty certain) that he's a teen, so he could be away for spring break...

Originally posted by akashd
The client has paid before the due date the previous month, but he hasn't responded to any of the billing's e-mails.
There could be a dozen reasons why he hasn't paid - easter holiday perhaps.

He's already established a good rating with you, I wouldn't just suspend the account on the day due - leave it for a while.


Lats...

Originally posted by Lats

There could be a dozen reasons why he hasn't paid - easter holiday perhaps.

He's already established a good rating with you, I wouldn't just suspend the account on the day due - leave it for a while.


Lats...

I would never suspend an account on the date due...my policy is 3 days after, but 5 days is what I would probably due in most cases, in this case...probably a week

If he's usually ontime, don't worry about it. It is spring break, easter, finals for some, etc. etc. I would give him at least a week, especially since he isn't answering e-mails.

:) good point.. I suggest you change the password for his FTP and/or pop3 accounts. This will help him/her to consider sending in payment much faster than if you keep bugging him about the payment using e-mail :)

Hello
Bouncing credit cards for monthly payments is a serious problem for us.
Here is what we send users when it happens.
90% of customers whose cards are declined never reply to any of our messages and end up getting terminated.
It takes up a huge amount of time each day chasing them up.

Gordon



Hello
We have tried charging this months hosting
fee for $domain to your credit card,
but your card issuer has declined payment.

Please send us a new card number in the next
24 hours or we may have to suspend your web
site and e-mail facilities.
(When the number of unpaid accounts
in our system reaches a set number we suspend
those that have been unpaid longest. Typically
it takes 48 hours or less for your account to
get to the top of the list).

If your account remains unpaid for 10 days we
delete your web site and files.


Sending a new card number
-------------------------
1. Go to our monthly payment form at:
http://www.$brand/payment2.html
2. Enter $domain as the payment reference.
3. Enter the correct amount ($amount).
4. Enter your e-mail address so we can send a receipt.
5. Click on the Next Step>>> button.

You will then be transferred to the secure payment
server where you will enter your credit card details.



Avoiding this problem in the future
-----------------------------------
To avoid this problem in the future you might
like to consider making an annual payment.
This comes with a 20% discount,
avoids these sorts of problems and can be
cancelled at any time with a refund of the
remaining unused months.
Just go to this page and fill out an order form
as if you were signing up a new account but use your
existing domain name: http://www.$brand/order5.shtml

We look forward to hearing from you shortly.

Originally posted by apollo
:) good point.. I suggest you change the password for his FTP and/or pop3 accounts. This will help him/her to consider sending in payment much faster than if you keep bugging him about the payment using e-mail :)

nah that's just plain ol' mean...would never do that....

I would suggest that if you don't suspend a customers account for non payment they will quite happily continue to use your service without paying.

If they have not responded to your e-mails then suspension is a good way to get their attention.
It may be that they signed up with a fake/anti spam address and they never got your e-mails.
Suspending them will force them to contact you.
(if they still want the account)

Gordon

We send out invoices, and those who go over 3 weeks past due are suspended. We change their email, FTP and Control Panel password...and put up a "THIS SITE IS TEMPORARILY UNAVAILABLE" index page, on their site. Generally, that gets their attention and they soon contact us to make payment arrangements.

If we haven't heard from them within 4 weeks of putting up the 'unavailable' index page (remember, that would be almost 2 months AFTER payment was due) - we delete their account.

--Tina

About changing the passwords... I think this is a good idea, because it allows the website to continue to function, but the client cannot make changes anymore...
I would do this after your 5 days grace period.
If they are just unavoidably detained from the internet or something, they will be happy to know that their site is online, and since they weren't using those things anyways, it won't be a problem. They can contact you when they are back. Of corse an email saying what has happened would be in order.

Hope this helps.

I send out e-mails a week before the due date to make sure they understand what is owed and when, and I normally give them up to two weeks past the due date before I suspend the account. If they don't pay after the two weeks is up, I charge a late fee and suspend the account, and if it goes a month past the due date the account is terminated. Fortunately, all payments have been made prior to the two week period. For the most part people who are late are genuinely trying to pay on-time, on an instance like yours where he has made all his prior payments on time, I wouldn't suspend the account right away.

I generally give the end user around a month to come up with a payment before I suspend them. (That is if they have a good payment record).

I was previously using iBill and had trouble billing a few accounts that had been long time customers. IBill simply would not accept their creditcards. I contacted iBill, the end user contacted iBill. Finally I started offering 2checkout's service and sent them an email after getting about two months worth of service, stating that a new billing system was now in place and that they did not have to worry about past charges, just signup for a new account and all would be right in the world.

They didnt respond in 48 hours. I suspended their websites.
BAM! The next day, low and behold, They signed up for all of their accounts again and were very courteous about it. They were just glad that I didnt flush their data.

I tell ya, soft disconnects are the way to go with some of these issues.

We do the same thing as tina, only we suspend at 15 days out and terminate at 30 days out.

And the message on their web site says:

This web site is temporarily unavailable.
Please have the webmaster contact his or her ISP.

Originally posted by bitserve
We do the same thing as tina, only we suspend at 15 days out and terminate at 30 days out.

And the message on their web site says:

This web site is temporarily unavailable.
Please have the webmaster contact his or her ISP.

Thats very good... I would also have it automatically redirect to my site after about 10 seconds..

All invoices are sent 15 days prior to the anniversary date. Payments are due 5 days before the anniversary date. Payments are considered late the day following the anniversary date. If a credit card is declined, it is the same as if no payment was made. Accounts will be suspended 10 days after anniversary date if payment has not been received. Suspension means all access to the account including the control panel, ftp, etc. is blocked. The account will continue to function as it exists during suspension. Reinstatement from suspension requires a reinstatement fee in addition to the past due payment. The reinstatement fee is 25% of the monthly fee. Accounts are terminated 25 days after the anniversary date. Upon termination the web site/(s) will be removed. Reinstatement after termination requires all past due payments to be made, the payment due for the coming period to be made, and a reinstatement fee equal to 50% of the monthly fee.

Hello
I don't understand how you all cope with these long periods of notice.
I used to do that (in the early days) but it didn't lead to people renewing at all, it just extended the process.

Each day we have a minimum of three new declined cards.
If we let them run for 30 days we would have 90 at the end of 30 days plus the ones from the previous month which were now suspended.
Each would have to be manually checked each day to see if they had paid up.
After three days we would need to retry them for payment manually.
It would just be a real mess.


If someone is going to pay up, they are going to do it within 10 / 14 days.


Giving them any longer is doing yourself a disservice and will not retain one single customer more than suspending sooner.
I am sorry to say thats my experience having run both systems.
We just softened our approach slightly and the number of customers not paying up has doubled.

Thats why the large web hosting companies operate fairly short grace periods on payment.

Gordon

We invoice two weeks before the due date and suspend any account going unpaid at the 30 day mark.

SO by that stage they owe you for 2 months - right?

Have a look at the billing TOS for most of the large hosts.
Its 14 days or sometimes two attempts within 28 days from the original due date.

We just had another 15 failures today and I guarantee that only one of those will even respond to the reminder e-mail.

Gordon

Gordon, I totally agree. That's why we suspend at 15 days.

What can we do to encourage customers to actually cancel their account when they don't need it any longer, or can't pay for it any longer?

Hey
Thanks for backing me up on this.
I think its easier for smaller hosts to take longer over people who don't pay but when you have thousands of accounts you have more cards failing and it gets much more difficult to manage.

I think we need to make it easier to cancel.
Of course that carries risks.
I was considering putting a cancellation link in the welcome e-mails we send out but that could be tempting fate.
If people only have to click on a coded link then I am sure the number of immediate cancellations would increase.

Gordon

We put a "unavailable" page up after 10 days of non payment and if nothing has been worked out and no attempt has been made to contact us. After 25 days a letter is sent saying files will be deleted in 5 days unless they call and work out and work out something or send in payment. I think that is pretty fair.

Hello Okihost

Do they pay up?

Its just hgat we have tried very lax and very strict policies and both have had the same pay up rate, just that the stricter one cleared up the outstanding accounts more quickly.


Gordon

gordon,

we came to the same conclusion but we use a shorter leash..

if the cc is declined email sent immediately

no reply in 24hrs suspension

no reply in 30 days files deleted

want it restored from back up $30

we dont negoitiate

learned this from big boys
they cut nobody slack, neither do we

and guess what, the number of folks that reply to the email wirthout suspension is about 10% the number that reply after suspension is about 50%

the rest die and they had no intention of renewing so we didnt give em anything for free.

dos centavos

I agree with miami_g.

You gotta show`em whose boss or they take advantage of you. 15 days to wait before suspending is waaaay too long IMO.

Thanks Miami_g
We are suspending at 24/48 hours and deleting after 10/14 days.
I think I will extend the deletion to 28 days.
Had another 12 failures today.

I just find it amazing that people don't contact us when their site and e-mail is down.

Gordon