Let me tell you the situation:

I have a customer who owe me near $1k, and today he requested his account cancelation, I said, that I wont cancel his account until he paid the total owed money and that I'll still bill him until he completely paid his debts.

He said that's illegal, I guess not, at least in my country I have to pay my overdue bills if I want to cancel a service (phone, TV cable, etc).

Can anybody enlight me here?

Thanks in advance.

What you are doing is answering a wrong with a wrong in my opinion. Common sense suggests you should not continue billing someone when they have requested a cancellation because 1) it probably is illegal and more importantly 2) it is not good business practice. Collecting bills is a problem but this is not the way to do it. Try hiring a collection agency or something but don't mess with your customers (good or bad) in this way because all it will end up doing is hurting YOUR business in the long run.

What does the contract say?

Unless it specifically states that they must pay any overdue bills before cancelling, they don't have to.

Ok, I was confused then.

In my country I have to pay all the overdue bills before request a service cancelation.

Thanks :)

"What does the contract say?

Unless it specifically states that they must pay any overdue bills before cancelling, they don't have to."

But keep in mind that just because it's in the contract doesn't make it legal in the least. Something like this would probably not be legal and would not stand up in court at least in the U.S. Just my 2 cents.

See this is why Contracts must include every circumstance. Maybe in your country you have to pay overdue bills before cancelling. But what if he just wants to stop the bills from growing so he can get a chance to pay them?

Also, what billing method is this? Check, CC? Paypal?

Thanks

He used to pay through CC, but for some reason his CC stoped to work 9 month ago, so, he started to paid through Western Union.

Well, I can tell you one thing, he's not going to Western union any money over to you I'm sure of that :)

How did he end up owing you 1K?? Thats a lot of money. What country is he in?

Surely you can't bill him after his request for cancellation. His overdue must be for earlier arrears and your earlier bills. You will have to convince him to pay them else threaten him of legal action.

Originally posted by Eiv
How did he end up owing you 1K?? Thats a lot of money. What country is he in?

He said, that he lost his job, that if I can give him more time, since, he was a reseller, I didn't wanted to shut it down, so I wait.. wait, and well.. finally this, I'll wait 10 more days, after that I'll give his account to a collection agency.

Originally posted by Jedito
Ok, I was confused then.

In my country I have to pay all the overdue bills before request a service cancelation.

Thanks :)

The law may be like that in your country, but it might not be in your customer's country.

Like they said, why would you let his bill get to 1k in the first place, is this virtual web hosting, dedicated server, what?:eek:

My policy is this,

I bill every month, if their account is not current by the next time they are invoice for another month, they are suspended until both invoices are paid and then there month rotation starts when the renew by paying both invoices. They are not billed again for 30 days after they renewed.

yep I know what you are facing Jedito.. There are a few like this and they annoy me so much. What I do is send overdue to the collection agency.

Hy,

i don't think it's a good practice to bill a customer who want's to cancel. I think you would like to have your 1k back from him, if you put more and more bills into his postbox he will ignore them and you will get no cent.

I know you have talked to that customer, but try it again. Talk with him, talk about paying the current 1k back in small payments every month.

If he has lost his job and you would like to get your money back i think thats one of the best ways. If this does not work call your lawyer or a collection agency.

Greetings
Oliver