13 May
2009
13 May
'09
5:03 p.m.
Hi Sean,
On Sun, May 10, 2009 at 04:55:51PM +0100, Sean Whitton wrote:
On Sun, May 10, 2009 at 16:30, Andy Smith
<andy(a)bitfolk.com> wrote:
It's clear to me that whatever slack is given it will in general be
what is used by the majority of customers. That is, most people
will leave it up until the wire to pay. If that's going to be
the case then I would rather formally offer just 7 days of credit.
It also has the advantage of not allowing people to drift too far
away before I decide whether to expend much real effort in tracking
them down.
Whilst I sympathise with people's problems with dealing with banks,
PayPal etc. (I've had enough of my own, after all), my problem is
the large number of people leaving it until the last minute every
single time and not knowing if this time they will be one of the
ones who simply drops from the face of the Earth.
The answer for people who experience significant delays in
organising payment is going to be to start organising their payment
earlier on. I was already asked to raise invoices a month ahead
instead of a week, and I will be happy to offer that option before I
go changing the terms offered.
Please also remember that I am generally very reasonable if people
actually communicate with me as opposed to e.g. tell me a month in
to a 3 month contract that they don't want their VPS any more and
aren't going to pay the bill that is now 30 days late. Which is
especially irritating when there are people waiting for service.
Cheers,
Andy
--
http://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting
Encrypted mail welcome - keyid 0x604DE5DB
Finally, the level of late payments has become
quite high and it
feels like the 30 days grace period extended beyond due date is being
abused. I would rather not punish those who pay on time by raising
prices to cover the hassle, so it is very likely that in the coming
months we will instead be offering 7 days of credit and sticking
firmly to it.
Would you consider perhaps lowering it to seven days for those who
consistently take, say, over fourteen days to pay? This would mean
that those of us who use this limit when we have to (bank account
issues etc.) don't get penalised.