Croydon garage adopts board of shame to deal with non-paying customers

[Mike Ruff, GW editor]

MOTaPlus Ltd in Croydon has taken to naming and shaming non-paying customers by writing their name and vehicle details on a white board located outsid
[See the full post at: Croydon garage adopts board of shame to deal with non-paying customers]

[Amanda Watts]

I would think that this is illegal unfortunately.
We have been known to leave messages inside tyres to warn other tyre companies that the ‘customer’ doesn’t pay 🙂

[Lawrence Wells]

We used to try and assist customers like this and had similar issues since refusing to accept cheques and having a no exceptions rule of no payment no car policy we no longer have a problem the odd car stays with us well blocked in in the compound but they always raise the funds eventually

[Jackie Sedgbeer]

I think a good idea would be to have a website or group where you can put customers names and car registrations on who either don’t pay or are nightmare customers etc. Garages could then look up and decide for themselves if they want to deal with them. It would be a bit like a rating/review but in favour of businesses.

[Angela leeming]

I to used to have a list up with customers names listed with large letters at the top stating customers on stop. Over the years I now only let vehicles go that have a monthly account and other customers pay before taking their vehicles. Few pay by cheque now the majority are by card. But I found it totally annoying when people used to do the dirty on you. One of our customers made a sign for me saying never mind the owner beware of the rotweiller. But I have bills and wages to pay and have no qualms even when I used to take them to court.

[Ian]

I cant believe that are still garages out there that let customers take their cars with out paying.

We operate on some simple rules, no customer supplied parts, no used parts and FULL payment or no car.

There are no exceptions to this rule.

[john w]

We operate on card or cash. We do not except cheques anymore. The vehicle does not leave the workshop until paid for in FULL. You wouldn’t go to sainsbury’s do all your shopping and try paying with a cheque.
We don’t have any bad debts.

[Peter Miles]

I have. after 25 years in business, reluctantly gone to the “no payment, no car” rule for new customers. In the last couple of years it has become a problem and I’ve found the more you go that extra mile (fitting them in at short notice, telling them can pay next month and so on, the more they take advantage. Court action doesn’t work anymore either. One “lady” who had been coming here for about three years for MOT’s and small jobs then had a near 400 bill . When payment didn’t come I found out she’d taken out an IVA (look it up if it’s new to you, it was to me!) where she is legally allowed to pay all her creditors off over 5 years at 15p in the pound so I get about 60 quid! But the firm that arranged the IVA for her get 4,600 paid in full!

[Tim]

We have been caught before so we now have a cad terminal, and accept cheques or cash as we have no longer got a local bank.

[Louise]

We don’t accept cheque anymore as ever have people ourselves cancel cheques. No vehicle is to leave the garage without full payment, this is our policy and all members of staff know this.

[Tony]

Zero tollerance no money no car. If we do mobile you pay on completion. Our biggest issues are big car dealers who think it’s ok to pay when they want to but i have a late payment written into my invoice and have taken thousands of big well known car dealers……am currently chasing a formula one team with some very stroppy staff.
I also use the courts and have had great success.

[Clare]

I’ve always said that it’s garages that need protection from rogue customers. Hats off to them for the board. We still have principles and if people choose to be unscrupulous then they will suffer the consequences.

[wendy]

We’ve had similar problems. A very soft owner that tries to help out all and been taken for a ride by some. Found a great company that debt collected for me and brought in a two year old debt within 24 hours. Didn’t cost us a penny but it did her…

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