What do you do when a customer doesn’t pay, how many reminders should you send to the customer, and when should you consider sending the case to debt collection? It can be difficult to find your way around the debt collection jungle, but we have collected a few good tips and knowledge to make it a little easier.
If a customer does not pay, it may be advantageous for the sake of the customer relationship to initially send the customer a friendly reminder of the non-payment. It could be that there has been a cross-payment or that the non-payment is simply due to an oversight.
If the customer still does not pay, you should send a reminder letter to the customer. There is neither an upper nor a lower limit to how many reminders you must send to the customer before the case is, for example, handed over to our debt collection department.
However, there is a limit to how many reminder fees you may charge: You may only claim a total of three reminder fees spread over three reminder letters sent at least 10 days apart. The reminder fee must be clearly stated in the reminder letter and must, as a rule, amount to no more than DKK 100.
It is important that during the reminder process you consider whether it is time to send the claim to debt collection. In this connection, it would be appropriate to keep an eye on when the claim expires. Invoice claims expire after 3 years as a starting point. The claim should therefore be sent to debt collection in good time before then.
What do you do when your customer does not pay despite reminders?
If, despite reminder letters, the customer still does not pay, there are two options for the further process regarding recovery of the amount.
Option 1)
You can either choose to send a collection notice to the debtor yourself. In that case, it is important that the debt collection notice states that the debtor can pay off the claim within a minimum of 10 days without incurring additional costs, and that the case will be sent to debt collection with additional costs for the debtor if payment is not made , cf. § 10 of the Debt Collection Act.
Option 2)
You can also choose to simply send the matter to our debt collection department, which will subsequently send a debt collection notice – and a letter to the debtor.
Depending on the nature of the case, the case can subsequently be sent to the enforcement court with a view to obtaining a judgment for the claim as well as the possibility of obtaining security in the debtor’s assets, if any.