Owed Money Can You Name And Shame?

[HongKongphooey]

My husband and electrician has done a job for a couple about 10 weeks ago and despite an invoice and several reminders they don't look as if they are going to pay.  They have a nice house, sporty new car and are constantly going abroad on Holiday. The debt is approximately £1900 I have spoken to her and she just makes excuses. It's incredibly frustrating as we've paid our suppliers and are really out of pocket. They are well known in our small town. If I named and shamed them on the towns Facebook page would I be breaking any laws?

[DTCwordfan]

take them to the small claims court process....don't risk making an ass of yourself.

[bookbinder]

Take DTCwordfan's advice, and go to the small claims court. I've done it, and it worked very well for me.

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/law-and-courts/legal-system/small-claims/

[Maydup]

Send them a good old fashioned politely worded letter in the post with another copy of the invoice to that this is a final demand for the money and giving them 7 days notice of it being lodged with the small claims court. 
 

After 7 days lodge it with the small claims court and they will then have to pay the bill plus the costs. 

However frustrated you are don't name and shame, but remain completely professional and you will come out in too. 

[Maydup]

.... come out on top. Typo!

[HongKongphooey]

Last time we started the small claims court process ( about 15 yrs ago) I gave up cos it was so complicated 

[Buenchico]

'Naming and shaming' might bring you into conflict with the law.

I can remember a situation in Sheffield, many years ago and well before the advent of social media, where a newsagent got fed up of chasing certain people to pay their very large paper bills.  So he put signs up in his shop window saying, for example, "Fred Bloggs of 42 Acacia Avenue owes this shop £X" and "Emilia Smith of 19 Smith Crescent owes this shop £Y".  He was then visited by the police, who demanded that he remove those signs, as (in their opinion) they constituted 'harassment for debt', which is a criminal offence.

Section 40(1)(a) of the Administration of Justice Act 1970 states:
"A person commits an offence if, with the object of coercing another person to pay money claimed from the other as a debt due under a contract, he harasses the other with demands for payment which, in respect of their frequency or the manner or occasion of making any such demand, or of any threat or publicity by which any demand is accompanied, are calculated to subject him or members of his family or household to alarm, distress or humiliation".

It would be up to a court to decide if 'naming and shaming' on Facebook fell foul of that legislation.

So proceed with caution!

[jackthehat]

I took a non-payer to SCC.

We went through mediation (by telephone) process - there wasn't much mediation, I wasn't going to budge an inch. 

Got my money and it was completely painless.

[Giggsie]

Send invoice adding on a % then say % will increase in each invoice sent until paid. We have done this in the past as long as they are warned about it. 

[ToraToraTora]

just take them to the small claims court + exes + interest. No point in messing about with any othet tactic.

[Hopkirk]

I remember in my childhood there was a road of very expensive houses in our town - well known locally.

The milkman told my Mum that it was the worst road in the town for getting the milk bills paid.