You can go months and months with no problems, then bam Christmas is around the corner, the letter box goes and surprise surprise you owe some company money. Usually a company you haven’t had contact with in several months, or so that always seems to be the case for me.
This year it was Avon Cosmetics. I had used to work for them back in December 2011, I made my final returns, paid what I owed and left it at that thinking my account was clear and it’d just close after the so many campaigns of being inactive. I heard nothing from them so assumed this was the case.
November 5th, 2012 – oh what a lovely surprise in the post today, a letter from Avon saying my account was in arrears by £485.12, how I will never know. I rang them only to be told I had to pay it to which I replied no chance and hung up. A few days later I received another letter saying a £10 late payment charge was going to be added to by account if I did not pay. I rang back again to be told again that I had to pay, I was offered a payment plan but told them no as I didn’t owe them a penny and I was going to be writing them a letter stating this.
I wrote my letter on November 15th, 2012 and popped it in the post the same day. I heard nothing more and thought it was over. Then 5th December, 2012 exactly a month after receiving the first letter from them I received another, again stating I owed my account money and that the £10 charge had now been added and I needed to pay my balance to avoid further charges.
I couldn’t be bothered to attempt to sort the matter over the phone this time. I wrote another letter saying I was not happy to have to pay a balance of such incredible amounts when I do not have the products to return nor the money from the sales of the products to give to you as they have already been returned. This time when I popped it in the post I send it via recorded delivery, this time they had to receive it.
Sure enough on 17th Decemeber, 2012 I received a letter apologising for the mistake and my account had now been cleared and I was free to continue selling as a Representative. Thanks but no thanks.
I had the guts to say no to them and not hand over nearly £500 to them even with threats of late payment charges an debt collectors but how many other of you would have just caved and paid up.
My advice is if in doubt don’t pay, fight it! If they are sure you owe them the money they will prove it and if you have proof you have already paid show them. Don’t just ignore it, it can get worse, nobody wants the debt collectors on their door especially at Christmas time.
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