<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>every phone # the school has for her, including emergency #s is disconnected. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Responding to the second part first, it sounds to me like you might have a family in financial troubles. Allowing the phone to be disconnected is often one of the first things people who cannot pay their bills will do. If you'll be so kind as to steady the soap box while I use it to climb up on my high horse, you might want to look into what help they need before you worry about getting your cash.
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Pick-up is next Wednesday, and I'm just not going to give the orders to people that have not settled their account.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
We always get a certain number of bad checks. That is part of the "cost of business". Our profit margin is around 50%, part of that ends up going to cover the bad checks.
We've considered holding the merchandise. But that gets the selling family involved. In the world of business, salesmen usually don't get their commissions until the invoice is paid; but these aren't commissioned salespeople. In fact, one of the arguments for discontinuing the prizes for selling items was the issue of a kid who barely makes the prize level but has bounced checks.
The bounced check has never been from the actual school family, but I'm not so sure we should even hold the merchandise then. If you can show me a way to do it without embarassing the parents in front of their children, then I'll reconsider.
It has never been a case of a significantly large order. I'm not sure what we would do then. But for normal orders, you try and contact the people to have them make good, and you eat the cost of those who won't.
