This week’s blog has been inspired by the events that happened to me last weekend. As many know I’ve been training for The London Bikeathon in aid of Leukaemia Research, the ride is 52 miles long starting and finishing in Battersea Park and takes place on Sunday 26 June.
This will be the second time I’ve undertaken this ride, I realised during last years ride that I wasn’t fully prepared for the ride. By that, I mean that while I trained for the ride, none of my training rides were longer than 30 miles. Consequently, on the day I was exhausted by 40 miles and found the last 12 miles very hard.
This year I decided to make sure I could manage the ride and my training has included riding 40 – 50 miles and up until last Monday I was confident that I was preparing myself correctly and would be able complete the ride in relative comfort. Unfortunately, events in the shape of a Polish decorator seemed to have other ideas. After his car caught my bike, sending me crashing on to the A41, the driver claimed not to “have seen me”, funnily enough I had been aware of him at least 5 minutes before the incident. Fortunately, I was wearing a cycle helmet which split so I was very lucky only to suffer a large number of cuts and bruises, including my ribs and was able to walk away from the scene. According to my doctor once the cuts have healed I will be able to complete in the ride. I still feel confident that because I’ve been preparing myself I will be able to complete the ride.
However the driver’s comments made me question his abilities as a decorator, if he could not see me a 217lb cyclist wearing light coloured clothing with fluorescent cycle helmet would he notice misses or runs in his paint work?. When I was taught to drive it was drummed in to me that I was driving a vehicle that if not handled correctly I could kill someone. Consequently, thanks to those lessons I learnt to watch out for children running in to the road, cyclists, other drivers etc .
Another by product of those driving lessons is that I’ve taken the same approach to my work in running a debt collection agency. I’m sure you must be wondering what can possibly link learning to drive a car and collecting debts.
The simple answer is preparation being aware of what the consequences of your action can be. When driving if you do not take in to consideration the road conditions and other users and even pedestrians you’ll more likely to have an accident, if you’re lucky your actions will not result in a fatality.
When we’re instructed I never know until we speak to the debtor if there is a genuine reason for not paying. Such as the time when we were instructed by an accountant to collect £5,500 from a client, the invoice was nearly 9 months overdue. Before speaking to the debtor we carried out some research and discovered that while they had a good turnover and profit ration they were the subject of a large number of unsatisfied County Court Judgments and therefore I felt wouldn’t be worried about further legal action. When I spoke to them the debtor explained that the reason for not paying was one of principle as my client had been late in filing their tax return and they had been fined £450.00 but agreed if my client would credit them, they would settle the outstanding invoice. My client obviously agreed and they received the promised payment.
While I was speaking to the debtor I had to ask them why they had been hit with so many court actions, they explained that each was a matter of principle as they were unhappy with the quality of service or goods they received. Furthermore he wasn’t particularly worried by the Judgments as he never applied for credit, so he was quite happy for the Judgments to remain in place until they no longer counted.
He did say that we were the first collection agency that he had paid and that was because we had asked why he hadn’t paid.
If you would like to find out more about David and Deanem Collections please do not hesitate to contact them either by telephone +44 (0)208 446 7720 or email them at enquiries@deanemcollections.co.uk or visit the website www.deanemcollections.co.uk.
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