I owe money but I haven't been invoiced

[myrdale]

Earlier this year, I replaced the siding on my house. The total cost was $18k. I had been saving for a new truck, but this took top priority, I was able to pay cash. The payment was broken up into (3) separate $6k checks, at time of order, completion of the siding, and completion of the painting.

Half way through the contractor company additionally sold me on a roof service for $700. My roof is 12 years old and it seemed like a good idea at the time. I told them I would like to add it to add it to the final check and issue it when the roof service was complete. No problem they said.

Three weeks later the roof service had not been completed, and they requested to be paid. I shrugged and paid the last $6k.

Three weeks later the guy shows up and completes the roof service. He goes on to tell me about how burned up my roof is from lack of ventilation. He says I probably don't have much life left in it either way and leaves.

Four months later, I have not seen an invoice for the remaining $700.

They did an excellent job on the siding. I am still on the fence about if the roof service was actually worth $700. A service was provided. I am not arguing that I don't owe the money.

If they called tomorrow and requested payment, I would pay it. But in the mean time....

Would you go ahead and mail payment in or would you let it slide?

[disneysteve]

This is really more of an ethical question than a financial question. You agreed to the service. You agreed to the price. The contractor failed to bill you. Do you pay or figure it's their responsibility to come to you?

I had a similar situation with my landscaper. He does a good job but is very disorganized as a business person. One year he billed me partway through the season and I paid him but he never billed me for the remainder of the season. A few times, that thought occurred to me and I considered contacting him but ultimately decided that it isn't my responsibility to do his job for him. If he isn't organized enough to know who has and hasn't paid him, that's on him. The following season, the exact same thing happened. The 3rd year, he billed me at the beginning of the season for the previous year and gave me a substantial discount for his failure to bill me promptly. Of course, I paid the bill but I just wasn't willing to go out of my way to pay him when he didn't bill me.

[Butterscotch]

I fail to see how a phone call regarding a suspected open balance is going out of your way. It seems incredibly dishonest.

The “it’s not my responsibility attitude” is why this country sucks.

[disneysteve]

Would you go ahead and mail payment in or would you let it slide?

Just to address this specific part of your post, I would NOT just mail in the payment with no invoice. If you want to get this settled, call and request that they send you a bill. You want to have everything documented. That way you will have an invoice to return with your payment to make sure it gets properly applied to your account.

[QuarterMillionMan]

Why pay if you haven’t gotten a bill, think of if as an early Christmas.

[Fishindude77]

I’ve dealt with this frequently. Just call them up and remind them that they need to get you a bill ASAP so you can get them paid. Totally unethical to do anything else.

[Gailete]

A few years back my hubby and I had some dental work. The dentist herself was the one that decided what each bill would be, although she gave estimates ahead of time. This meant that as we were leaving the office, they didn't even want to take a partial payment for his work (mine had been paid). So about a month or so later I realized that we hadn't gotten a bill for his dental work and I had $1K sitting in a bank account waiting for the bill. I let it slide a bit and finally around the 2 month point with no bill I call the office and get a recording that their had been a family emergency, leave a message and they would get back to us. The mailbox was full. I tried leaving a message for the next couple weeks. I thought it was rather odd for a dentist office to be closed for that amount of time. Without saying what the cause had been to protect the dentist's privacy, we finally found out that the office was closed. No one was billed, etc. as far as I know. Eventually the money we had set aside was absorbed back into our regular budget. Once we knew what happened we understood why outstanding bills didn't mean a hill of beans at that point in time. Assuming someone ever wanted to go through the billing and send us a bill, we would eventually get it paid. But truly a unique experience.

I have found that with the use of computers, bills that used to be paid or slipped by without being paid, and then caught, were taken care of much more efficiently by Berta May in her horn-rim glasses and the bun in her hair, who never made a math error. Now when I find errors I call and tell companies about them and leave it to them to fix. I don't keep hounding them. When i got sick and could no longer work, I was getting ST disability and nothing else. One day a chunk of money landed in my account. I had gotten someone else's direct deposit pay check. I called immediately and told them, they never took it back or asked for a check! Things like that have been happening to me for years now. I always tell them up front. Offer to ship back at their expense extra copies of orders, At one point I wrote a check to my church but the money never left my account. I called the church, yep they got it, called the bank, yep they got it, right on down the line somehow it had been paid and the money was somehow never taken out of my account.

NEVER had these things happen to me before computers were doing all the work and the 'thinking'. Too many office workers assume that things are right that were done by the computer and don't have good enough math skills to figure out problems.

If I'm expecting a bill, I will call the business and remind them, but that is it. If they don't care about getting paid, not my job to hound them.

[Drake3287]

Gailete, I TOTALLY agree with your post. Like yourself this type of stuff happens to me often and I always do the honest thing and attempt to correct the issue.

This stuff never happened prior to computers and electronic banking, etc....

My wife and I charge EVERYTHING on our Visa card every month for the cash reward credit's they earn and simply pay it in full each month. Our monthly statement literally has a hundred different charges each month. You'd be surprised at how often a Visa charge never goes through. Unless it's only a couple of bucks, I always call the merchant and try to correct the mistake but they never know how to deal with it after the fact.

[Gailete]

Drake, then you would appreciate this one. When we finally got a Walmart on our side of town, we went and did some shopping there to the tune or about $90+ using my debit card. A couple of weeks went by and the debit just never showed up. I couldn't figure it out until I was rummaging on my desk and found the receipt that looked a bit strange now that I had seen a few more from shopping there again. No one had apparently tuned that machine on to charge shoppers after the cashiers had been practicing on them. We had checked out at around 4PM which meant an entire days sales had disappeared as far as Walmart was concerned unless they always give away everything for free on the first day that they open! That was a real puzzler as what would you do. I just let it go at that point, as I knew it would be one of those "try to correct the mistake but they never know how to deal with it after the fact."

Now back in the day when you could only pay with cash or a check, that could never have happened.

[Drake3287]

Yup, sounds like something that would happen to me! If it's a smaller mom and pop place I go out of my way to correct the mistake. If it's Safeway or a place like that I don't worry nearly as much simply because they mistakenly charge me full price for sale items routinely so I guess we're even.

[Thrif-t]

Nope I'm not going out of my way to inform the unorganized that he didn't bill me. I'd keep the money on hand so when he FINALLY does catch his mistake, I have the money to pay.

People need to get their crap together.

[kork13]

I've had this type of thing happen a few times. I'm totally willing to call (once) to remind them "Hey, I haven't seen an invoice & it's been over a month... Do you want me to pay you? Please send me an invoice." I call, and wait. If/when they send the invoice, ill send the payment in without a second thought. But if they fail to send me an invoice after I specifically ask for it, I'm not going out of my way to force my money on them. If they eventually send me a bill, great. Otherwise, their loss.

As stated, I would NEVER send payment without an invoice. You never know if the actual final cost of different than quoted, and you have less evidence for yourself if/when they may finally send an invoice asking you to pay. I always wait for an invoice, and include the invoice number on the check.

[TexasHusker]

In this transaction, you’re “accounts payable”. The business that did the work is “accounts receivable”. If they don’t invoice you for work done, then they aren’t completing the service. That’s not your problem. It’s theirs.

[myrdale]

Just as a followup, I did call the company and spoke with their accountant.

I explained that I had not seen an invoice for the additional work and was curious as to the state of my account. She said she would have to investigate and would let me know. That has been nearly 2 weeks ago now. Strangely enough she was the one who ended the call with out taking down my contact information, past the original name and town I gave her at the start of the conversation.

I don't feel like I am getting one over on them, but my conscious is still ticking in the back ground. That said do not plan on chasing them down and saying they must take my (their) money.

[Gailete]

With the year switching over and insurance companies switching over, I had several new places that I needed to pay. I couldn't figure out how to pay for my new prescription plan before the end of the year with everything else needing to be paid by the 31st. So I called them. Turns out I didn't need to pay them until the 27th of January. Today I get a coupon book in the mail and envelopes to send payments in. I'm hoping to find out I can pay on line and save on $6 worth of stamps, but for me the good news is, the money I had set aside to pay them last week can go to other places as needed as I will be getting my next SS check before the bill is even due. It is weird how companies handle things like this. In the midst of signing up for a company, it would be nice if they could clearly state these things in the first communication you get from them, and save me having to call and ask for where and how to pay.

Not the same as asking for an invoice, but still, some people would have been perfectly content to not bother paying if they didn't have a bill and in the process actually lose their benefits for the year. And would have never known that their bill got lost in the mail.