sunshinewins
New Member
Kentucky
Amount owed ~$10,000
I did work for the past 6 months for a client that has claimed to end business. I have two outstanding invoices with this client and they are indeed still in business. The CEO of the company that has been initiating my services up to a few days before claiming closure told me they are selling the company but remaining in business. I received the letter below from their attorney stating the business has "closed its doors".
"Company Anonymous became unable to pay its debts as the same become due and closed its doors on February 19, 2011. Additionally, Company Anonymous sold all of its assets in an asset purchase sale which closed on February 28, 2011. The funds from the asset purchase were used to pay the secured lenders and were insufficient to satisfy the secured debts in full. As a result, there are no funds remaining with which to pay vendors and other unsecured creditors. We regret to inform you that Company Anonymous will not be remitting payments for debts, if any, owned to your company."
Since this company is still in business with different owners I thought I might have some options.
I contacted an attorney who agreed to take this on with a cap of 7.5 hours at $200/hour. If after 7.5 hours he is not getting responses then we would decided at that point to end the fight. If he is getting responses then he would consider changing the terms where he gets a percentage. I am not sure it's worth spending $1500 and all of that time fighting this. I considered this option, then suggested that we set this up so he gets a percentage instead of me paying hourly and he declined without having more information, which would require about $1500.
I contacted a second attorney (which was highly recommended) who simply denied taking on the case:
"While claim has substantive merit, we are very concerned that it may not be collectable. Very simply, it makes no sense to spend money on the pursuit of a claim that may be frustrated due to the closure of the business that you dealt with. Therefore, reluctantly, we must decline the representation. We wish you the best of luck with this matter, and otherwise. If I may be of any further assistance, dont hesitate to call."
So my options are:
1) Pay the first attorney $1500 and see what happens.
2) Forget about it and just write it off. At least it's a tax break.
3) Are there any collection agencies that could take this on easily (on my part)?
If anyone has any ideas please let me know. This loss does not kill us. We have been fortunate enough to have a very good income the past several years. I am just exploring my options. The easiest thing is to just forget about it and move on but before I did that I wanted to reach out and see if anyone has ideas or has used a collection agency.
It seems like there should be a collection agency out there that will simply take on the case and receive payment only if wins. That's just an assumption though.. never used them.
Thanks so much!
Amount owed ~$10,000
I did work for the past 6 months for a client that has claimed to end business. I have two outstanding invoices with this client and they are indeed still in business. The CEO of the company that has been initiating my services up to a few days before claiming closure told me they are selling the company but remaining in business. I received the letter below from their attorney stating the business has "closed its doors".
"Company Anonymous became unable to pay its debts as the same become due and closed its doors on February 19, 2011. Additionally, Company Anonymous sold all of its assets in an asset purchase sale which closed on February 28, 2011. The funds from the asset purchase were used to pay the secured lenders and were insufficient to satisfy the secured debts in full. As a result, there are no funds remaining with which to pay vendors and other unsecured creditors. We regret to inform you that Company Anonymous will not be remitting payments for debts, if any, owned to your company."
Since this company is still in business with different owners I thought I might have some options.
I contacted an attorney who agreed to take this on with a cap of 7.5 hours at $200/hour. If after 7.5 hours he is not getting responses then we would decided at that point to end the fight. If he is getting responses then he would consider changing the terms where he gets a percentage. I am not sure it's worth spending $1500 and all of that time fighting this. I considered this option, then suggested that we set this up so he gets a percentage instead of me paying hourly and he declined without having more information, which would require about $1500.
I contacted a second attorney (which was highly recommended) who simply denied taking on the case:
"While claim has substantive merit, we are very concerned that it may not be collectable. Very simply, it makes no sense to spend money on the pursuit of a claim that may be frustrated due to the closure of the business that you dealt with. Therefore, reluctantly, we must decline the representation. We wish you the best of luck with this matter, and otherwise. If I may be of any further assistance, dont hesitate to call."
So my options are:
1) Pay the first attorney $1500 and see what happens.
2) Forget about it and just write it off. At least it's a tax break.
3) Are there any collection agencies that could take this on easily (on my part)?
If anyone has any ideas please let me know. This loss does not kill us. We have been fortunate enough to have a very good income the past several years. I am just exploring my options. The easiest thing is to just forget about it and move on but before I did that I wanted to reach out and see if anyone has ideas or has used a collection agency.
It seems like there should be a collection agency out there that will simply take on the case and receive payment only if wins. That's just an assumption though.. never used them.
Thanks so much!
