Flowers for the debtor

As an attorney specializing in (high end) debt collection cases, you know that every case is different. One claim is not the other and one debtor is not the other. But the other day I had a very special case on my hands....

What had happened

Last month, I got a call from one of the corporate lawyers at one of my favorite clients: a multibillion-dollar international family-owned and -operated company that does business professionally, wisely, sustainably, socially responsible and well, and that occasionally submits fun, intellectually challenging questions to me and my colleagues and assignments. Now the company lawyer called with the following case:

At the end of 2020, some intercompany receivables between the various companies within the group were straightened out. Thus, the necessary payments took place that day. However, one payment (of over €30,000.00) was accidentally transferred to the wrong account number.

After my customer discovered her mistake, she called the bank. The bank then sent a letter to the person who had received the amount in error (hereafter also referred to as "the account holder" or "the debtor"), with a friendly request to return the amount within 21 days.

The deadline set by the bank expired without the account holder acting on the request. There was no response to the bank's letter at all. This did not bode well, so the client called me to request collection of the debt.

Step 1: know your debtor

When it comes to the collection of business receivables, those receivables often stem primarily from an agreement. The client then knows the other party (the debtor) because they started doing business with each other, from which the (unpaid) invoice resulted.

Sometimes it happens that the client does not actually know the debtor very well at all. Then something went wrong at the front end - in the negotiation and contract phase. I sometimes see that in my practice, but it never actually happens to this client. As I said, it is a well-organized company that runs its business professionally. It knows its customers, and therefore its debtors.

But in this case it was different, because the claim had not arisen from doing business with the debtor, but from a transfer error. What kind would this be, the client and I wondered? The account was in the name of a private person (not a company). The person in question was a woman. Probably an aso or a crook, we thought, since no refund had been made, after the bank's request. Or someone in need of money. The account holder's name made us wonder. Maybe the account holder doesn't read or speak Dutch and didn't understand the bank's letter?

Step 2: conduct research

With these questions in mind, we decided to do our own Internet research. Unfortunately, the account holder did not come up through google or on social media. The Chamber of Commerce did not know this person either, and the property at the address was owned by someone else. That didn't bode well either.

Since we could get very little information to surface, I suggested that I send her a letter. A simple, friendly letter, asking her to refund the amount. A letter without mentioning legal bases (undue payment, tort etc) and without charging legal interest or collection costs. Very friendly and accommodating, in other words.

But we wanted to reinforce that friendly tone and learn more about the debtor at the same time, so we decided to have the letter served by the bailiff. We explicitly instructed the bailiff to deliver the letter in person and not throw it through the letterbox.

Upon handing it over, the bailiff then had to question - so was our instruction - the account holder: "Did you indeed receive the amount in your account?" "Why did you not repay it?" "Why did you not respond to the letter from the bank?" "Do you still have the money, or have you already spent it?". This is how we sent the bailiff out.

The role of the bailiff

Soon I received a call from the bailiff. The account holder no longer lived at the address where the bank had written to her. She had since moved to Amsterdam. So the bailiff continued the search.

Another two hours later, the bailiff called again: he had visited the new address in Amsterdam and had good news! The account holder was an international student of 24 years old. She had indeed not understood the letter from the bank, still had the money in her account and had not spent it.

The result: debt collection and flowers for the other party

Moments later, I was also called by the account holder himself. My phone number was of course in the letter. Indeed, she spoke little or no Dutch. She was glad she spoke to me, because she was afraid that she had become a victim of criminals who wanted to use her account to channel money. She was glad that she could now pay safely through a lawyer. She wanted to repay the amount right away, but she couldn't because of the private spending limit on her bank account. Therefore, we agreed that in the following days she would repay €5,000.00 a day at a time until the total was paid.

She kept her word and those 7 days after that everything was neatly refunded. The customer was satisfied and in the administration department someone was also especially happy...!

My client then decided to send someone to the account holder again. This time not a bailiff with a letter from me as a lawyer, but the florist with a nice bouquet of flowers, thanking me for the refund and apologizing for the inconvenience!

#caseclosed