They owe me money also Theresa.  I talked to one of their employees in early October and he indicated that they were, "going through some tough times" and told me to "hang in there and they would try to get back on their feet again soon."  Obviously I didn't ask the right questions though, and he didn't mention that they were closing during our conversation. 

I drove by their office during business hours in late November and it was locked and dark inside.  Upon a glance in the window, a few boxes with what appeared to be phone equipment were the only remaining items. 

Until mid '07, they were my #1 client for years; easy to work with and always paid on time.  Due to the fact that their phone, fax, email contacts are all shut down, I think it's safe to say that they have closed their business, if not for good, at least for now.  I hope they resurface someday or at least that their longtime employees find jobs elsewhere.  As for what they owe their examiners; I'm not getting my hopes up at this point.

It's so tricky to collect these days.  On one hand we don't want to be overbearing since the market is so competitive and "slow, but usually sure" paying clients can easily find another examiner.  On the other hand, when you've had 2 or 3 clients go out of business owing 3 or 4 month's invoices / a few thousand dollars then it becomes obvious that we were wasting valuable resources (paying employees for performing the exams, impacting vital turnaround times for paying clients, etc) for what amounted to charity to the owners of the companies who knew they were never going to pay us.  A quarter of college tuition for my child traded in for one last week at the timeshare condo on the coast for the owners of these now defunct companies is a good trade.......for them.  (sarcasm there, btw and Crescent DIDN'T do that to my company although they very well could've since they were a consistantly on time paying, trusted client for years in which case I likely would've been flexible should they have gotten 2 or 3 months behind.)  There are a lot of good suggestions in these forums re. late paying clients, however.  Having my former "#1 volume" client go under has definitely changed my personal policy for tolerating late paying clients. 

Good luck and hopefully all of us who've been examining for years will make it through.  Months?  Maybe we'll make it.  Year(s)?  I might regret learning Spanish in h/s and college rather than Hindi.  (Ugh, more sarcasm, albeit the ugly truth.)   

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