Yes that’s right one of our clients spent $50,000 on a bottle of syrup it is a possession set up in his office on a shelf behind his desk center stage. No it is not because he is so rich that “why not?” Nor is he a syrup connoisseur who has dreamed about this syrup ever since he joined the syrup of the month club.
No this is a painful reminder to him every day about making bad decisions.
He will tell you that he loves the factoring industry and considers it to be his secret weapon. “I wind up getting a lot of business from my friends that can’t afford to fill the order” This has made it very difficult to get him to refer other companies that could benefit from finding the best factoring company for their needs; he is a happy client but that has not always been the case.
In using our website he was able to find a new factoring company as his last factoring company had been sold to a factoring company that did not work with government contractors. He has been working with the factoring company he selected on National Factoring Group for a little over a year and I decided to pay him a visit because his praising of the factoring company he was with had a lot of great insight and he was only half an hour away.
When you walk into his office you cannot miss the bottle of syrup and for that matter because of what we do he wanted to talk about it. The short version of the story goes along these lines. About ten years ago he was approached by a factoring company that offered him incredible rate that he could not pass up. Although he was happy with the factoring company he was with, he wound up going with the new company.
He admits that something didn’t feel right and he was treated with the full court press when he asked questions. He was told things like “Don’t worry about that” and although it is in the contract “We would never in force it if you weren’t happy”. So he decided to move forward with them and that’s when his nightmare began.
At first he lost one of his biggest clients that let him know they would not work with that factor after the conversation they had (this client had never had a problem with him factoring before), then they reduced the credit availability on the clients he was working with, and if the injury was not enough he did not understand what batch factoring was and he was now paying more than before. Well needless to say he wanted to leave and that when he bought his syrup.
It was just before Christmas when he said he was not happy and that is when they told him the bad news, the “Don’t worry about that” became a worry about that and the “we would never in force it if you weren’t happy” became yes we will you should have read your contract.
Needless to say they came after him for the full early termination penalty of $50,000.
He had no choice, he has a thriving business that was going to die if he stayed with them so he went back to his former factor and had them buy his contract out plus pay the $50,000 eating up a lot of his business’s profits. He explained that it took a long time to recover from a hit like that.
Needless to say, he was surprised about a month later when he received a Happy Holidays card and a bottle of maple syrup with the old factoring company’s name on it. “I guess they never had a chance to put me on the naughty list” he said with a “that’s messed up” kind of look on his face. But he uses it as a reminder every day to not make a bad decision.
While he currently is not doing as much business as he did back in those days he still has a very successful business and understands the value of working with reputable factoring companies as well as following his gut.