Gordon & Gotch this morning emailed a newsagent claiming that their account is overdue when there is still half a day left to pay the bill. This is appalling treatment of this newsagent by Gotch, a company that does not provide newsagents with reasonable control over their level of indebtedness. I suspect others have received the same email.
Here is today’s email from Gotch to one newsagent:
Dear Customer,
We take this opportunity to remind you that your January 2014 account was due on the 20th of February and is now overdue.
Regrettably supplies to your outlet will be suspended unless payment is received promptly.
Please see payment methods below:
· Direct Deposit (Bank details) ANZ Banking Group,
Cnr Queen & Creek Streets Brisbane, QLD.
BSB: 014 002 Account: 7758 12207
(Please use your Gotch Billing account number as reference)· Credit Card using GotchConnect Please note that only Mastercard and VISA accepted
If you require a copy of your statement, please log on to www.gordongotch.com.au to view / download.
For any queries or clarification, please contact your credit officer on 1300 650 111.
We thank you for your cooperation.
Yours Faithfully,National Credit Department
Some newsagents actively discussing closing their magazine accounts down.
I think closing your account might be a bit of an overreaction but G&G accounts department are definitely overdoing the emails. I’ve started receiving a “reminder notice” on the 17th of the month which considering I’ve never been late in paying them results in a stream of unprintable mutterings every time I get one.
I got one of these this morning. My account was in fact already paid just obviously hadn’t caught up to their auto email system. We get them most months. We also get the one that always arrives around the 17th titled “Reminder Notice” that the account must be paid by the 20th.
looks like we hit Submit at the same time Steve !
I would like to know, why in this age of technology – why we cannot order what we want.
I also wonder, if the supermarkets receive the same emails.
Steve I agree re closing the account but when you consider this, oversupply, failings on extras and undersupply it is no wonder newsagents muse about it.
N, because then you you would be able to compete with others selling magazines and that would be unfair.
We get the same emails as Shayne and Steve. Its very annoying!!
As I mentioned to my local MP, all I ask for is the same trading terms and conditions as Coles and Woolies.
A level playing field.
yep 17th here to
get this one every month,no drama just hit the delete button, does not make me pay my mag bills by the 20th. my terms are 30 days 🙂
Rick, when do they put you on stop? That is the problem. If I don’t pay by the 24th I get put on stop supply.
This is interesting if there is different treatment for different newsagents.
Why do we have a Bond/ Guarantee with these suppliers? Surely that is to cover default which is all they should worry about. We are not in default until the new month starts surely. I thought you are not allowed to harass your debtors. No more than one request a week.
I just rang and told them to stop and they did THe trouble is the tone of the e mail ,a reminder is ok but always a bully
For those using Outlook, setup a rule to auto delete future emails from Gotch Credit department.
Problem solved, just don’t forget to pay :p
Just press delete and get over it, worry about things that are relevant.
Richard
Gordon & Gotch don’t require a bond or bank guarantee which is why I’ve always thought better of them than Network in this regard. Network on the other hand requires 1months turnover as a bond. That as well as the contingent liability they have with the stock on shelves which we have all already payed for but will be returning for a credit means that you can almost guarantee at any given time they are in debt to us. Thats why every time I hear of Network stopping an account for being 1 day late my first thought is what a bunch of arsehole.
This is bullying plain and simple. Everyone who got the email should email Gotch back and complain.
Publishers who use Gotch should be concerned for newsagents may strike out.
Why gotch have to try and bully every time i do not know ,how sad are these people crap
I wonder if, with the number of newsagencies closing and the general decline in magazine sales, they are struggling with their own cash flows and debt servicing so pass it down to us.
A newsagency two or three suburbs away from me must have closed during the last week or so and I had a call from one of the magazine distributors asking if I would like to take on this other closed agencies sub agents. I assumed that they had already been through all of the closer newsagencies (if they’re still financial) and had been turned down to get to me and I turned them down as well but pointed them to the home delivery distributing agent who now covers most of the old pre T2020 shmozzle areas. I honestly couldn’t see a reason to take on more pain with addittional magazine hassles.
Spoke to gotch re stopping of small agents but not the 7-11 who get next to nothing not going to happen, bully the small but ok for others gotch all over
Dear Gotch,
Your email, which is bullying, should not be sent until the 21st, since you cannot tell until then who has paid you on the 20th and the bank statement is available to you.
It should also be specific about exactly when you will stop delivery of magazines, and when they will be begun again when payment is made.
Be fair.
h, spot on. We are still waiting for an apology for the email that G&G sent to around 70 newsagents (all email addresses included) saying we and they had not paid their bill when we and a number of others had paid. Very poor form from G&G and proves they do not give a stuff and will continue to abuse the Newsagency channel.
We could all send an email asking to please check and get back to us as we believe we had paid and has there been an error. They would then be obliged to reply to each one of us individually saying Sorry yes we have received your payment.!!!!
Is this a state issue? By that I mean is there an over zealous collection officer sending these to their individual account base?
Well today I received an email apologizing for yesterday’s email. Apparently it was an “oversight” and wont happen again. Hmm yeah right.
me too Vicki, they must have been threatened with some sort of “harrassment or bullying in the workplace” by someone so they’ve sent the email to everyone by the sounds of things.
It is bullying and harrassment to continually hound us (daily from the 20th)
until we pay (always on the last day of the month because that is when we do our accounts and we cannot change just one person every month).
We have explained that 38 x 12 which is the 38 years we have been in this industry x every single month of the year and GG have ALWAYS had our money at
the end of each month but apparently that counts for nothing and we are still
threatened with non-delivery EVERY month.
What a shameful way to conduct business
and more shame to the ANF that they have never been able to stop GG and other companies from this sort of bullying behaviour.
If we treated our customers like that they would never return to us but we have to put up with this sort of behaviour from people to whom we are their customers.
Obviously (like us) they must have cashflow problems too.
When a mag is increased by 100% (from 3 to 6 copies e.g.) with NO SALES TO SUBSTANTIATE THE INCREASE is isn’t hard to work out why.
The question is HOW TO STOP THIS.
Over to the ANF again.
Oh well I wasn’t grumbling because I never pay them on time anyway.
Hi June
Whilst everyone may complain about G&G, Network are in a class of their own.
Knowing we would be away for 3 weeks (yes a 3 week holiday) I paid both Network and G&G early – I estimated the amount.
Fair enough I thought BUT no!
A letter from Network telling I can’t pay an even amount, it has to be the correct statement amount.
Oops, I over paid them (NS) $1300.00 and their are still not happy!
Enjoy your week –
John
Today they email to remind us account is due on the 20th, like we’d forget!
Are they getting desperate?
ahh yeah that goes into the junk mail with the one I get on the 20th
Print these notices off and hang on to them. It could be useful evidence in the future.
I had my Gordon & Gotch magazine allocations locked in for 6 mths. It has been working great, no oversupply, I was able to adjust allocations slightly if I wanted to. I had cut down on returns as supply was right based on previous sales. No new magazines unless I ordered them. This allowed me to get my account down to a manageable amount, as before it was getting way out of control. Everything was as I would expect the magazine supply model to be.
Well this week has seen magazines jump by over 100% in allocation. Magazines I have been selling 7 copies of based on supply of 8 for the last 6mths have jumped to 17 copies. Another I have been selling 5 copies of for the last 12mths has jumped to 13 copies this week. I contacted Gotch about why the sudden oversupply of magazines. This is their reply.
“The increase is because your Standing Order request has expired, which exposed you to our normal allocation procedures”
How can their normal allocation procedures be so off the mark? My supply has been spot on for 6mths.
This shows that we are oversupplied with magazines and their system is not based on previous sales.
Something needs to be done!!
FOR ONCE (WHILE TOUCHING A PIECE OF WOOD) my supplies have been pretty good lately I have even had to do some increases with my weekly magazines , I love this time of year the grey nomads start flowing through town and like to spend ,yesterday I found myself restocking some weeklys from woollies so I had enough stock for the weekend ,not something I like doing but it must be done
I never pay til end of the month
Rick how do you get away with that?
I have had an account with them for over 25 years and if I am a day late they stop me.
Only needed to do this once to me recently and I pay on 20th as it causes too many problems.
I wonder if they have a list because this happened when my shop was for sale but never before when I always paid regularly around 28th of the month.
Is anyone getting “buckets” of Italian mags from IPS (took over speedimpex)
I only dealt with SI for Burda mags and since IPS bought SI we have been inundated.
I have requested them to stop as I do not
have a demographic where Italian mags sell but to no avail.
This is just blatantly pushing stock out with total disregard for the ability or viability of the agent to sell the product.
Surely when you name the product and give the code and ask for STOP it should
be adhered to???
Anyone else having this problem?
Not here June. Call them. If you get no joy let me know and I’ll escalate for you.