Ever had the experience of a service provider sending you an email with the message:

‘Our records show your invoice payment is overdue – please disregard this if payment has been made or make immediate arrangements for settling the account.’

Maybe the wording varies slightly, but we received three with the same theme in as many weeks, and my response has been, ‘We have sent you a cheque…’ Which is the same as the old cliche, ‘Your cheque is in the mail.’

That may be a time-honoured way of delaying a debt payment, but in our case it was true and in each...