The parents of a child who made gradual but consistent progress for the year and a half my therapists worked with him left the country with an unpaid bill of 16,000 aed (that’s roughly 4,000 dollars) after promising to pay. They ignored my phone calls and emails for three months. I caught the mother out by calling her from another number, and when I met her in person to discuss settling the unpaid bill, she said she didn’t want to pay the bill and if we insisted we pay then she would call the police and report my team for child abuse.
This, from a woman whose services were never stopped even when she was late to pay for months at a time, who was exempted from late fees because of the financial difficulty she said she was in, and who kept saying I had to trust her and that she would always pay and that she was not a cheat.
This, from a woman who said we were both mothers of special needs children and that we had to trust each other.
I run a zero-profit business and have not received a salary in two years. I have licensing fees to pay this month and staff who have a right to their salaries. It will most likely cost me more money to prosecute this woman than I will get back from her. So now what?
Humanity has hit a new low in my eyes.
Auzubillah.
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