Lancet has a useless billing system

<p>To my astonishment, I received a phone call this morning from a debt collection agency informing me that I owe Lancet Laboratories R348.66 for tests done on 17 November last year, about 6 months ago. This was complete news to me, as I had not received any form of communication from Lancet invoicing me for this bill: no letter, no e-mail, no phone call, no SMS, no Whatsapp, no smoke signal, no carrier ***eon and no Harry Potter owl came within 6 months.</p> <p> </p> <p>I'm not disputing that I had the tests, nor that I owe the money - in fact, I paid immediately according to the instructions that the debt collection agency gave me. However, I am FURIOUS beyond comprehension that Lancet did not ever contact me to recover this money (it's a relatively small amount and I would have paid it immediately had I known). Instead, they chose to subject me to the indignity of having a debt collector contact me. This is unforgivable, and I hope that there will be no further consequence on my credit record, which is 100% clean as I always pay what I owe.</p> <p> </p> <p>Lancet, how should I have known that I owed you this money? Should I have guessed? Consulted a psychic? Gone to a sangoma? And why did you not simply phone me before going to the debt collector? You would have saved yourselves a huge amount of trouble and would have gotten your money within minutes of sending me the phone call. I am really annoyed about this incident and I expect someone to contact me with an apology.</p>