When a member doesn’t pay.
Every chapter has a few. The instinct is to escalate; the thing that actually works is to talk early and keep a record. Here is the order to do it in, and what to have ready before anyone outside the chapter gets involved.
The whole thing, in five lines
- 1Have the conversation before the due date, not after it.
- 2Offer a payment plan in writing. Most unpaid balances are timing, not refusal.
- 3Keep the record: what was billed, what they confirmed, every reminder sent.
- 4Escalate inside the chapter first — standards, then nationals.
- 5Talk to a lawyer before you talk to a collections agency.
Escalate in order. Don’t skip steps.
Each rung costs more goodwill than the one before it, and the chapter has to keep living with this person. Going straight to the bottom of this list over a first-time late payment is how chapters lose members they wanted to keep.
A conversation
Almost every unpaid balance is a member whose financial aid is late, whose parents stopped paying, or who is embarrassed. A treasurer who asks in private, early, resolves most of these without anything else on this page.
A payment plan
Split the balance across the rest of the term and write it down. A member paying $75 a month is worth more to the chapter than a member who owes $600 and avoids the group chat. Post it as installments so the reminders track it automatically.
Standards or judicial board
This is your chapter’s own process, and it is the first real escalation. What it can do is set by your bylaws — usually loss of voting rights, loss of good standing, or ineligibility for formal. Read them before you invoke them; a standards hearing that exceeds what the bylaws allow gets reversed and costs you credibility.
Your national headquarters
The strongest leverage most chapters have, and the most underused. Nationals hold things a member actually cares about: initiation, good standing, the alumni record, sometimes the degree audit at graduation. They also handle this constantly and will tell you what they expect to see. This is where a clean record matters most.
Small claims or an agency
Rare, and rarely worth it. Small claims takes a filing fee, a court date, and a judgment against a student who often has nothing to collect against. Agencies take a large cut and bring real legal exposure. Neither should be a first thought, and neither should happen without counsel.
The record is the whole game.
Standards boards, national headquarters and lawyers all open with the same question: what was owed, when, and what did you do about it? Chapters usually can’t answer it — the amount is in a spreadsheet, the reminders were texts, and the agreement was a vote nobody wrote down. GreekLink keeps all four of these as they happen.
What was billed
The cycle, the line items, the amount assigned to that member, and any adjustments — late fees, credits, waivers.
What they acknowledged
When a member confirms a dues assignment in the app, GreekLink stores the amount and the schedule exactly as they saw it. Later edits to the cycle do not change what they agreed to.
What you sent
Every reminder, with its date — due in 7 days, due today, 3 days overdue, 7 days overdue, and the moment a late fee applied.
What they paid
Every payment, its method, whether it was confirmed or rejected, and the Stripe reference for anything paid online.
Where to find it
Open the dues cycle, expand the member’s row, and choose Statement. You get one page: the balance, what they acknowledged in their own words, and everything that has happened in order. Print it to PDF or export the record as CSV.
Before you call an agency
Sending a member to collections is a legal act, not an administrative one. It puts your chapter under federal debt-collection and credit-reporting rules, and it turns an internal problem into one with an outside party and a paper trail you no longer control. Chapters have been sued over it.
It is also rarely worth the money. The balances are small, the debtors are students, and the reputational cost inside a network where everyone knows everyone is much larger than the amount recovered.
If you are considering it anyway, talk to your national headquarters and to a lawyer in your state first — in that order. GreekLink does not refer chapters to collections agencies and does not report unpaid dues to credit bureaus.
This guide is general information about how chapters typically handle unpaid dues. It is not legal advice, and GreekLink is not your lawyer.