It pays to pong
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auliers having trouble getting customers to pay their bills should take heart from the latest technological development which proves it pays to kick up a stink. A chemical company has developed a smell which, when applied to bills, increases the likelihood of bad-payers reaching for their cheque books. The smell is associated with aggressive males.
There is nothing new about the pong, it's based on a substance called androstenone, which is normally found in men's armpits. But in tests carried out by an Australian company, which regularly sends out 2,000 invoices, 17% more people paid up when they received bills treated with the substance.
But there are drawbacks. Many women find the smell attractive because of a primitive instinct to search out an aggressive mate, and pigs go wild 1, for it.
Livestock hauliers with female credit controllers should beware.