Deadlines: Inside the Growing List of Retailers Who Don’t Pay Their Debts

There’s a quiet, festering problem beneath the surface of the industry. It’s not mold, or pesticides, or regulators breathing down your neck. It’s unpaid invoices—dollar after dollar left hanging like a broken promise.

Through a confidential reporting system on our site, over 100 submissions have poured in from brands across the state. The numbers are jarring:

• $774,359.99 in confirmed outstanding debt

• $6,002.79 average balance per submission

• 700.6 average days past due

and that’s just from the brands who reported…

The submissions reveal a disturbing pattern—repeat offenders. Same names. Same games. A cycle of ordering, ghosting, and shrugging off accountability like it’s part of the business model.

The Real Cost

This isn’t just about money. It's about survival. For small brands, a single unpaid invoice can be the difference between staying in business or calling it quits. When retailers refuse to pay, they aren’t just screwing over one vendor—they’re corroding the entire ecosystem.

Vendors stop offering Net 30s. Wholesalers tighten terms. Trust vanishes. Eventually, innovation dries up because no one wants to front the cost of trying something new if they know there’s a good chance they'll eat it on the backend.

Who’s Accountable?

Everyone wants the tea—names, numbers, receipts. But this isn’t just a gossip piece. This is an ethical minefield. Naming names without due process can have legal blowback. But saying nothing ensures the behavior continues unchecked.

So here we are: stuck between the need for transparency and the obligation to protect the people who risked coming forward.

What Now?

At this point, there’s enough weight behind these reports to justify getting the state involved. If enforcement doesn’t start stepping in, bad actors will continue using the industry as a personal credit line—interest free and consequence free.

If we don’t draw a line soon, we’ll lose the very brands that give this market its soul. The ones who go above and beyond on quality, education, and compliance. The ones getting stiffed while others cash in.

Let’s be honest: if this was any other industry, it’d be called what it is—fraud.