The financial crises of 2008 affected all the economies around the world including Portugal. At present, more than a year later, markets have not recovered and households are still at risk. With an increasing unemployment rate that reached 9,5% in 2009, businesses face more than ever the risk of not being able to collect payments from the credit given to customers. Thus this has become a crucial issue for any firm. As the Risk Index for Portugal, created by Intrum Justitia (2009), indicates, “firms and consumers are taking longer to make payments and cancel their debts, suggesting that the longer an invoice remains unpaid, the probability of total payment diminishes (Intrum Justitia, 2009)”. In this context, the present study seeks to understand the payment characteristics of residential clients of the main gas (GPL) commercialization firm in Portugal, in order to create a consistent framework of knowledge that helps support future decision-making in the firm and in other utilities. The study is structured in two phases that relate to two different and consecutive processes along the cycle of credit recuperation. Firstly, we focused on clients´ behaviour at the moment of cancelling out their credit. For that purpose, we carried out a statistical analysis of the variable Invoice Value, differentiating between “good payers” and “bad payers” (depending on whether they paid the invoice before or after the expiration date respectively). For those clients considered “bad payers”, we also analysed the variable time as expressed in delay of payment after the expiration date, and its correlation with the value of the invoice. Secondly, we analysed clients´ reactions to the different criteria applied by the firm to cut off gas services to “bad payers” and the results obtained in each case.