Big companies advise if you can’t pay your bill, call to make payment
arrangements. Why don’t people do this? Most companies if you have a
plausible story about a one-time financial crisis will accept late payment or
work with you to reduce your bill.
I would advise customers:
a) if you can’t get current, pay what you can, it will probably buy you some
time
b) if you can’t pay anything, call to make some kind of an arrangement
c) once your service is suspended, just paying something will not get you
turned back on unless you have a very good story, at that point you must pay
the entire past due amount and any late fees to get turned back on
d) once your account is terminated and the equipment retrieved, you are paying
an install fee to restore service, or you may be on a “do not reconnect” list
and you will have to find another ISP to get service
Once these people do pay to get turned back on, they usually put it on a credit
card, which means they always had the ability to pay their bill, they just
wanted an interest-free loan, or they wanted to pay the biggest assholes first
and the biggest chumps last.
I remember a sign at a car repair shop:
We made a deal with the bank.
They don’t repair cars, and we don’t make loans.
From: Mark Radabaugh
Sent: Wednesday, November 11, 2015 12:30 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Steer customers to ACH (vs CC)?
Just the usual crap:
rcarlin [8:14 PM]
Heads up: [redacted] wife called in tonight VERY upset about her service being
closed. She was going to make a payment and I informed her that the service was
closed and we had picked up the equipment. She then complained for about 8
minutes to me about how horrible we are and that I couldn't do anything for
her, so she would call in the morning.
Be prepared to receive an earful because I don't think she is finished.
tima [8:16 PM]
Was he a non pay?
rcarlin [8:17 PM]
yup
rcarlin[8:17 PM]She was furious that we would pick up the equipment after such
a short time.
tima [8:20 PM]
Her last payment was 9-18
rcarlin [8:21 PM]
Oh and that we would turn off her service over $60
rcarlin[8:21 PM]"That isn't a business that I want to deal with"
tima [8:21 PM]
We said we would be out 10/30 to pickup and we waited till 11/10 haha
rcarlin [8:22 PM]
Yeah, she "never got that message"
rcarlin[8:22 PM]And was pissed about that also
tima [8:22 PM]
The businesses she wants to deal with are likely few and far between due to all
those bankruptcies due to no revenue being collected...
rcarlin [8:23 PM]
Oh no, she insured me that I would be out of a job after Amplex goes out of
business for disconnecting services like that
rcarlin[8:26 PM]"It wasn't even 2 months behind. Every other company is fine if
I'm 2 or even 3 months behind!"
rcarlin[8:27 PM]"You didn't even tell us about any of this!" We did leave a VM
for you and sent emails about the past due amounts. "Oh, so someone is a month
past due and you harass them with calls and emails?! That is ridiculous!”
On Nov 11, 2015, at 1:22 PM, Lewis Bergman <[email protected]> wrote:
We averaged one ACH bounce a year. I don't remember the percentage but I know
we were getting $40k or so auto pay. It just wasn't a big enough deal not to
use. I only had one repeat dishonest piece of crap that would watch for new
installers and give another false name to get service under and he wasn't an
ACH.
On Wed, Nov 11, 2015, 11:27 AM Mark Radabaugh <[email protected]> wrote:
A few customers discovered that game. After they pull that once or twice
we flag the account and refuse any further ACH payments. It’s a minor nuisance
at this point.
Mark
On Nov 11, 2015, at 11:52 AM, Adam Moffett <[email protected]> wrote:
The people who are cheating you as you describe below already have bad
credit and sending them to collections or not won't make any difference.
Where you'll get paid is when you're dealing with young people who made
errors in judgement and now are trying to buy a car or a house and realize they
can't until they pay off old debts.
I can't think of any "slanderous hate speech" incidents related to
collections, except maybe one.
On 11/11/2015 11:41 AM, Jeremy wrote:
I originally loved ACH, for the cost savings. Now I have realized that
it is the only way that a customer can defraud us with our current billing
method. They login and run an ACH on a delinquent account, get it turned back
on automagically, and then it bounces, we add a fee, they repeat the process,
we turn it off, add another fee, rinse, lather, repeat. Finally we give up and
go get the equipment and now we're out like $250. Being a prepaid service we
usually shut them off after 20 days and so that would be the most that anyone
could possibly hit us for (20 days of service). With checks they can bounce
the install and then play the re-activation game for two months before we get
frustrated and pull out.
We have yet to start sending customers to collections. For those of
you that are, how does it work out? Are the reclamation of these minor amounts
worth the slanderous hate speech that is sure to come from that customer for
life after you hit their credit? We have been eating the cost, cutting ties,
and moving on.
As far as how we push them toward ACH, I simply explain how bad bill
pay sucks. It is like sending cash in the mail and it goes through a third
party. If they are late mailing it then service gets shut off, and late fees
get added. I also tell them that credit cards cost us more to process than
checks. I basically just tell them that we prefer ACH, but we will take
anything. I regularly question whether ACH is a good idea or not. We have
more problem customers on ACH than any other payment method.
On Wed, Nov 11, 2015 at 8:41 AM, Ken Hohhof <[email protected]> wrote:
Our bank wants a $25/mo minimum fee for us to process ACH payments,
so we don’t accept ACH. The per transaction fee is not bad, but the minimum is
a problem.
From: Justin Wilson - MTIN
Sent: Wednesday, November 11, 2015 9:29 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Steer customers to ACH (vs CC)?
Give them a discount. Much of it depends on the bank. We had folks
who absolutely hated ACH because their bank would charge an overdraft if the
ACH failed. They like the CC, even if it was a debit card, because if the
money wasn’t there it just declines it. No $30 fee or whatever. But, it
depends on the bank. This is what wasn’t attractive to us was banks treated it
different. Credit card either runs or it doesn’t. ACH typically is not as
smooth for a variety of reasons.
Justin Wilson
[email protected]
---
http://www.mtin.net Owner/CEO
xISP Solutions- Consulting – Data Centers - Bandwidth
http://www.midwest-ix.com COO/Chairman
Internet Exchange - Peering - Distributed Fabric
On Nov 11, 2015, at 10:21 AM, Christopher Gray
<[email protected]> wrote:
For the people who accept both ACH and CC payments, do you do
anything to promote the use of ACH (to reduce your costs)?
Thanks - Chris
