Credit requests - only for deadbeats

[greensinestro]

Why does it always seem like the people who request credit on an account are the ones who don't pay their bills? I've been working at my current job for over a year now, and I finally can tell a story about one of these. I always thought it happened mostly in residential service, but I find it also goes on in business.

Part of my job is toll free service, ordering 8xx numbers for businesses. We have this company who is another one of those debt solutions companies, trying to help people get out of debt, no matter what they've maxed out on their credit cards. Two weeks ago, I ordered a toll free for this business, and after providing the guy with the number, I explicitly told him, "Do not give this out, and please do not print it onto stationary, business cards, or any advertising until this number is up and running." A toll free like the one he wanted also takes five to seven business days to complete, not counting weekends and holidays.

Well, this guy had changed his mind, had me cancel the order, and then another co-worker ordered another toll free for him. Days later, I got this angy e-mail from him, demanding to know why his number wasn't working yet. Excuse me? He canceled the number, at least that's what I thought. "I must have that number immediately, plus you've been ignoring me." He complained to my boss because I had stopped e-mailing him after he canceled his order.

So, I had to work my ass off and expedite this order, and it was completed the same day it would have been had we left well enough alone. A week later, our vice president inquired with me on this and had me pull all of my e-mails back and forth with this guy. Turned out he had given out this number and printed it up, just like I told him not to do, and because it was not completed on the day he wanted it, he was demanding a $3,500 credit.

It was discovered this guy owes our company over $4,000, and this was his way to offset that amount by thousands. Our VP told him "no" on the credit request since I had proven with my saved e-mails that we made no promise to him that this number would work on a certain day, let alone we told him not to do anything with it prior to it working.

A word of advice to everyone who works in an office.....save your e-mails! They can be a big ass saver.

[Skeksin]

Well I don't work through email typically but all calls are recorded for quality assurance purposes.

[Andara Bledin]

I actually specifically email certain people to make sure I have a record of my dealings with them. I'll even print them out against system failure if it's important enough.

Some schmucks are just too slimy to deal with without having a record of what you've actually said and done.

^-.-^

[raw456]

I archive all my emails. You never know when you will need them. A papertrail is very hard to fight. I love getting a customer who will swear black and blue I told him such and such or something and I just tell them well according to my email to you on this date....blah....blah....blah.. Watching (or hearing) them deflate - Priceless

At my last job, not only did i print harcopies of emails that I felt were important, I even forwarded a few to my personal account just in case. And well worth it after our system crashed just after we moved premises and my "hardcopies" got lost.

[Nihonjin]

I'll have to post and agree with archiving emails or at least conducting a lot communication as it really stands up for you when someone decides to go back on their words or tries to scam you.

I checked my external email database archive: 1.2GB of about 5 years worth of emails. Since I work in the audit field, a paper trail or in this case email trails, are very important when your client changes their story. Countless times, I've had to backtrack through my archives to find out where someone said something and would deny it.

In personal transactions in my side jobs, same thing. It has saved a ton of time in avoiding arguments with people who deny what they said. It gets even better when they try to say "Oh, that was not me...". Right.

Anyway, my email database is priceless and it would be a huge problem if I lost it... thus I keep it safely stored in at least three places.

[PepperElf]

plus, for internal mail those read-receipts come in handy too. like when someone yells that you "didn't tell me this!"... you can reply, "i sent you an email on this date and you opened the email on this date"


and of course for the SCs ... pay your bills!

[crashhelmet]

We get a lot of customers like that. They either don't pay their bill on time or ONLY call in around their billing date and whine, bitch, and complain that their Internet service NEVER worked or is "slower than dial-up" and then demand credits. They always refuse to troubleshoot and if we can get them to, they accuse us of "flipping a switch" to make it work. The day I quit, I'm going off on these assholes.

CH