KEN KIRSCHENBAUM, ESQ ALARM - SECURITY INDUSTRY LEGAL EMAIL NEWSLETTER / THE ALARM EXCHANGE You can read all of our articles on our website. Having trouble getting our emails? Change your spam controls and white list ken@kirschenbaumesq.com ****************************** Year old collection / Credit card company wants recertification yearly May 9,2022 *********************** Year old collection *********************** Ken We have a customer who has not paid us since 4/2/21. He has a balance of over $2500.00. He has been called, emailed, mailed, certified letter mailed etc. He always says he is going to pay, but never does. He says he doesn’t get our emails or our mail. He never picked up our certified letter, but our first class letter saying we are going to cancel after 30 days was not returned to us (but he will just say he didn’t receive it). Can we cancel his account without liability? What can we do? Anon ********************* Response ********************* Why would you carry a non-paying customer for a year? You most likely invoice in advance, like the rest of the alarm industry. That means you had the opportunity to terminate service days into the unpaid period. You send invoice January 15 or so for Feb 1. By Feb 10 you still don’t have payment. That’s 25 days after the invoice. If you want to give your customers credit then offer “house accounts” and charge interest. Then when you get beat you can at least think of yourself as a lending company. I’ll go out on a limb and make a statement which I think is categorical true: If you don’t charge you can have all the customers you want; they will be happy to accept your services. I’m going to assume you have an updated Standard Form Agreement, just for discussion purposes. There is nothing in that agreement that requires or authorizes communication by certified mail. You can send an email requesting confirmation of opening. If you send by regular first class mail there is a presumption of delivery. In any event, you apparently haven’t established a proper working relationship with your customer. Well, it’s a great relationship for your customer: you do the work and he doesn’t pay anything for it, claiming he never gets an invoice. Time to clue him in, and the rest of your customers; no invoice is necessary. They owe the money on the first of every month; no bill necessary; no grace period either. Also, you can terminate service immediately. Maybe the customer will get that notice of termination of service. By the way, you may have missed the article on May 1, 2022. You have to go after your customer within a year of the default. In your case that time has passed. You can still take a shot at going after the customer, but not with K&K’s collection department. We’re done chasing windmills. If you don’t send us your collection cases in timely manner then don’t bother [unless you want them handled “on the clock” so it’s your money we are wasting]. Want to experience an 80 to 90 percent successful collection experience, send K&K the cases sooner, rather than later. Contact K&K head collection paralegal Kathleen Lampert at 516 747 6700 x 319 or KLampert@KirschenbaumEsq.com. ******************** Credit card company wants recertification yearly *********************** Ken We use a merchant services account to process credit cards through our accounting program. We are being asked by the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) to renew our compliance each year. They send us a link and we must recertify. There are pages and pages of technical data specifications that we do not have adequate knowledge of to complete. We have asked our IT person, and he wasn’t entirely sure of what to do, our accountant last year said he had no idea. Do you have any knowledge of who we would contact that would be able to fill out this certification? Even the company requesting the information doesn’t have any help. Same anon as above ************************ Response ************************ My advice, since you asked, is change credit card merchants. Contact Contact Biller Genie at 877-245-5374 or visit their website to learn more https://hubs.ly/H0f8Mxd0 Ask for the boss, Tom Aronica and tell him I told you to call and you want VIP treatment. [listed on The Alarm Exchange in the Financial Category] *************************** To order up to date Standard Form Alarm / Security / Fire and related Agreements click here: www.alarmcontracts.com *************************** CONCIERGE LAWYER SERVICE PROGRAM FOR THE ALARM INDUSTRY - You can check out the program and sign up here: https://www.kirschenbaumesq.com/page/concierge or contact our Program Coordinator Stacy Spector, Esq at 516 747 6700 x 304. *********************** ALARM ARTICLES: You can always read our Articles on our website at ww.kirschenbaumesq.com/page/alarm-articles updated daily ******************** THE ALARM EXCHANGE - the alarm industries leading classified and business exchange - updated daily ************************* Wondering how much your alarm company is worth? Click here: https://www.kirschenbaumesq.com/page/what-is-my-alarm-company-worth ****************************** Getting on our Email List / Email Articles archived: Many of you are forwarding these emails to friends or asking that others be added to the list. Sign up for our daily newsletter here: Sign Up. You can read articles and order alarm contracts on our web site www.alarmcontracts.com ************************** Ken Kirschenbaum,Esq Kirschenbaum & Kirschenbaum PC Attorneys at Law 200 Garden City Plaza Garden City, NY 11530 516 747 6700 x 301 ken@kirschenbaumesq.com www.KirschenbaumEsq.com
