It Had To Happen

By now you're familiar with the Enron problem a few years ago. You might also have been taken by Bernie Madoff. It seems if there's a way to get taken, someone will do it.

Well, after 18 years in business, it finally happened to us.

In the middle of January, 2008, we received a commitment form, signed by the President of the PTO at Godley Elementary, Patty Dickey, committing to our Basic program for the 2008-2009 school year.

They sent us the orders and we made the packs, but made a mistake. We produced the wrong packs. We sent all the correct items to complete the packs and told them to just keep the items we had sent in error.

We then re-billed them and that's when the problems started. They didn't pay. Since school was out, we contacted the alternate contact for the school but she had moved, left no forwarding address, did not respond to telephone calls or emails. We knew we were in trouble. The school still owed us $1700.

We finally wrote to the Patricia (see the attached letter, Godley Letter) asking for payment. At first she didn't respond. She knew that there was money due and eventually sent a check for $700 but marked it for "Final Payment". Obviously, we couldn't accept that and write off $1000. We're not that big and we were owed the money.

To make a long story short, the school refused to pay saying that neither the school district, the school or the PTA was responsible for the actions that Patricia took. Wow! You would think that someone signing for the group would make the group responsible.

Our mistake was not taking the $700. Godley has now sent us a Cease and Desist letter stopping us from collecting our money. While told that we had a strong case, the fact was that we would end up spending more to get our money than we could collect.

It kind of makes us afraid to trust anyone out there. They not only received all those products but also kept the items we sent in error. I believe an overwhelming number of people are honest and pay their bills and we'll keep doing our thing the way we should.

So move over Bernie. There's a whole group of people out there that won't do the right thing.