B Natural Music

Review: The business owner states that they are unwilling to come to a reasonable agreement with regards to monies paid, and the resolution of the equipment paid upon, concerning two rent to own contracts. With the intention of simplifying the explanation of this matter, the two contracts will hereby be referenced to as Contract One and Contract Two, with respect to their date of origin. Contract on and Contract Two were initiated under two individually separate set dollar amounts that were to be billed out individually on a per month basis per each separate contractual agreement. One payment card was provided by the collective holder of both contracts, which itself is not unusual. Contract One became paid-in-full as of the beginning of February. The very same contract was once more collected upon by the business owner again in February. The contract holder noticed the over-billing and contacted the business. The business owner stated in person, and once again later over the telephone to a second party, that the business itself had only been made aware of their over-billing and automatic withdraw of the funds regarding Contract One after the contract holder themselves contacted the business owner. The already questionable situation becomes less than ethical all of a sudden when the business owner personally admits to taking money over-billed on Contract One and applying monies directly toward Contract Two, ever before even being contacted by the contract holder about the supposed mistake. Now, the idea of this being some great misunderstanding or miscalculation by the business owner goes straight out the window. In fact more clearly it becomes assumable that the business owner purposefully chose to hide their knowledge of the over-billed contract in order to put a few more dollars into their pocket. While such questionably ethical business practices are common place in the world, should that really be what a local business practice is within a small town in the USA?

Product_Or_Service: Alto Saxophone

Desired Settlement: DesiredSettlementID: Refund

When the contract holder attempted to come to a reasonable agreement with the business owner regarding what to do with the equipment from Contract One and Contract Two, the business owner would not comply with the simplest of requests. All that is asked for is that the business owner accept one of the following terms 1) that the monies paid upon Contract Two are returned-in-full to the contract holder upon the return of the equipment associated with Contract Two; or 2) that the business owner accept equipment associated with Contract One to be returned by the contract holder and for all monies paid upon Contract One to be applied toward Contract Two, with any overage of monies paid to the business being returned to the contract holder.

Business

Response:

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 6, 2014/02/26) */

Contact Name and Title: [redacted] Partner

I believe I misunderstood what my customer was complaining about until I received the written complaint. My customer came in to the shop in mid-February and wanted to return the first sax (contract one) she was renting. I checked the rental log and saw that by the February payment she would own the sax and gave her that information. At that point I had not go on-line and checked the auto billings logs for February yet. Our credit card company bills automatically the 5th of the month. We have set it up to bill consecutively for 7 working days so that if funds are not available on the 5th our customers have a week to get funds in. When funds are not available a automatic e-mail goes to the customer each time a declined payment is received. Sometime after the 13th of the month I go online and down load the payment report and enter it into my excel spread sheet. This is usually done the on first weekend after the 13th when I have enough free time to complete it. At this time I resolve any overpayments or declined payments. Overpayments are credited and declined payment contracts are pulled to contact the customer. At the time my customer came in I had not downloaded the report but assumed that the payment had gone through, which it had, and that she owned one sax.

As to the statement of moving money from contract one to contract two that is what I normally do with customers that have multiple contracts since the money is still applied to their account. I think maybe that is why I did not understand what the complaint was. I thought they did not want to pay for the second sax or lose a the rental money paid if they returned one of the saxes. It was a bad assumption on my part and I should have listened more carefully.

In summary to clarify the following is where we stand currently although I guess it does not apply to this complaint:

The first sax (contract one) was rented December 2012. The cost to own the sax was $650. The payments of $45.00 went from December 2012 through February 2014. These payments of the first sax totaled $675 of which $25 was transferred the second sax. So as of February that sax was owned by my customer.

The second sax was rented September 2013 and the cost for purchase was $659. The payments went from September 2013 through February 2014. The payments of the second sax and an adjustment totaled $270 of which $25 transferred from the first sax totaling $302. So as of February the balance owed on that sax is $357.

I made that transfer completing the purchase price which applied $357 and leaving excess funds of $293 which I transferred back to the first sax that was being returned. That transfer made the first sax have a balance due of $286 which was going to be returned as rental instrument since it was not paid in full.

To simplify the explanation to own both saxe's $1309 would need to be paid in total. I received

$952 leaving a balance of $357

Options given:

Keep the first sax and continue to pay rentals until the second sax is owned.

Return the second sax instead of the first which does not change the accounting.