Righting a Wrong

I’ve been having a running battle with my local Vons Supermarket. They cheat. So what does this have to do with Strategic Credit Management Solutions? I’ve said it before; it takes a peculiar, perhaps a unique, behavior type to be an effective credit professional. Additionally, a seasoned credit professional may take on certain behaviors that manifest themselves in areas other than the job itself.

Credit managers are advocates for the integrity of the company’s billing process. It is easier to collect a bill that is accurate than one that is not. There is no excuse for not paying a valid bill. But the customer is not going to pay an incorrect invoice; therefore, it falls on the credit person to fix it. When product is sold damaged, incomplete, or at a price other than the quoted one, credit people become advocates on the customer’s behalf. As a result, credit managers are their employer’s conscience.

Nothing is more offensive to the credit professional than to be taken advantage of. Customers who cheat and lie are evil, plain and simple. It is one thing to make a deduction when the price is wrong, but it is quite another to take a deduction for no other reason than to cheat the vendor and to assume immunity.

When no dispute exists and a customer known to have the resources still refuses to pay, he is the villain. He had after all, made a promise to pay when he signed the credit application. Credit managers have always been on the side of righteousness and justice. We are the enforcers of the law and we claim the moral high road. We wear the white hats.

So, when Vons cheated me, I was moved by moral indignation. Not simply because I was a victim, but because the store was cheating our entire local tomato buying community. I picked out three tomatoes from a bin at the entrance to the produce area that advertised them at 98 cents a pound. Altogether they weighed almost a pound and a half, yet I was charged $4.31. Because one of the tomatoes had a little green stem, the cashier assumed all three were “hothouse tomatoes” which sell for $2.99 a pound. I complained to the supervisor who blamed the mix up on customers who take tomatoes from one bin and leave them in another. Since I had similar issues several times in the recent past, I claimed that the "mistake" was intentional. Again, years of credit management, years of looking at and questioning credit applications and bogus claims for credits have made me maybe a little cynical. I was told that I was the only customer to complain. Not surprisingly, I thought. Most just shrug it off, but credit people get pissed off.

Credit people call and confront delinquent customers and we challenge those who for whatever reason make illicit deductions or fail to make good on a commitment. It becomes second nature. I retuned the next morning, just to see if perhaps the tomatoes in the 98 cent bin were better indentified. I bought two tomatoes, both had been placed upside down in the bin and they had little green stems and were sold to me by yet another cashier as “hothouse” tomatoes. I was charged $2.66 for two tomatoes that weighed less than a pound.

If the accounts payable clerk cannot commit to a payment date or a payment amount, the collector moves up the chain of command. I went to the manager. He professed it was an innocent mistake. I told him this problem was too reoccurring and I’d brought it to the attention of others previously. He acted no differently than an applicant with a bad credit history who attempts to place the blame elsewhere. He wanted to give me a gift certificate. That was like a customer offering me a bribe to let his payments slide another month. I told him I was filing a claim with the district attorney. This may not be on the magnitude of Enron or the Madoff ponzi scheme, but it was illegal nevertheless. I told him I wanted to be able to come into the store and not worry about being cheated. I told him, I was speaking on behalf of all of the customers who expect honest treatment when they come into this store.

Last I looked, the bin with the 98 cent tomatoes was well tagged, and the green stems were gone.

Strategic Credit Management Solutions is dedicated to making it right. Contact us at patrickpowers@sbcglobal.net and see our website http://powerscredit.com/. Your comments are welcome.