Our daycare provider pissed me off

[doom1701]

It's a good provider, but their directory riled me up yesterday regarding our billing and a "late" fee.

Kaylee goes to daycare one day a week. Until about 3 weeks ago, each week I'd take her in and there would be an invoice for us in the signin book--the invoice was the amount for the previous week. I'd let Jen know the amount (sometimes she'd stay an extra hour, so the amount varies slightly) and Jen would write out a check when she picked up Kaylee in the afternoon.

2 weeks ago, I get an invoice for 1 week we already paid for, the previous week (which I actually had a check for), the current week, and about 3 weeks into the future. I asked the woman in the office about it--she said that the invoice probably had some future dates on it, and I shouldn't worry about it.

Last week, there's no invoice at all in the book. I didn't have the time to ask what was up.

This week, there's an invoice for daycare services for about 6 weeks on it. It covered all the way back to the first week of January (2 weeks we had already paid for) and through the middle of February. At the bottom was the total for all 6 weeks, and then a hand written correction showing how much we owed for the 4 weeks (including the future weeks) we had not yet paid.

And attached to that was a letter saying that we were being charged a $15 late fee for being deliquent on our account.

I went through our checking account and verified that the hand written total on the invoice was correct, and I called the provider later in the day and spoke to the director. I told her I had verified everything, but I was curious why we were being billed into the future. She said that they always billed two weeks ahead. That was bull, but I don't mind the idea of paying ahead, so I didn't argue it.

Then I say that Jen will be in with a check for the handwritten invoice amount in the afternoon, as long as she removes the late fee. She tells me that they've already done that once for me..and then corrects herself because she was referring to something totally different. She then tells me that it shouldn't matter if I didn't get an invoice the week previous--I should know how much I owe even if they don't give me an invoice. Then when she was done ranting, she agreed to remove the late fee.

So apparently they believe that I should be paying them whether they invoice me or not. I told Jen later that she'd probably love it if we just started paying them extra every week, too--if they can't even get invoices out in a timely fashion, nor can they print invoices that don't need hand written corrections, I'm sure extra money would just disappear into the books.

OK, I feel better now.

[thevargasgrl]

There is no reason to pay a bill that varies without first seeing an invoice. If this ever happens again, I'd ask to speak to the woman's supervisor. The way she treated you was *very* rude.

[doom1701]

Originally Posted by thevargasgrl

There is no reason to pay a bill that varies without first seeing an invoice. If this ever happens again, I'd ask to speak to the woman's supervisor. The way she treated you was *very* rude.

The only person she reports to is the owner--it's not a big daycare center. What's strange is that we've always enjoyed working with them, including the director, in the past. Her attitude yesterday was very different from what I've seen before. Maybe she was just having a bad day.

[Marc]

Today must be the day for billing issues.

Barry got back from the flight school. He wasn't able to fly due to a problem with a light on the plane (related to the landing gear status), but he did ask how much was in his account. It was several hundred dollars less than what he thought it should be.

Upon closer inspection, he found that he had been double billed for a couple of $195.00 lessons from 2005 (they were rebilled on the same dates but in 2006).

Then, he looked even further.

The flight school gives bonus credits when you buy a block of time by prepaying large amounts. A $500 deposit gets you 3% extra, $1000 gets 5, and $3000 gets 7.5%.

Well, he was missing several of these bonus amounts. All totalled, his account was short by just over $1,000! While doing this, he checked my account and found I was missing some as well as I got an extra $300.

All totalled, our accounts went up by $2,000, due to errors made over the past two years.

[doom1701]

You know what I think it boils down to? It used to be that a small business like that would have someone that handled their billing and accounting. They get computers, though, and think they can now handle it all themselves. Unfortunately, they don't realize that the computer can't think for you or ensure that you are feeding it correct data--they fly through some rather important stuff with limited accuracy, and the customer has to be the one to find it.

[keirgrey]

And that's where people like you and I, Tim, make our living. Telling them that their computers are stupid.