With respect, Norman, I am not the one who is confused. It’s the home office, I did my part and got the confirmation. The mistake is not on my end. So please do not misattribute the confusion to me. (Have we arrived at Blame the Victim already?)
It seems almost like you are saying to me that you can’t really expect us to check and see if I have paid my bill before we send a notice telling me that I have not. Uh, yeh, I do. I fail to understand why that would be hard to do, even with a heavy volume. Whatever software you are using for dues payment should be able to quickly generate a list of delinquencies as of 12:01 AM 2/1/12 . Presumably, the software would be populated by snail mail payments as well as online. If anything the credit card transaction is easier, because the payment confirmation is almost instantaneous and should be automatically populated in the software. The snail mail has to be entered by hand. It seems strange to me that this software (HL?) could not within a few seconds generate a report showing a list of payments received, and remaining delinquencies as well. Print that report and check each letter against it before you stuff it into the envelope. The trashcan is at your feet, and letters for people like me are moved to the trashcan folder with a toss of the hand, and do not get mailed.
I’m not mad at anyone at the home office, but it is their job to do this, heavy mail volume or not. If they did not have time to do all this before 2/2, then perhaps they should have waited a day or two until they had time to thoroughly complete the process before sending out notices. I did not establish the deadline to be 1/31/12, the home office and/or the Board through the bylaws did. Which is more important – mailing the drop letters on 2/2, or making sure that the information is accurate?
Guess which one I think is most important.
Sincerely yours,
Will Truitt
From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Norman Cantrell
Sent: Monday, February 06, 2012 11:24 PM
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [pianotech] More Dues Paying Fiasco (Sigh.......)
Will
I am sorry for the confusion on your part. Please realize that while the credit card processing is done via computer the invoice you received in the mail was being processed by hand. The letters were printed in advance and were mailed out on February 2nd. I was at the home office for the Mid Year Board meeting and there were about four trays of letters being stuffed into envelopes by hand by the Home Office staff. Given the bulk of mail being processed it is not surprising that they did not take the time to remove the items that had come in via the computer. I have received such duplicate notices of payment due from other companies when either the check and the second notice passed in the mail or the mail was sent out at the same time a payment was posted via computer. PTG is not the only entity that has this experience.
By the way I checked and there were 81 credit card transactions on January 31 alone. That may not seem like a lot when compared to Wal Mart but the average number of PTG credit card transactions is about 7 to 10 per day. The staff and the system get a bit busier than usual during such peak times. I hope this helps alleviate your concerns.
Norman Cantrell, Secretary Treasurer
--- On Mon, 2/6/12, Encore Pianos <encorepianos at metrocast.net> wrote:
From: Encore Pianos <encorepianos at metrocast.net>
Subject: [pianotech] More Dues Paying Fiasco (Sigh.......)
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Date: Monday, February 6, 2012, 9:58 PM
A late update on my dues paying difficulty
After the better part of an hour trying to pay my dues the evening of the 31st, I got in, filled everything out, and payed my dues with my credit card. Shortly thereafter, I received the following e-mail:
Thank you for your $275.00 payment. Your payment has been applied.
Order INV-0040688 for Truitt, William T.
Total - $275.00
Balance Due - $0.00
******* PAYMENT INFORMATION *******
TOTAL RECEIVED: $275.00
RECEIPT:
MasterCard-Web (MasterCard)
Truitt, William T.
CreditCard #### #### ####
Ok, done deal, right? NOT. Today in the mail I received a letter from Sandy Roady telling me that I had not renewed my membership, and that my membership will be dropped in 30 days. Sigh……
I will call the home office tomorrow, and I am confident that this can be cleared up to the home office’s satisfaction and mine, and my membership confirmed.
Alas, I cannot summon such confidence when it comes to the functionality of the much beloved Higher Logic software. It seems likely that it told me that I paid my dues, but forgot to tell anybody else. Hence my letter. Which is why it makes feel so very confident in the security of the system, since it’s such a big secret to the world that it won’t tell anybody but me!!
Ok, you blame the victims people out there in Pianotech Forum land, pile it on….
Will Truitt
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