Merry Christmas, Sorry We Forgot to Invoice You Last Year

As we all know, non-profits are struggling to keep afloat in today's economy. It's the holidays, and while people are out hustling to buy gifts for families and loved ones, the gift of charity has fallen by the wayside for most. So imagine my surprise when I opened up my email this morning to find an invoice from VoiceNation for $4.05 dated May 2008.

Now, VoiceNation (who was VoicePlus when we first signed up with them nearly six years ago) offers a free Internet-based voicemail service to 501(c)(3) non-profits. This is a huge asset to us since we are an all-volunteer group without a central office. The service has had its hiccups, but overall, we've been pretty satisfied.

Last May, I attempted to start using it's Internet fax feature to fax pages from my Word Documents to our vets. I thought this would be great and help cut down on my excessive driving. Well, the service was a dud. I called and complained that my faxes were not being received, and that the service would make 10 or more attempts to send the fax and charge me for it. I was told that they had not had anyone else call to complain but that I would not be charged for the faulty service... but they forgot to add "until the end of next year."

I fired back an email that I would not be paying the bill from a year and a half ago for a service that did not work and we discontinued using. What they sent me back was a notice that my account had been canceled and our voicemail number disconnected.

Now, this is not the first time we've had them send automated messages in error, and I'm guessing that it won't be the last. But when I called to complain, and yes, I was agitated at this point, I was given an explanation as to why we got the bill in the first place:

"Our operations manager just realized that we hadn't been billing non-profits enough, so they are having us send out these invoices to try and collect for back payments."

Wow. I wish my other utilities would forget to bill me for more than a year. But I have to admit, I wouldn't enjoy getting a full invoice just in time for Christmas.

Something about this story sounds very familiar though... has a tinge of the Ebeneezer Scrooge feeling to it.

Well, after my phone call, I received a very short and simple email from them with the invoice as an attachment:

"Transaction was voided."

At least they get right to the point. I will say that at least the woman I spoke with on the phone said she was only following the instructions sent by her supervisor to close the account, but that she would fix it immediately for us. She was very polite and patient in trying to appease me, which I'm sure didn't help her to have a good day at the office.

I'm sure I'm not the only one with a Scrooge story this year. Is there a hashtag for that?



Invoice sent to my email this morning. You'll notice that I apparently sent a 134 page fax at one time last May, not to mention that the "Previous Balance" and "Current Charges" don't give the right "Total Due."