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I did follow up with emails and even a phone call. When there was no response to my follow ups I assumed the problem had been resolved. As for not taking the t

I did follow up with emails and even a phone call. When there was no response to my follow ups I assumed the problem had been resolved. As for not taking the time to find a reader, according to the file type, it is a Word HTML file. I am a Mac user and Word for the Mac will not open the file. And yes, I could probably spent more time searching for a reader, but come on, an invoice from Microsoft should be in a more common format. Heck the Word standard doc format would have been helpful. And there is no excuse for not responding to my request to re-send the invoice. The collection agency had no problems sending the invoice to me in a PDF. -KIRBY

saturnine 16y ago
True story: I owned a small business in the late 90s. At some point we had a billing dispute with Sprint long distance. Briefly, we required our (large) telephone bill to be sent to us electronically (diskettes at that time) so we could rebill our customers. For some reason which I don't recall, we only received the paper invoice for a month or two. Every time Sprint called looking for payment, we told them to just send us the electronic data and we'd pay the bill. They never did, and eventually it got turned over to a collection agency, which began hounding us. When that happened, I created a fictitious lawyer working for our company and had him author a sternly worded letter to Sprint. It reiterated the facts, firmly stated that we have no intention of paying, and demanded that they remove (I recall using the word 'extirpate') all traces of this obligation. The amount in dispute was much more than $100, so the time involved was worth it. I mailed the letter and we never heard anything more about it.
jf 16y ago
Kirby, I just sent you an email. I'd like to try and help you if I can. (The same goes for anybody else on HN by the way.)

saturnine 16y ago

True story: I owned a small business in the late 90s. At some point we had a billing dispute with Sprint long distance. Briefly, we required our (large) telephone bill to be sent to us electronically (diskettes at that time) so we could rebill our customers. For some reason which I don't recall, we only received the paper invoice for a month or two. Every time Sprint called looking for payment, we told them to just send us the electronic data and we'd pay the bill. They never did, and eventually it got turned over to a collection agency, which began hounding us. When that happened, I created a fictitious lawyer working for our company and had him author a sternly worded letter to Sprint. It reiterated the facts, firmly stated that we have no intention of paying, and demanded that they remove (I recall using the word 'extirpate') all traces of this obligation. The amount in dispute was much more than $100, so the time involved was worth it. I mailed the letter and we never heard anything more about it.

jf 16y ago

Kirby, I just sent you an email. I'd like to try and help you if I can. (The same goes for anybody else on HN by the way.)