He was then charged another $250 fee for breaking his contract for not submitting final payment.
I had a guy try to do this to me once at an old job. I couldn't dig it up today, but I found a state "law" that stated no business was required to accept any payment containing more then 100 pennies. He was paying a $250 bill with 2 5 gal buckets of pennies. I told him I wasn't going to accept it unless he counted it in front of me. He then proceeded to tell me his payment was made in full as he was walking out, as I proceeded to tell him I had received no payment and I advised that without a receipt to prove his payment was made the company would not acknowledge it. After a couple of days someone took the buckets to the bank and low and behold there was only about $245 dollars in pennies, hhmmmm....Wonder how that happened?
Guess trying to be a d*@k doesn't always pay off.
Both I suppose. For the record I never touched his pennies so if he brought it in short or it just left short I'll never know. I do know that I've always provided the best customer service in any/every job I've ever had, that said his disgruntled attitude wasn't going to eat half my day counting pennies. As far as I was concerned, my time on the clock (trying to earn a living) was worth more then his time driving to the bank and all the aggravation that likely came to him for going out of his way to be obnoxious.
Had he handled his issue like an adult, it would have taken him 5 minutes to have the whole situation over and done with.
Fair enough, but I firmly believe that acting in a calm and reasonable manner while paying a bill you dispute in an annoying yet legal tender is one of the last legal forms of "protest" against malicious business practices (which medical providers/insurance companies are definitely guilty of many times).
There was no dispute, he owed the bill and he knew it, he never disputed it. He was real honest about going out of his way to be a pain in A$$. I couldn't agree more with the medical providers/insurance company statement!
Oh, and if you're "on the clock" in a position that entails receiving customer payments, then your time is already paid for and I personally believe that taking a "I'm too important to deal with your protested payment" attitude is not "providing the best customer service".
Just in my own defense, I was working a sales floor not a register. I had the ability to process payments for sales purposes. Just taking payments wasn't what I was there to do, I was trying to help him so he didn't have to wait around forever to make his payment. Once we sat down he quick jumped up and ran to his car to get the pennies. Every minute I sat there with him was a minute spent not making sales. It wasn't an "I'm to important" attitude, it was a commission sales job.
But that's just me talking. IMO if I'm working a register somewhere and my job description is to take customer payments, it's NOT my job to determine which customer payments to take and which payments to refuse. It's my job to take the payment, even if it sucks.
