to “Some Invalid Suspension Notices Emailed Out”

1. Victor Matalon Says:
   May 5th, 2009 at 7:18 am

   I don’t understand what happened my card is on record and why are there 2 open bills?
   Please respond, I attempted to call and no one answered I left a message have not heard back.

2. Ken Forstrom Says:
   May 6th, 2009 at 7:49 am

   Victor,

   Please see http://www.purity.net/blog/2009/04/13/please-update-your-credit-card-information/

3. Sierra's Best Says:
   May 6th, 2009 at 6:02 pm

   What is the policy for Suspension? I hope you do have your system set to automatically suspend an account without a human calling us. If your system or you make a mistake (as has been known to happen in the past) I would ask that you do not automatically suspend without human interaction.

4. Sierra's Best Says:
   May 6th, 2009 at 6:05 pm

   What is up with all the security certificate errors on your site? I think you need to update your certificates.

5. George Roberts Says:
   May 6th, 2009 at 6:44 pm

   First, the certificate error… where are you seeing this? Our certificate is valid for https://manage.purity.net/, which is our Account Manager and billing system. If you’re looking at our old billing system, then yes, the certificate is expired. We’re not planning on renewing it since that site will be shut down soon.

   The policy for suspension is we send out notices at 3 and 5 days past due and on the 7th day the packages associated with the overdue invoice go into “Pending Suspension” status. Our staff will review the packages pending suspension the next day to make sure that the invoice is still outstanding and that suspension is warranted.

   Payment of the outstanding invoice will remove the associated packages from “Pending Suspension” status. If the packages do get suspended by our staff, payment of the oustanding invoice will reinstate the packages.

   We will not be contacting customers before suspending the package, as we give ample warning that the suspension will happen:

   * Email notice when the invoice is generated
   * If automatic credit card payments are set up (which we recommend everyone do) and the payment fails for some reason, a notice is sent.
   * Suspension warning at 3 days overdue
   * Suspension warning at 5 days overdue
   * Suspension notice at 7 days overdue, letting the customer know that the packages are now Pending Suspension.

   The only time we would contact a customer is if we receive bounce messages for the email notices. Then we contact the customer to get a valid email address and will let them know about the outstanding invoices, of course.

6. Sierra's Best Says:
   May 11th, 2009 at 1:22 pm

   I get the security warning at this address: http://www.purity.net/blog/2009/05/04/some-invalid-suspension-notices-emailed-out/

   I do not agree with your policy of automatic suspension without calling the customer. We have had nothing but problems with your billing since day1 and as shown by your recent troubles this does not give me confidence. Suspending an account after 7 days past due is unheard of and without attempting to contact the customer directly should be a crime.
   Suspending a customer automatically is the quickest way to loose a customer. Someone could be in the Hospital, or on vacation or the person in charge could have been laid off, or died or the credit card could have just simply expired and need to be updated. Just because you don’t get a bounce does not mean the message was received. Don’t forget that by using an automated payment system, we are depending on others as well; the Credit Card Company, the clearing house, the payment system you use and the payment systems we use, your email servers our email servers and the Internet itself and staff. There can be literally hundreds of points of failure in your payment system and email notifications. Please do not suspend customers without attempting direct personal contact.

   P.S. the Billing is still incorrect for our account. Please contact us by phone.

   Thanks.

7. George Roberts Says:
   May 11th, 2009 at 2:13 pm

   Nathan,

   I know we spoke on the phone and cleared a lot of this up, but for the benefit of everyone else, let me just say this:

   As stated previously, our system does not automatically suspend anyone. If a package reaches the 7 day past due mark, it goes into a queue where our staff reviews them before doing anything with them.

   Our staff may choose to suspend the package due to a customer history of past due balances or other factors. Our staff may attempt to contact the customer by phone to determine if there is an issue with the billing or some other way we can get it cleared up.

   I guess what I’m trying to stress is that a customer may not receive a call from us in all circumstances if their account goes 7 days past due. We may choose to simply suspend the account as per our terms of service.

   We understand that sometimes things happen and we want to make sure that our customers do not get suspended unnecessarily.