Last year we received an odd call from a larger service provider who said they didn't understand why we'd told CBF to have them pay our bills.  They said they'd been getting monthly statements from them and it wasn't until a manager (with whom I was speaking) happened to notice their billing address is in MD, where this larger company is based and where their core market is that the red flag went up.  She said it was 'their bad' for paying CBF thousands in invoices they didn't owe.  CBF had never been a vendor for them.

I told her we had been invoiced per search and had paid those same thousands which were rightly owed by us.  This manager was seething, rightfully so.  I had less to be concerned about because I'd only paid what we actually owed.

How we work: because I use the bank's billpay, our vendors get a monthly check that pays all work done the previous month.  We advise everyone at the start that to reconcile the check they should request a remittance.  I can tell you less than 10% ever request one.  CBF never had/has.

When I contacted Carol at CBF about her claim to this other company that we TOLD her to bill them, she couldn't produce the email she told this other company we sent.  She claimed to have never seen a check from us.

We took the time to print every     single    month (each is done separately) for 2013 (though I believe this was taking place back to 2012) AND the billpay history showing all checks from us had been cashed and emailed them.  It was now up to them to fix what is at the least, sloppy accounting and at worst, intentional double dipping and taking advantage of this other company that was too big to notice the fist time so they kept doing it.

They never apologized to their actual client (us).  Months go by and I get one of those balance-forward type of invoices with more recent received checks backed out of the balance.  I asked what this balance-forward is and she told me they had to reimburse this other company and that's what we owe.  Huh?  I finally determined what they did was NOT use OUR remittances to correct what WE paid but instead reimbursed what they owed them and well - we just owed the rest.

I told her unless she could give me an itemized list of specific orders she believes weren't paid by us, I'm not paying anything more.  Sorry, we are not that other company that just pays what you bill them and I'm certainly not trusting their sloppy accounting.  She said their accounting had nothing to do with this and I need to pay my bills.  She threatened to discontinue accepting our orders (sorry, can't quit after you're fired) and threatened legal action.  Really?  I'd been somewhat decent up to this point but told her I'd given them the benefit of the doubt til now but really, repeatedly invoicing two companies and accepting payment from both for a year and thousands of dollars is really not a "mistake."  She claimed they'd place judgment.  No, you need proof it is owed so I'll be glad to drive to MD, see you then.

She told me she'd forward my email to her boss.  WHERE WAS HE ALL THIS TIME?  WHY WASN'T HE INVOLVED THE MINUTE THIS OTHER COMPANY CALLED AND WE CONTACTED THEM ABOUT THIS?  I thought she was the owner!  Are you kidding?  I told him he can thank his employee for losing him an actual client of theirs who was paying.

This guy asks me to send him all the remittances.  I told him to go find the (^&%&^$% email that we already sent!  The burden of proof is on them, its up to them to use those remittances and apply payment from US to the right orders.  Unless they can show me what orders we didn't pay (there are none), we're done.  I paid them early for some orders they did and noted that was the final payment.

That was a few months ago.  I contacted the other company and told the manager their recent antics and she said she'd always thought this whole thing was unsavory.

Can you believe we got another invoice from these people again?  I had no intention of making this public but potential customers need to know to beware.