So, this month I got really sick of the same old mess happening. It seems we enter into so many service oriented agreements with phone companies, internet service providers, advertisers, etc... and for me, it is many times the same old story. Promises, promises, but then when we have signed our "service agreement" or contract, no delivery on the promises.

 Ask LOTS of questions before you sign on the dotted line!

If you are a busy person, and I pray that you are...you don't have time to spend hours on the phone disputing charges that are small, but unauthorized or even sometimes large, but difficult to enforce. Have you ever tried to fight with the phone company? You can be on hold FOREVER and then you are transferred from one department to another. One day I spoke to 7 people in succession and spent the entire afternoon and was no better off than when I started.

 Not to mention all of the buck passing and finger pointing that goes on BETWEEN departments within a company that you call to complain about!

Well, this month I decided, "Hey...I have favor with God and man. I'm a fair business person and I should get what I pay for! Even if it takes me days and hours and all sorts of faxes and e-mails, I'm going to enforce some of these service agreements with the private phone company, internet provider and the media advertiser. After all, what if I get a listing contract signed and then the Seller never hears from me again...am I entitled to payment at closing? HECK no!"

 But you feel like just another face in the enormous crowd sometimes!

So, after a month of hard work and over 40 hours of arguing, disputing, writing, and getting in touch with the claims departments, using the prescribed arbitration means, I am proud to announce that we are:

1. Released from our one sided contract with the private phone company who over-promised and under delivered with NO PENALTY for early termination. They sold us a T-1 connection that was SLOWER than our DSL service.

2. Released from our advertising conflict with a local phone book that never designed our ad, added our logo or pertinent information to the proposed ad and has been billing us hundreds of dollars per month as we dispute.

3. Released from the early termination contract from the original phone company who wants us back as a customer and is willing to waive charges as we come back.

 We have better places to spend the money!

In short, these hours of work have saved our business over 10,000.00 this year. Sometimes IT IS WORTH IT to cut through all of the red tape and enforce your rights! I'm sure there are many billions of dollars wasted annually simply because busy professionals don't want to take on the system...don't let them have YOUR MONEY!