Saint (St.) Thomas More Catholic Church – Chapel Hill NC – Who’s right? Ethics, Integrity & Getting Paid
If I’m wrong about this, please tell me. I’d love your comments. This is about Ethics, Integrity and getting paid in case you are wondering where I’m headed with this. If you have a small business, you need to know about things like this if you have not already “been there – done that.”
I was contacted by a computer consultant about coming to me for internet marketing consulting. I explained my fees and that my payment policy was Pay Pal in advance or a check at the time of service. Well, he showed up for the session and mentioned that he was on staff with St. Thomas More Catholic Church – Chapel Hill NC which he is according to their staff page. This had not come up in previous conversations. He also informed me that they pay promptly and I had nothing to worry about. O.K., it’s a church. He’s on the the staff. No problem, right? WRONG!
It is now, July 2nd, 2007. I provided the services Monday, May 21st, 2007. I still have not been paid and they are ignoring much of my communication at this point. My last verbal conversation with anyone was a VERY IRATE financial services person at the church last Friday, June 29th, 2007.
The conversation went something like this… “Peggy,on our staff, was on the phone with the lady from the church. The lady said…Check # ____ and for $_____ was mailed on June 4th, 2007. Peggy, we don’t have it. IRATE church representative, well, you’ll have to pay a $35 stop payment fee for us to issue another one. Peggy, please hold.”
“I then got on the phone with the lady who REFUSED in a VERY NON-CHURCH tone of voice to issue another check because they did their part… they mailed it. It didn’t matter to her that the check was lost, had not cleared the bank and that I had not received it. Their hands were clean because they put a .41 stamp on an envelope and mailed me something that I have yet to receive…. She clearly stated that it was not her fault and another check would not be cut unless I paid a $35 stop payment fee for a check that was obviously lost in the mail that I have NEVER had in my possession.”
Here are some DIRECT quotes from an e-mail that I received today July 2nd, 2007 about this matter…
In reference to it being lost and them not taking any blame: “There are some issues that either you, the UPS store or the Postal Service need to work out.”
In reference to me paying the $35 STOP payment fee for a check that I have never had in my possession: “I have checked with the office of Business Services of the Diocese of Raleigh, and this is the recommended practice.”
What’s your thoughts on this? Have you had similar experiences? Should I forgive the church for not getting my check to me? Should I pay the $35 stop payment fee? Who is at fault here? What about ethics and integrity? Am I out of line or is St. Thomas More Catholic Church – Chapel Hill NC out of line? At this point, do you think that I will ever get paid? Readers, please help me here.
David,
Matthew 18:15-17. 1 Cor. 6:1-7. I pray this helps.
I read the verses and appreciate your input.
Hmmm…
I can see the church’s point. However, I believe that they should pay the stop fee themselves and mail you another check for two reasons:
1: The payment was due before the services were rendered.
2: It’s their responsibility to pay you, not to mail the check into cyberspace.
Of course, their behavior is doubly disgraceful since they are a church. If you wanted, you could follow the chain of command at the church to get something done. I’m not sure how to do that in a catholic church, though…
~Adam
Hi mate
Yeh, annoying when that happens.
Unless I get 50% before I start… I don’t!
Well, a fine pickle indeed. Small business is full of little traps where work is done and not paid for, and is rarely enough to be worth suing over.
Does it hone our skills of discernment for a bad client?
Generally.
Does it mean it will never happen again.
Unlikely.
I worked for a large consulting firm that spent hundreds of dollars in time on client financial checks and contract checks, but even they still got screwed occasionally.
Good luck with it all, tell them you’ll go halves with them on the fee, depending if that’s a cut you are comfortable with. Let us know how it turns out.
Well, there are a number of answers to this.
The first one is that it is their legal responsibility to pay you for services rendered. It is, in fact, ENTIRELY their responsibility to get the money to you and not your problem. If you don’t have the money, they are in breach of contract.
The second is the whole attitude thing. I ran into this doing tech support years ago for a Christian missions organization. The guy called in and started threatening me with taking away all of their business, etc., etc. in a very “do you know who I am?!?” tone of voice. All this in the first 15 seconds of the conversation.
There is no excuse for a church or para-church organization treating people this way other than they obviously don’t believe what the organization they work for preaches.
In this situation, I would personally send the correspondence that you have to the man in charge (Bishop? Archbishop?) of the Diocese of Raleigh and question both the lack of payment and a concern about the way that the Church is dealing with the community and were they aware of this.
As with many small business situations, you may still not get paid, but there’s a very visible hierarchy to appeal to.
Dan
That sounds like a very good solution Dan. I have had a very similar situation to yours when doing web development several years ago. After the terms of their contract were finished, they continued to ask for things which I did just to be nice. But then the woman became demanding, expecting me to make every change they wanted immediately. When I explained that I had only been helping out to be generous, they yanked away all of their hosting and domains in a huff. I was relieved that they took their business elsewhere. It was the only faith based organization that I’ve ever worked with and the only business relationship that I’ve had that has ever ended on a sour note.
I think your suggestion of going to the man in charge and addressing the concerns is a good point. I think people are hesitant to do this because its a church, but this lack of accountability may have attributed to this apparently widespread problem.
Let us know how it turns out!
Generally speaking, the man at the top has no idea that this is going on.
Dan
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