Billing observation

[VOIPoTim]

Why not Invoice 30 days before expiration of the contract, rather than

Not so much that the number is eventually lost, it's the immediate rejection of incoming calls.
Or does the credit card expiration notice clearly say: Service WILL terminate VERY soon after the credit card's expiration date, unless the card's revised expiration date is input to VoIPo's system. And VoIPo would send a confirmation of account renewal, right?

Just that we read of so many billing SNAFUs in VoIP providers' for good customers.

The expiration notice goes out the month before the card expires.

The earlier we send stuff out, the more hostile people that come forward stating we're trying to "bill them too far in advance" and getting extremely upset. I don't have a huge problem invoicing earlier, but you'd be amazed how hostile people get by thinking we're invoicing (requesting payment) too far in advance even if they're not charged at that point.

I understand where you're coming from overall, but please look at things from the business side of it as well. It's a balancing act between protecting our company from financial losses and people taking advantage of lax policies with providing some sort of middle ground to not let well-meaning users be affected while still getting their attention immediately so they can pay promptly.

A lot of people take advantage of lax policies. The only way to protect ourselves with the margins budget VoIP providers operate on is to have strict billing policies in place.

As an example, in the past when we have allowed a little more past due time before suspending, people would contact us demanding immediate unsuspension the following month because "I know I have x days past due before it's suspended, unsuspend this immediately" even when they were weeks past due and from a purely business perspective they should have been suspended long before that. They didn't care. They just knew that the policies were lax and they would cite all the months earlier to find one where their account was active for a longer past due period and demand it be allowed to go that far past due. The more loopholes like that, the more people will take advantage of them unfortunately.

We're all about being user friendly and providing great service to users, but providing that service costs money and we have to get paid. Users have to be reasonable in demands and take some responsibility for making sure they pay us.

I think that letting users know a card is expiring a month in advance and then sending them payment notices for a week is pretty reasonable for a prepaid only service.