In dispute
We have one school district where we strictly do orchestral rentals. Unlike band instruments, these are a pure rental; the families have no chance to purchase them outright, because when they start, the players are on fractional-size instruments. They'll grow out of them. At the same time, this also means they can rent in perpetuity. In this case, they have to return the instrument to us in order to cancel the contract.
Not everybody knows this, or perhaps they've rented for so long that they've simply forgotten, and they keep on renting for years and years. Unfortunately on our end, we don't have an obvious way to contact these customers to go, hey, you've had this instrument for a decade…are you sure you want to keep renting? It's up to the customers to be proactive and realize, hey, why am I still paying for this?
Then again, some have ways to stop paying that don't involve contacting us and asking pertinent questions. Some people have flat-out canceled their credit and debit cards. Like…we still don't have your rental instrument in our possession; you're still going to accrue payments on your account, and we're going to send you to collections. In the case that came up recently, this customer contacted their credit card company and disputed her payments with us. I mean, okay, that's one way to do it…but again, that only stops the payments from coming out. That doesn't cancel your contract. You'll still owe us money until and unless you get the instrument to us.
Once the payment got disputed, the store manager looked into the situation. With all the payments the family had made over the years, they'd easily paid for the instrument they'd had. He ended up returning the rental and selling it to them, so we were able to walk away from the situation. That is, until a month later, when the woman called the store and left a voicemail to say she couldn't pay for the rental anymore and it had been 11 years. Again…why did you wait so long to call? I think I'd reached out to the orchestra director about this family and, as expected, got told that the player had aged out of the program years ago. I then got to call the customer back; I think she might have been the girl's grandmother. I explained what had happened, that we'd canceled the contract and essentially sold the family the violin, and she did not owe us any more payments. I don't think we heard back from her, but this was just after Christmas so perhaps it was a belated holiday gift for her to hear that.
Not everybody knows this, or perhaps they've rented for so long that they've simply forgotten, and they keep on renting for years and years. Unfortunately on our end, we don't have an obvious way to contact these customers to go, hey, you've had this instrument for a decade…are you sure you want to keep renting? It's up to the customers to be proactive and realize, hey, why am I still paying for this?
Then again, some have ways to stop paying that don't involve contacting us and asking pertinent questions. Some people have flat-out canceled their credit and debit cards. Like…we still don't have your rental instrument in our possession; you're still going to accrue payments on your account, and we're going to send you to collections. In the case that came up recently, this customer contacted their credit card company and disputed her payments with us. I mean, okay, that's one way to do it…but again, that only stops the payments from coming out. That doesn't cancel your contract. You'll still owe us money until and unless you get the instrument to us.
Once the payment got disputed, the store manager looked into the situation. With all the payments the family had made over the years, they'd easily paid for the instrument they'd had. He ended up returning the rental and selling it to them, so we were able to walk away from the situation. That is, until a month later, when the woman called the store and left a voicemail to say she couldn't pay for the rental anymore and it had been 11 years. Again…why did you wait so long to call? I think I'd reached out to the orchestra director about this family and, as expected, got told that the player had aged out of the program years ago. I then got to call the customer back; I think she might have been the girl's grandmother. I explained what had happened, that we'd canceled the contract and essentially sold the family the violin, and she did not owe us any more payments. I don't think we heard back from her, but this was just after Christmas so perhaps it was a belated holiday gift for her to hear that.