A few day ago I called Central Payment to inform them that I was closing my store and no longer needed the Merchant Credit processing.  I was told to fax in a notice to them that I wanted to cancel.  A day later I got a call from one of their representatives who told me that there would be a $300 cancellation fee and that fee would be automatically taken out of my bank account.  The representative said that if I got my landlord to submit a letter to them that I was closing they would refund $150 – making the cancellation fee come to a total of $150.00  – I had been a customer for 5 years and had not problems with this company -  this cancellation fee made no sense to me and certainly seemed to be a total rip off.  What I got back was an email from the representative – restating what had been said on the phone:

Dear Ronald Headly,

Per our conversation. In order to reduce your early termination fee of $300.00 to $150.00, we need a signed letter from your landlord stating that the business is closed. Once information is verified, we will be able to reduce your fee.

Best Regards,

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Merchant Relations

1-800-449-8012 ext. xxxx

Needless to say I was “not a happy camper” in fact I was furious – some of you may have seen the original post, and tweet – it just did not make any sense to me that I was going to get hit with a cancellation fee with a company I had done business with for 5 years and that I would have to get my landlord involved by writing them a letter that  in fact my business was closed just to reduce the fee by half.

I am HAPPY TO REPORT that everything changed today!!!   I got an email from   Nery Espinal – Merchant Relations – Central Payment asking me to call.  I phoned him —–  He apologized and offered to remove the cancellation fee TOTALLY – THANKS SO MUCH NERY ESPINAL.

I can once again recommend Central Payment as a Merchant Credit Solution for in-house credit processing  as I have in the past – there was a problem and Mr. Espinal made it right.  Here is the email he just sent me;  plus he spelled my last name correctly-that is good customer support and paying attention to details:

Mr. Headley,

It was a pleasure speaking with you this morning. I appreciate your remarks and am glad we were able to correct any misunderstandings. As per our conversation your account has been closed with no cancellation fee. You will only be responsible for the monthly processing fees for the month of October 2011.

If you don’t mind, please email me when you have addressed the postings online so that I may update my executives. Feel free to keep my information in your records should you find the need to accept credit cards again in the future.

Best regards,

Nery Espinal

Merchant Relations

Central Payment

Phone: (800) 449-8012 Ext 7369

Fax: (866) 618-8284

Email: nespinal@cpay.com

The entire post has been updated with the original link in tact so anyone clicking on the link will see this update rather than the original post – so far as I am concerned I am happy to report I have had a change of mind and the Mr. Espinal has made that possible today.

When I first opened the store I was bringing in consignment items for clients to sell on eBay, plus I was doing classes and audio video conversion as well as computer repair.  I had full and part-time employees who worked at the store.  When the economy failed in the fall of 2008 eBay sales also dropped.  I became necessary to lay off employees and to change my business model.  I had figured that the difficult economy was something that would not last long  – maybe 6 months to a year.  It is now three years later and it appears the economy will not recover anytime soon.

Most of what I do now is on-line marketing and internet related.  I no longer need a store front, I no longer have employees that I need to provide a work place for.   Being self-employed is always about change, stopping doing things that are no longer working and creating new things that are work.  The store is no longer working so it is time to close and leave it behind.  Everything I do now can be done from my new office in my house.

I will miss the store and working here, however I am looking forward to working from my house.  If the economy gets better and or I regrow my business in different ways to where I again have employees I can always find another store or office later on.  Actually with the improvements in technology I can use VAs (virtual assistants) on-line rather than actual employees at workstations at a store or office to help get things done.

My latest newsletter will going out to my clients and customers in the next few days.  Click this link SEP 2011 newsletter to go to my latest newsletter.

NOTE:  closing the store and moving to my house will have no effect on my online customers.  I have several store fronts these days they are my online web sites.   I am just closing my Brick and Mortar store and so this newsletter is really for my local walk in customers and  clients.  Fact is not have the physical store will help my online clients and customers.  I will have more time available to put more effort into my online services and sales and clients and customers.

Selling on eBay – take photos of the item – up load the photos to a photo ftp server that work with eBay (do not use eBay to store photos of items – they charge) – List the item with a listing tool, write a description, calculate the shipping, justify the shipping cost, find the eBay category, lay out the listing in HTML, put in links to where the photos are, set the price and duration, launch the item. Verify that the listing is correct, fix it if it is not.

Bottom line – it takes about 5 minutes to put an item on Amazon and about 2 hours to put an item on eBay. eBay fees are much higher than Amazon and eBay can be a major headache when it comes to keeping customers happy (and eBay happy). Plus items in general sell for a lot more on Amazon than eBay.

Why even bother with eBay?? I keep asking myself that whenever I put items there. Actually I have gotten so that I only put items on eBay if they are not selling on Amazon or Amazon does not have the item in their “catalog” -

eBay just came up 14th out of 16 online market places in a marketers rating survey of on line the best places to sell items Sellers Choice

I just do not get the time to fly anymore, plus I no longer have a pickup truck to get the PPC to someplace where I can fly. If you know anyone that would like to get a PPC please let them know. If you have and interest – email me at info@etechnstuff.com

I have been needing a program for a long time now that can do various drawings. I have tried Open Office Draw but it just is not robust enough.

I do have AutoCad Lite for complex drawings however it is just too difficult to use for very simple drawing.

This week I found a Visio Replacement. It is called Dia – it comes with a lot of drawing elements and there are more available to download plus it is pretty easy to design your own elements. The part is it is Open Source and it is FREE. You can see it HERE

Here is a simple drawing that I did with Dia Speaker Layout

There had been no indication or any problems from UPS, in fact I was seeing nothing but completed orders.  (that means the item had been delivered.)

A customer sent me a message that he had not received his windmill yet and it was supposed to have arrived a few days before and was wondering when it was coming.  I quickly checked the UPS tracking on that one and could see it had in fact been delivered.  The UPS track said it had been left inside the side door.

An 8 foot garden windmill ships in a 30 X 25 X 8 inch box that weighs 38 pounds, so this is something pretty hard to miss.

I emailed the customer that it had been delivered several days before and that it had been placed inside the side door.

He emailed me back a few minutes later – YES he had found it.  Turns out the “Side Door” is really his Sun Porch – a room he does not go into in the winter.

I found it amusing – there are a couple of very valid point here though.  If you order something online and the seller sends you tracking information take a look at the information.  Often the expected delivery date is there and UPS, FedEx and USPS are all pretty good with this.  If they say an item will arrive on a certain day it almost always does.

To track a package just copy the tracking number and put it into Google search.  Google will connect to the correct shipper and give you the tracking.  You will be able to see where the package is.

If an item has been delivered and you are not seeing it – click on the delivery confirmation – UPS and FedEx both will tell you where the carrier left the package in case your were not there for the delivery.

I had a customer awhile back who had ordered an item.  The expected delivery was a few days.  She called me on the phone a couple of weeks after the item was shipped saying she had not gotten it.  I checked the tracking and it said it was delivered and placed on the front porch more than a week before.  I asked the lady if she could check her front porch.  It took her quite awhile to come back to the phone.  Apparently the front door and the front porch were not normally used.  Sure enough there was her item – on her front porch.  She thinks I am a psychic that can do remote viewing – I could not convince her I was just reading the UPS track and confirm notices on my computer.

The second event is online.  If you find you are having to rely on a web master to make even simple changes to your web site you might want to think about doing your own web sites with Word Press.  Christina Hills will be offering her excellent Word Press Creation Workshop beginning Sept 27.  This online class runs for 8 weeks and during that time Christina will help you set up and launch your own Word Press website.  You will no longer by “stuck” with a web master, you will be able to set up and manage your website by yourself.  Word Press is not real difficult to work with and the online workship will save you a lot of time learning to use Word Press on your own.  Plus Christina will work with you individually as well as the group of students when you have questions or need things clearified.

Christina does some very unique videos to promote her course here is the First One for the new class  WORDPRESS CREATION WORKSHOP