Last July we bought a copy of Sage 15. We needed it because of the clients we have using it. Sage is OK, as accounting software goes. It is the epitome of adequacy. It does double entry bookkeeping accurately. If anyone tells you it's rubbish, they're wrong. It is acceptable.
We then got an unsolicited invoice from Sage for a 12 month SageCover support contract, which we didn't want. We told them that, and received a letter saying they were sorry we had cancelled our SageCover (not true, by the way, we had never wanted it to begin with) and asking us to reconsider. In any case, it would appear that they had acknowledged our desire not to pay them for SageCover. Fine, not a problem.
To my surprise, 14 months on (not 12 months, note) we've received a new invoice for 12 months SageCover until September 2011. Obviously we're not going to pay it - though we still have the hassle of telling them to cancel it - but I imagine plenty of businesses would. It's the equivalent of the bogus data protection, domain name or web directory invoices that are sent out by unscrupulous businesses to companies in the hope of payment being received out of inattention or confusion.
Rather than unticking the box on their database saying "customer has SageCover" (which should never have been ticked in the first place), instead they seem to have ticked a box saying "customer doesn't want SageCover, but in 14 months let's try sending them another unsolicited invoice for £40 + VAT on the offchance that they pay it by mistake. Don't send it in 12 months, that would be idiotic, they'll be expecting it then. Send it in 14 months, they'll have dropped their guard. It's worth a go".
It's an odd sort of way for a reputable (which they generally are, whatever the Sage-haters say), listed company to conduct its business. Are they really that desperate for revenue that they'll just send out speculative invoices on the hope that some will be paid?
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