Roy Does Right

I've been in business for over 8 years, and I've had surprisingly few people rip me off. A few customers sent me hot checks and then never responded to requests for replacements. A few others simply refused to pay their invoices. I just consider these occasionally losses a part of my ongoing "college education" in business and thank God that I can do business in America where fraud is still relatively rare. (Don't think so? Try doing business in Africa!)

Back in June 2007 I sold $43.50 worth of products to a man in Pennsylvania. He had bought from me before so I didn't think twice about shipping it to him without getting paid in advance. However, this time he didn't pay. I sent reminder emails several times and still never heard back. I didn't have a phone number for him.

Eventually I gave up and just assumed he was a deadbeat. Imagine my surprise when a few weeks ago I got an email from him:

Daniel....I came across this invoice, which I forwarded to the office manager of that company to pay....did you ever get paid for this order?

Of course I told him I hadn't. He wrote back again:

My sincere apology, I had a contract with that company and I had passed the invoice over to their accounts payable person.....long story short, I got a call from someone else owed money by them, who also had not ever been paid even though I had "passed" the invoice to them.....I will personally send the payment when I return back to my office in New Mexico next week.

Roy Metcalf was as good as his word. And even better. Not only did he send payment, he rounded it up to $50 (even though I told him he didn't have to). So you can see why I'm smiling. So if you ever get a chance to do business with Roy Metcalf of Alpha Management and Consulting in Hobbs, NM (he's moved from PA), I can tell you he's done right by me.

Even more astonishing: in all of time, God has never cheated anyone of a penny. Why not trust Him with everything you've got?