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Strategies & Market Trends : Dividend investing for retirement -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Raptech who wrote (20142)	6/27/2014 1:34:06 PM
From: JimisJim	Respond to of 34328

OT: years ago when I was editor and publisher of a mid-sized paper outside of Memphis, Edward Jones used to run a small ad (maybe 6-8 column inches) once a week. When I took over the paper, one of the things I did was look at all of the acct. receivables to check who/which bills due to be paid us were how old. I had two that stood out because they hadn't paid their advertising bills in a year. One of them was Edward Jones -- the ad was placed by the Memphis office. I sent out letters to them (and others who had way overdue bills) that we were going to start charging finance charges on unpaid bills more than 45 days overdue -- the APR was roughly the prime rate, which in the early '80s was 18% or more. Edward Jones objected, saying they always paid their bill, but just once a year. I patiently tried to explain that in effect, they were borrowing money from my business interest free and asked them if they'd lend me money (margin or whatever) interest free for 12 months at time. They refused, unsurprisingly, but still did not pay their bill the next month. I added the finance charge on the next bill and included a note that I'd have to pull their ad acct. if they didn't pay in full within 30 days, and that I'd knock off the finance charges this time if they complied and would begin paying on time. They never responded... never paid... I stopped running their ads... about a month later, someone from the Memphis "home office" came in angrily asking why their ad was no longer running in our paper. I explained everything from the beginning and again offered to knock the finance charges off if they'd pay and stay current monthly -- after all, I explained, I had to pay my printing and distribution bills monthly and had to pay my employees weekly and none of them would lend me money interest free for a year, either. The guy stomped out... about a month after that, they sent a new ad to run. I had my ad manager call them up and tell them we couldn't run their ad unless they paid in advance and/or paid their existing outstanding bill in full (including the finance charges this time). They gave my ad manager a bunch of crap, but a week later, the same guy came in with a new ad and a check for both the outstanding bill and the new ad in advance. It sort of surprised me that several local business owners -- and Edward Jones in particular -- didn't quite grasp the concept of paying their monthly bills on time, that they were in effect borrowing money from my business interest free when they didn't pay net 30 as stipulated up front in all ad contracts. I've had sort of a negative impression of Edward Jones ever since then, but I suppose the real problem lay with the local office, not the overall company.