Money is Money. Maybe the payment comes in from your customer’s mom, maybe from their girlfriend or boyfriend. You don’t really care – the bottom line is you want the payment.
We urge you to be careful with this thinking! Here’s a real life example that came across my desk today.
A woman leased a car from one of our Lease’T’Own dealers. With permission from a friend, she used her friend’s credit card to pay the upfront money and first payment. No problem… She continued using this form of payment for the next 5 months. Still no problem…
On month 6, the credit card declines.
After several unsuccessful attempts to contact the Lessee for payment, the dealer was forced to recover the car.
He soon received a notice from the credit card company that the card holder was disputing the charges and charged the dealer back for all 5 payments.
Of course, the dealer objected. He sent the credit card company a copy of the lease agreement proving the charges were legitimate. The credit card company gave back the 5 months of payments.
The Dealer soon received another notice from the credit card company. The card holder disputed that they were not on the lease and therefore, not responsible for the payments.
Since there was no written documentation between the Lessee and her friend giving permission to use the credit card, the dealer was out of luck. He lost the 5 months of payments.
Moral of the story…………money is NOT money in some cases. Be careful when it comes to credit card payments!