Mini Ethical Issue

You get a bill....you know it is wrong, in your favor......do you say something, or take your chances that the company doesn't figure it out?

SO I need to do a mini-come clean (maybe mini will be my theme of the week.....):  Bossy's supplies total hasn't been "accurate" per the bill for about 5 months.  The amount I have reported is the amount that the bill SHOULD be, but the bill hasn't been right.

• January:  Start the financial waiver process
• Early February: Approved for 60% off the balance and any future bills in February.  Because of timing, I was told by the financial manager (who is no longer there), the adjustment needs to be made manually (month by month for the balance, and then the same going forward), and it may not be complete by the February billing cycle, which was only a few days away.
• Mid-February:  Get bill that does not reflect discount, but we were expecting that.
• March:   Get bill, no adjustment made.  Call customer service, and they said in their system, a partial adjustment has been made and was done after the bill went out.   Was told it would be corrected by April bill.
• April - Get bill that shows the partial adjustment.  Call again why the full adjustment wasn't completed.  Customer service doesn't know and passes it on to the next level up, who assured me it would be done by May.
• May - never got a bill.

So here we are in June.  I called again, and was told they have lots of accounts and they just haven't gotten to mine (to which I rebutted and said why did someone start the process and never finish it?).  Asked why I didn't get a May bill.....and was told they don't like to send out inaccurate bills (but they did for months prior).  Asked what the current balance was...and it was still showing the partial adjustment.  Asked why the past 6 months of service charges isn't on the bill.....was told that insurance hasn't paid those charges yet, so they don't know what our portion will be (which we have dealt with before).

So I again asked when the adjustment will be finished, and was told she would call me back.  She called back that afternoon, and said they were mailing me an updated, corrected bill.  I asked the balance......$362.

WHAT???

I didn't say anything, because I wanted to see the bill.  It arrived over the weekend, and as I initially suspected, they adjusted the amounts that had previously been adjusted.  From what I can tell, the full adjustment was completed but wasn't updated in the system, and then my phone call triggered it.  Instead of seeing that the adjustment was complete, they took another 60% off the bill.

I had estimated that the bill should have been about $900.  Subtract 60% (which is $540) and you get $360.  So there ya go.

I know the bill is incorrect.  I could open my mouth, and would then owe another $540.  Or, I could just pay off the bill (we still have overtime money in the wings that we were deciding which debt to put it towards and in what increment) and be done.  I am guessing if I pay off the bill....all the accounting mistakes will drop off the bill and only "current" billing will show up.  The likelihood of them finding their error will decrease.

But that isn't how we roll.  I just KNOW that this will all backfire.  Because it always does.

We talked about paying off the bill, AND continuing to put the agreed upon payment per month aside for awhile....and if the bill comes back around, at least we have some money toward it.  If it doesn't come back around, then that money would be a big snowball toward the next debt.

So....what would you do?  Roll the dice and hope they don't figure out their mistake?  Tell them they made a mistake and all they will say is Thank You?  Run for the border????

I am a good person, and I pay my bills.  Heck, it took us 8 YEARS to pay off Bossy's hospital bill....most people would have given up WAY before that.  But this is tempting....