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Budget Rent-a-Car of Washington, Inc.
2001 Westlake Ave.
Seattle, Washington 98121
Phone: MA2-1962
August 8, 1967
Mr. John J. Hogan
3100 Shadeland Drive
Falls Church, Va. 22044
Dear Mr. Hogan:
We are in receipt of a copy of the letter you directed to Dun & Bradstreet. You write a tremendously amusing letter and, except for the fact that our face is very red, would be most enjoyable reading.
Let me try to explain this mess. The young gentleman who handled the closing of your rental agreement started by inserting someone else's copy (which you finally ended up with as a receipt) on which your final figures appeared.
Upon auditing the figures the following day, as is our usual procedure, and not realizing that you did not even have a copy of your own rental contract, I found an error in which our counterman had charged you for only one week and one day when, in fact, you had had the car for one week and three days. I corrected the contract to show that you had paid $64.84 and still owed us $14.00 (for the missing two days) plus tax of 59 cents. I instructed our bookkeepers to send you a bill for the $14.59.
Believe it or not, two more errors followed. We sent you a statement for $14.59 but, evidently to the wrong address, explaining how the original error in computation occured. We did not get an answer from our statement. We then turned the account over for collection to Dun and Bradstreet who, by the way, have been in the collection business for many years. In explaining to them that we should have collected $79.43 from you but, due to our error, had only collected $64.84, they proceeded to drop the ball and billed you for the entire $79.43 instead of the amount of $14.59 as they should.
This seems to be a comedy of errors and I am happy to see that you have managed to smile through it all. Dun and Bradstreet are being contacted today and will cease attempting to collect from you.
Frankly, after all the errors that have caused this unbelievable situation, I do not, any longer, have the heart to ask you to pay the $14.59 which was the amount of the original mistake.
We are considering the bill paid in full and you will hear no further from either ourselves or our illustrious collection agency, Dun and Bradstreet.
The next time you are in Seattle, I would like very much to meet you. You write a beautiful letter and I admire your good humor.
May I apologize for Budget Rent-a-Car and, if I may be so presumptuous, for Dun and Bradstreet.
Sincerely yours,
John N. Pierre, Mgr.
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