[consulting] Proper Collections Procedure

[Evan Leibovitch]

Hi folks,

My two cents, erring broadly on the side of caution.

Before folks start offering money and printing membership cards, please
consider what features are desired by the kinds of organizations being
suggested. Specifically, do folks want:

- to exchange information on problem clients?
- to exchange information on business practises?
- to exchange information on technical matters?
- to exchange business contacts, to find possible partners or
subcontractors?
- to pool resources for marketing/pr?
- to pool resources for operations?

The answers to these questions will help determine if what is desired is
a trade association, a business co-operative, or a trade union (which is
essentially what a guild is).

Keep in mind that there are certainly differing regulations concerning
the conduct of all of these structures. Business associations,
especially those which exchange information on pricing and clients,
could run afoul of their country's anti-monopoly (in the US, anti-trust)
laws. And trade unions need to deal with the fact that labour law
differs not only from country to country, but often state to state and
province to province.

Also consider that the concept of a 'blacklist' of problem clients,
secret or public, poses a number of legal risks on issues of privacy or
libel. While I'm not a lawyer, I've been in contact with enough to know
that any time disputes get to court, lawyers are the only real winners.
As has been mentioned, credit bureaus exist (and have their own legal
liability issues to deal with) in order to provide businesses (of all
kinds) with information on clients who don't pay their bills. They also
help (at least partially) in separating clients who are financial
deadbeats from those who have (they believe) legitimate claims of
substandard work. Anyone here is capable of paying Dun&Bradstreet (or
similar services) to check on the financial reliability of potential
clients; do you really want to be in the credit research business when
others already specialize in it?

If the issue is not so much the desire to collect information, but an
inability to afford the services of those who do, that's a very
different (and arguably far easier to solve) issue. Perhaps the answer
is not for this group to engage in gathering credit information, which
is not only a non-core-competency with significant legal risks -- but
rather, to pool resources in order to contract an established company
that does these things.

Heck, a group such as this could possibly command volume discounts at
hosting companies -- and while pooling resources on operations issues
such as credit checks, it could also pool resources on publicity issues
-- to hire a PR firm, buy booth space at tradeshows, etc.

Many possibilities exist, but it's important to both know what you want
from such a group, as well as being aware of both its potential and its
limitations.

- Evan

PS: Please, folks, do not assume (when talking about laws and
regulations) that everyone here is from the US and that everyone knows
what a 501(c) is. Any ideas for a group here should consider an
international scope.