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Re: MFI
He lies, I’m not the only one with slow or no payments, I can assure you. 😉
As usual they rely on us not speaking to one another but I may decide to put a spanner in that for them. As I said, I really don’t want to get nasty with MFI as that’s not my game at all but I do want the point made that them relying on a third party to do their work isn’t ideal, at best.
However, from Mr Knowles a couple of weeks ago…
Malcolm Knowles wrote:I believe Mark Ridler would have contacted you yesterday in order progress matters.
Regarding your email and the many points you make my initial question is who is responsible for the NWAR business and ultimately settlement of debts?
Since April NWAR spares account has been on stop. This clearly has a knock on affect to us passing work to NWAR which they are then not in a position to complete. This does not constitute termination, albeit in the interest of our customers we have had to provision for alternative arrangements.
NWAR were requested to submit invoices direct to RMS who are AIG’s claims administrators and I would have presumed that if there was the concern you describe in doing so, then NWAR would have challenged. The reason we have migrated our agents to settle insurance claims direct, is because AIG have invested heavily in creating a web based system where each agent can see the progress of their claim online, with the facility to deal with any query and to allow payments to be made swiftly. Ironically this could have avoided the disputes you currently have.
We have many subcontract partners who either submit guarantee invoices to us, or warranty invoices to AIG and I am not aware of any who have misplaced invoicing at RMS or ineed with MFI. I would agree it is unlikely to be postal problems but from the picture you paint of the mismanagement of NWAR over recent times, more likely to be down to poor administration in claims being submitted incorrectly and not reacted to if returned. Please reiterate to your fellow directors that they would be quite mistaken to imply that there are any underhand intentions either at MFI or RMS and I do take exception.
In terms of MFI’s involvement in settlement of your AIG claims we would reiterate that we will work with you and RMS to get them settled. However as detailed in my previous communication you need to supply the core detail required and we will assist as far as is practical. In terms of what you need to do to provide copies regretfully that is down to NWAR to determine.
In order to move things forward Mark will work with you to agree a timetable for re-presenting the outstanding invoices.
And my reply was….
kwatt wrote:Yes, Mark has indeed been in touch.
Presently there is no one single person in charge of NW, as I said it is being operated as a cooperative and, as such, there is no one person in overall charge. The company is so small that it is not required with only three employees in total, one of whom is effectively part time.
Understood on the account but NW did receive a part ordered some months ago just a couple of weeks or so ago, I do not know why this happened.
I recall a conversation some time ago about the submission of claims through the web system that AIG use as a general discussion of such systems with Tony before he left. In effect it does repairers no good whatsoever, it in fact only serves to increase the administrative burden as repairers then have to double enter all the details to two databases, one their own and one for AN Other third party. Many manufacturers and insurers have gone down this path and the above has been proven many times where there is not the facility to upload/download data.
So far as I am aware, although my knowledge of the system is extremely limited, there were issues with speed and spares pricing leading to rejections which then had to be subsequently manually billed anyway. All it seemed to do was increase the time spent invoicing these calls.
I have seen many similar problems with other similar systems, notably, Samsung and ISDAL share similar issues.
These issues led NW and others to resign from being agents for some WIPs/manufacturers as it simply isn’t worth the time or hassle doubling up on administration where the rates are too low to support the effort, this is even more true for low volume such as the case with the likes of AIG as it represents only a very small amount of business but a big chunk or admin time to operate. If after that you, as a repairer, living on slender margins start to get slow payments, rejections and other general grief you don’t need then the work becomes untenable quite quickly.
So whilst I appreciate that from your point of view that it may seem somewhat ironic that this system may have solved some of the issues with AIG, from my information it actually created more problems than it solved.
NW have had no returned claims from AIG that I am aware of that have not been re-submitted. It is hard to go wrong, invoice labour and any parts, send the worksheet with the explanation of work done and FSR on it, there’s not much to actually fail in such a simple system and there seems to have been little trouble until dealing with AIG directly. In fact, when all the invoices where going to Extracare the level of rejections was much lower.
Whilst I agree that some issues were likely caused by poor administration I can’t understand why there seems to have been so many in the same vein with one account only. Errors happen, we all make mistakes and that is accepted but this does seem somewhat unusual although I obviously cannot guess as to why.
Nether I nor the other directors are accusing MFI or AIG or anything, I merely reported what had happened and posed some questions from the perspective of NW. It was certainly never the intention to imply anything other than (as it strikes me as well) that there would appear to be something not right. Finding out why and resolving the issue/s is of more importance than casting blame and, in all honesty, from the NW side, they don’t care really. Nor do I, the only thing I’m interested in is sorting the problem as expediently as possible with a solution that is acceptable to everyone, beyond that I couldn’t care less, it’s just a problem that’s been dumped on me that needs resolved.
The issue with providing detail is that, as I have said, RMS have not returned any invoicing to us, any that was returned has been re-submitted many months ago and, with that, the original call details would have been included. I do not know if these can be recovered in any way however I will see what can be done from the electronic records. It may well be that the information will be basic as NW have never kept expansive explanations on their database, all that is required is when, what was done and a record of the appliance details, although the FSR will be logged in every instance.
In the end the issues will be solved one way or another, I doubt with that much hassle really but I’m still a bit at a loss as to how it actually got to this point or why it has seemed to drag on for so long. In all the time I’ve worked with MFI the only other time I can recall having problems like this was back in the old days of NESN.
As you can see I wasn’t too impressed with the “spin it around on him” tactic. Doesn’t work.
To be fair they are being relatively reasonable I guess in some ways, but not all. What MFI and, it has to be said, many others don’t appreciate is the crap that they do rolls, gathers speed and grows in size as it rolls down the hill towards the dudes at the bottom which, all too often, is us.
Asides from which the accountants need put in their place every now and again.
But the point I am making is that it’s not MFI’s name above the door, they do not dictate how any company without MFI over the door does business and if they don’t like it they can shove it frankly, as can anyone else. I do business my way and if it doesn’t suit me or make me enough to grin and bear the hassles, then I jack it in.
It’s not rocket science.
Interestingly the day after that was sent (I think) a cheque rolled in from RMS for an AIG call… it was invoiced on 16/11/2007! Mr Ridler didn’t have a lot to say when I hit him with that and sent a scan of the remittance note. 😉
And, not surprisingly, I’ve had no response to my reply.
K.
Re: MFI
Heres a good one.
MFI pass us a call for an AIG repair, and we go ahead etc. When we hear no more & chase the payment we find the extended warranty is in the name of the builders, and not the property owner. Therrefore they have rejected.
Another one is a Smeg product, we submit using Smeg part number & price as we are agents, they reject as price/part discrepency, and as with the earlier one, don’t tell us.
We have a week and a half service delay, and perhaps now is the time to bin them.
Alex
Re: MFI
Yep, had that and I suspect that’s what’s happened to these claims. They’ve been rejected and not sent back.
Of course we’re the only ones that have any issue with AIG according to Mark Riddler and Malcolm Knowles and yet I know of at least four or five agents that I’ve spoken to having similar issues or slow payments.
They must think we’re idiots that don’t talk to one another and, TBH, Mark Riddler telling you that no-one else has problems is just a bare faced lie, end of story.
Oh and the price discrepancies is why we manually billed AIG as their stupid web based system didn’t price things correctly. :rolls:
K.
Re: MFI
AIG Tried to push me into the web-based system, and after reading the earler post I poined out a few salient points such as double keying and despite never having looked that the site, could blow it out the water as impractical & unworkable.
I shall be writing to Mark Ridler later, and will keep you posted.
Alex
Re: MFI
AIG been a problem since day 1 we had to direct invoice them. Rejected claims that they didnt bother to tell us about, ignored statements etc and adjusted invoices by 1p to account for their lack of being able to round up vat. 1 outstanding invoice form April as yet unpaid, been on stop since June but must admit no AIG calls have even been passed to us since then which leads me to believe they have fallen out with MFI and there will be no further business with them.
And a whole new light is cast on working for MFI this evening.
I reckon that over half the work we did was Howdens sales.
K.
kwatt wrote:And a whole new light is cast on working for MFI this evening.
I reckon that over half the work we did was Howdens sales.
K.
….and the lucrative stuff at that, usually silly instalation faults due to cowboy installers.Re: MFI
eastlmark wrote: Posted: Mon Mar 03, 2008 9:34 pm
AIG worldwide in financial probs according to Times on Saturday…. never paid me without a chase and often round down vat and pay a penny less than the invoice states…..must use the same calculator as connect do for their invoices.
not news really.Must admit to not having many AIG calls passed to me in the last few months but today recieved a whole pile of them. Wondering if another agent has refused them and they are trying me…..
should I take them? they do not owe me anything so dont really have grounds to refuse them.Re: MFI
Who knows.
I can pretty much guarantee one thing though, if AIG do fold MFI will drop it all like a hot potato and leave the agents with the debts. They don’t want the responsibility now let alone if they’ve no chance of getting paid for the work.
It is interesting you got a pile today, maybe they’ve ditched the stuff they had for their own engineer and would rather focus on work they will get paid for.
K.
Re: MFI
kwatt wrote:Who knows.
I
It is interesting you got a pile today, maybe they’ve ditched the stuff they had for their own engineer and would rather focus on work they will get paid for.K.
…and one of them is a rangemaster cooker…. a product I dont normally get calls for from MFI…..
Re: MFI
If it was me, I’d ask for written guarantee that MFI will pay the bill if AIG fail to do so given the current state of the AIG business and widely reported fact that it may collapse. If they don’t want to indemnify it then that will tell you a lot.
K.
Re: MFI
Sorry Mark, I didn’t have time to expand earlier.
Basically I’d be asking for confirmation that work carried out at the behest of MFI was going to have the costs of it met by either AIG or, if that fails, by MFI who requested the works in the first place. By MFI placing the call with you then your contract, in law, is with MFI and they bloody well know it, they just choose to ignore it and pass and all risk to the repairer which is just not right.
It’s real simple, they ask you to do the work and, unless you or they have a contract that says otherwise, they are responsible for the bill. But, if you’ve been doing it for some time without complaint or question then you haven’t a leg to stand on as you set the president.
Should they refuse to acknowledge that responsibility, as they have with myself, then I have refused to work on AIG calls as I am being placed in a position where I am effectively indemnifying MFI’s financial responsibility to service contracts that they sold to their customers. Quite simply, I’m not working for nothing whilst MFI takes all the profit from my effort to service that profit they have generated.
Because I have refused to work on AIG calls I have not received any work from MFI for months. Turns out that could be a blessing in disguise as my risk is limited.
It is looking increasingly likely that AIG, even if they do not fold as such, will not be bailed out by the Fed and that means that they will be cash strapped or may be subject to a merger. How important do you think that you’ll be when they are facing $18 billion worth of declared losses?
God knows what the true losses are as yet.
Even MFI pales to an insignificant irritation with debt of that magnitude and, as a rough guess, MFI will have to find at least £100,000 a month just to cover the liability if it does go t1tsup.com. Do I think MFI will be in the least bit bothered under MEP if the repairers get shafted? No, to sum it up in a word.
And, remember, if AIG does go or drops MFI in the crap, they’ve got at least five years worth of that liability to meet so it’s worth at least £6 million at a rough guess.
AIG owes me money but, in all honesty, I don’t hold much hope of ever seeing it.
I’ve been here before, as has Alex and others in here with Candy among others and, the best you can hope to do is minimise your risk and exposure to bad debt as, when an insurer goes in this game, it isn’t pretty. Not pretty at all, for us or customers.
K.
Re: MFI
e-mailed to Mark Ridler, Paul Brooks & Margaret Papworth today…..
Just to advise.
Due to the unrest with A.I.G. and the fact they owe me money I have instruced my staff that ALL A.I.G. claims are on a pay & claim basis.
Sorry if this compromises any relationships, however after many years of doing this, I try not to compromise my bank account.
Alex Reed
Sedgemoor Domestic Appliances
Re: MFI
Alex wrote:e-mailed to Mark Ridler, Paul Brooks & Margaret Papworth today…..
Just to advise.
Due to the unrest with A.I.G. and the fact they owe me money I have instruced my staff that ALL A.I.G. claims are on a pay & claim basis.
Sorry if this compromises any relationships, however after many years of doing this, I try not to compromise my bank account.
Alex Reed
Sedgemoor Domestic Appliances
…and the response?
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