Interesting story with a situation i had the other day:

i'm part of the management staff at my family owned center.  well in these days keeping league bowlers is always a challenge.  we received a call from one of our league secretary's about 3 hours before his men's league (14 teams X 5 bowlers) saying he was just informed that one of his bowlers is suspended because of non-payment from another league last year.

now i don't really know this guy (first year at our center), but i know if we tell him he can't bowl that night he may drop (he travels 40 minutes each way), and if he drops his team probably drops because they can't field a team.  not to mention the beers, bowling balls, and other money he spends at our place.  so i had to find some solution to the problem.

my first call was to the bowler to see what the deal was.  he told me he joined a league where he was the only one on his team showing up so he said he quit but they kept charging him for it.  so he owed $68.00 and they pulled his card.
(was he just blowing smoke, maybe, but i kind of believed him)

my next call was to our local association manager.  i asked what i could do to get him on the lanes tonight.  he reply was it had to go thru national, then he needed word from them to make him eligible for tonight. now the bowler offered to just bring the money to league that night, but approval from national was needed first.  ok good enough....

next i call USBC to see what i can do.  here's some good/bad feedback in my perspective.



The Good:  I spoke with a lady in the rules dept. she was very helpful with all of my questions.  took care of the problem promptly and got us on our way.  once the payment was made she emailed me the form saying he was reinstated.



The Bad:  $15.00 credit card fee for getting this ordeal taken care of.  But the kicker is that's the only way to resolve the issue.  Now i know that there are credit card fees, but come on now $15.00 really! Well i paid it on my personal credit card for this guy, in hopes he would pay me back that night.  Luckily he did!


Overall i was impressed with the prompt service USBC supplied that day.  The rules rep was great to work with and we saved a 5 man team on our league.