By Gary Fisher
for WisPolitics.com
A new bill by Rep. Karl Van Roy, R-Green Bay, and Sen. Tom Reynolds, R-West Allis, would require a timely notification of renewal in the mail of expiration dates for contracts on credit card processing machines, business uniform services, waste hauling arrangements, and computer, software and phone system providers, among other services.
Advocates say the bill is necessary because businesses sometimes unknowingly get stuck with equipment contracts that automatically renew themselves.
“We’re talking about the fine print in three-, five-, and 10-year contracts that people in small business don’t know about, or forget about,” said Wayne Corey, executive director of Wisconsin Independent Business.
“The objective is to get a letter sent” notifying businesses when a contract expires.
Van Roy took no executive action on AB 181 at a hearing today in the Assembly Small Business Committee that he chairs.
“Confusion caused by automatic renewal clauses can cause a small business to have simultaneous contracts with two companies for the same service because the unsuspecting small business bought a replacement contract believing that the original contract expired,” said Corey.
Lynn Morgan, spokeswoman for Waste Management, however, testified that Waste Management is not set up (with a database) to record the anniversary contract date to notify the thousands of entities they have when a contract is up.
“There has to be a balancing point, long-term versus short-term notification because customers don’t want to be without garbage service,” she said.
A spokesman for Onyx Waste Services, a firm providing solid waste collection and recycling services, concurred by saying that the cost of setting up a database to notify 25,000 customers of a contract renewal would be very “capital intensive.”
“It’s a big business expense to notify people on an individual basis,” the spokesman said.
Rep. Samantha Kerkman, R-Town of Randall, testifying in favor of the bill, said a church in her district got stuck with a three-year contract that automatically renewed.
