[HCoop-Discuss] Misconcenptions about the deposit requirement

[Nathan Kennedy]

j.c.hallgren at juno.com wrote:
> Having some way to contact members via means other than email should be a requirement, IMO, such as current telephone (or ICQ, Skype, etc) which would make sure that user was actually contacted at last resort which a postal mailing may not...that's part of reason that I'd be easy to locate, given the number of places that I'm listed on web...others may be very hard to trace down, and thus harder to collect from, so that may something we need to improve on, even if the info is not available to everyone publically, but just the admins.
>   
Such a directory facility already exists prominently on the portal.  
Maybe we need to be more vocal about asking members to provide 
it--requiring a mailing address might be a good start, although some 
members might object on privacy grounds, I don't know if that is a 
legitimate objection given that we don't allow anonymous members, there 
is marginal utility in hiding ones mailing address from the HCoop 
administration and a significant cost.

The thing is it is not too hard to provide such a facility, and 
"requiring" it as you say is easy, but what good does that do?

We have required members at a minimum to either to use their hcoop.net 
email or forward to an address they read, and we still have instances 
where members don't do that and had to be tracked down through other 
means.  If a member won't even read their email, how can they be 
expected to provide up-to-date alternate contact information?

I suppose we could try to play hardball and say "put a valid address and 
telephone number in the directory by April or your membership will be 
suspended," but that kind of defeats the purpose.

For the same reason, although AdamM pointed out the Postful service, 
which is again interesting in its own way, it solves a problem we do not 
have.  I can very easily send letters myself to members for less than 99 
cents.  However if the problem is with a member who is not paying and 
unresponsive to emails, in all likelihood that member doesn't have a 
mailing address on file, and even if we do, the 99 cents may well just 
be good money after bad.

Attempting to compile and maintain accurate addresses may be valuable 
for other legal reasons should we need to contact current or former 
members (former members still have their ownership interest in the co-op 
and may have debts owed from or to the co-op).

I'm not sure if we need to mandate requiring this information, in the 
interest of balancing "know your customer/membership" concerns with 
individual privacy interests.  In any event, we have a directory right 
now, and while a lot of members provide this information, many don't 
even provide their location, let alone their address.

-ntk