7. Corroborative is not good busi ness, however, to O. K. the first purchase merely on the assumption that since it is the first it will be paid. Means should be found for corroborating the favor able impression made by the customer at the time of the interview. To this end a card is usually made out, upon which are entered the customer's name and ad dress and the occupation and business address of the husband (if the customer is a married woman) . An other bit of desirable information is whether or not the family owns its residence. A notation of the credit limit and of the dates of payment is also de sirable, since such a record makes the subsequent rendering of bills a matter of course, just as it per mits the merchant to notify the customer at once when the account has reached the previously de termined high mark.
The credit man now has several avenues of infor mation open to him. If the head of the family is in business for himself his rating may be looked up in Dun's or Bradstreet's. If he is not, his employer may he communicated with, and information may be ob tained with regard to the industry and the moral char acter of the credit-seeker. Frequently additional in formation may be obtained from the same source with regard to property owned or to savings in the bank. It is quite possible that the information thus obtained may prove sufficient for the credit man's purpose.
Should he require additional data, however, the credit man may consult the landlord (in case the family live in a rented house) as to whether the rent is promptly paid; just as he may learn from inquiry among the grocers and butchers in the neighborhood whether the customer is in the habit of paying with regularity for his meats and provisions. Much of this information can be obtained by telephone within a single hour. Even should it be necessary to send a representative to the customer's neighborhood it would rarely require more than a few hours to com plete the investigation. If the information elicited appears satisfactory, and if it agrees in all important features with the statement made by the credit-seeker at the first interview with the credit man, there is every reason to believe that the account will prove satisfactory, so long as it is given proper attention thereafter by the store in the matter of payment dates and credit limit. Should the investigation reveal any material discrepancies in the credit-seeker's statement, or should the information obtained be in any respect unsatisfactory in whole or in part, the credit man will at least have been given fair warning, and if he never theless decides to grant the credit, he will not fail to take such steps as he may deem necessary to safe guard the account.
8. Watching the the account is ac cepted, the credit limit is entered upon the custo mer's ledger account so that the bookkeeper will al ways have it before him when he enters a charge item, and so that he will be able to give prompt notice when ever this limit is approached too closely, or by any possibility is exceeded. The limit is rarely passed,
however, in a well-managed store, since informa tion pertaining to every charge customer's ac count is usually placed in possession Of either the clerks, in smaller stores, or the inspectors and floor walkers, in larger ones. In every case, the credit man's attention is to be called to the account as soon as this comes within a certain distance of the assigned limit.
From this point on, it is chiefly a matter of tactful handling of the customer with a view to keeping the account in proper condition and preventing delin quency in payments.
9. Credit interchange among has al ready been noted, the retailer, much more than the wholesaler, is exposed to loss at the hands of the professional "dead beat." Strange as the fact must seem to the average person, there arc not a few whose philosophy of life forbids the payment of any debt if by any means its payment can be evaded. Such persons are not easily "spotted" since they usually dress well, live well, and in every respect give an im pression of being respectable and trustworthy per sons. But true to their principles, at the proper mo ment they invariably leave confiding creditors to mourn their disappearance. It is for this reason that of late years the tendency to organize for mutual credit protection has been developing rapidly among retail merchants. It no doubt occurred to such mer chants that it might check the operations of the "dead beat" in their territory if they compared notes on the subject and sought information from one another be fore opening a new charge account. Today there are found in many of our cities cooperative associations organized for that purpose.
The merchants who constitute the members of these associations agree among themselves to refuse credit to any person who is a delinquent customer of any one of them. By assuming this attitude they practically compel all customers to pay their bills promptly. The associations also investigate the financial responsi bility of new residents and of others who apply to local merchants for credit. The chief economic value of the activities of such associations is probably that they seek by word and action to impress upon the public the fact that higher prices of commodities are the inevitable consequence of irregular payment habits, since the losses inflicted upon a merchant by his non-paying customers must of necessity be borne by the honest and prompt-paying patrons of his store, in the form of higher prices paid for commodities. This aspect of the movement tends to secure for it the intelligent, active support of the better class of persons in the community.