X-Message-Number: 14787 From: "Thomas Kirschner" <> Subject: How I lost my membership at Alcor Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2000 00:27:02 +0200 Dear list members, My name is Thomas Kirschner, I am a 43 year old German. I live in Augsburg, Bavaria. I have had a contract with Alcor about cryopreservation since 1995 until February of this year. Following is a correspondence, that developed through the last weeks, starting at the day, where I wrote to Alcor, because its journal had stopped being delivered. I have copied below all the letters, that have been exchanged. I would like to see your comments. Regards, Thomas Kirschner 25th. September, my first letter to Brian Shock, whom I assumed to be still in charge of the customer relations: Dear Brian, it came to my mind, that I have not received Alcor s journal in a long time (maybe two years). What happened? Did I fall off the mailing list? Yours, Thomas Kirschner -------------------------------------------- I received an answer from Joe Hovey, on Sept 28th: Dear Mr. Kirschner: In 1998 your mail started being returned to us as "Moved. No Forwarding Address." We held your magazine accordingly. The last address we had for you was Afragaesschen 5, Augsburg D-86150, Germany. More seriously, the credit card you had us charge your quarterly dues to stopped working on February, 1999. The last four digits of that credit card were 0690. We tried to contact you both by mail and by e-mail, without success. In February, 2000, your membership in Alcor was cancelled for non payment of dues. If you wish to reinstate your membership, you are going to have to reapply from the very beginning. Contact Linda Chamberlain at for details, or check our website at www.alocr.org. Joe Hovey Accounting Manager ------------------------------------------- I wrote back, on Sept 29th: Dear Mr. Hovey, WHAT???!!! My membership has been cancelled???!!! Are you kidding? I have NOT moved! I still live at the same address. I am still paying my rates for the insurance, that has been signed-over to Alcor. How can Alcor cancel my membership? I Also still hold my e-mail address, , as far as I know. But you are right, my credit-card number might have changed, due to a loss of my old card. But: I have been in contact with Alcor about the question of buy-back policy about a year ago. There, my questions were answered in a very normal way, nobody mentioned any problems with my current status. What do you mean: I have to reapply from the beginning? From the VERY beginning? Will I have to go to the notary again, and pay all those fees? You must be kidding, please! Sincerely, Thomas Kirschner -------------------------------------------------------------- I wrote another letter to Linda Chamberlain, 30. Sept.: Dear Linda, the correspondence below shows my current problem with membership at Alcor. Until yesterday, I considered myself a member, and Mr. Hovey s letter came totally out of the blue to me. I still want to stay signed up again, and I think it is not asking too much to hope for a quick, informal procedure, since at least a great deal of the problem was *not* caused by myself: I still live at the same adress, and I have no explanation, why Alcor s letters to me should bounce back. I also have ho explanation about the problem with my e-mail. And regarding the changed credit-card information: It is really hard to keep track of all the people, I have to notify in a case of change. Usually, regarding credit cards, people who need to charge money on my card, get back to me, if they find the card changed, or the company - which is also still the same - notifys them or me about the problem and how to solve it. So, I really don t know, why this whole thing screwed up, but I myself played only a minor role in it, as far as I am able to tell. Please consider my case and find the best possible solution! Yours, sincerely, Thomas Kirschner ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------ 3rd October: I received an answer from Jennifer Chapman: Hi: I'm Jennifer, Alcor's new Membership Administrator. I have been forwarded copies of your recent email inquiries and am glad to address your concerns. Regardless of why your letters were returned to us, the fact remains that your dues were not being paid, and we had no way of communicating with you in order to resolve the situation. Your membership was cancelled for non-payment of dues. In order for you to reinstate your membership you will need to have funding that conforms with our current requirements. Our records show that there was some concern about whether or not your German insurance policy would actually pay to Alcor in the event of your death. Our file does not show any resolution of this problem other than your personal translation of the insurance policy and your personal assurance that it would not be a problem. This lack of visibility and control of funding will not be acceptable under our current funding requirements. If insurance is used for funding, we currently only accept American insurance policies. Our current membership fees are reflected in the attached Schedule A. I have also attached information about the limitations on our ability to serve members who are living or traveling outside the United States and the resultant funding requirements for new foreign memberships. If you would like to apply for a new membership, please let me know. I will be happy to send you a new application. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- My answer, Oct. 14th: Dear Jennifer, excuse me for the delay in my comunication - I had been away from home, teaching seminars. But now, I would like to see, what I can do to clean up the situation. Your last letter showed, that the damage is obviously bigger, than I had assumed after Joe's writings; also, there were vital questions - at least for me- that you only touched briefly, but for which I need a more solid clarification. First: I understand, that Alcor is not planing to offer me any easy and unbureaucratic way to reinstall my membership. Is that right? Why not? The overall tone of all three letters that I received from you and Joe seems to say that it is all my fault. However, as I had already pointed out in my last writing, this is not quite the fact! At least a sign of some empathy for what happened to me and some words, that you agree, that it was a chain of unlucky events would have gone a long way. Please keep in mind: I did *NOT* change my postal address; since I have my own company, that organizes international seminars, I am very frequently being contacted by people from all parts of the world. Why among all these postal exchanges only Alcor did not manage to reach me, repeatedly, still needs to be explained. (Btw: at the same time, I am asking myself, why nobody ever bothered to call me up and talk to me? Every phone operator would have easily been able to trace my number, since I still live at the same address. Obviously, noone at Alcor ever tried.) Neither did I stop the funding of my insurance. Also, my correspondence, about a year ago, with someone from your staff, about buy-back-regulations could have been proof enough that I am still existing and a good chance to check with me about address, payment and uncertainties in my payment plan. It was an exchange of at least four mails; two on each side. Are you sure, that there have not been significant mistakes also on Alcor's side?) I also did not change my credit-card company. I am pretty sure, that for a company like Eurocard, it is quite a normal instance, that some party experiences difficulties in charging their client's account, due to a card change, and that they have a routine of notifying the other party in such a case and getting the issue straightened out. Second: You are now implying, that upon a new registration I will need a new insurance, since there had been "some concern about whether or not your German insurance policy would actually pay". I have to tell you, that I find this latest turn in our communication the most annoying part. Here are the reasons: * I have *never* been informed by Alcor about *any* uncertainty about my insurance. Since we are talking about a life-or-death matter, I must say, that this fact alone greatly shatters my trust in the credibility of your institution. How can such an issue stay unresolved, without being brought to my attention? After reading Alcor's paper on foreign membership, I think I can understand the complex difficulties that are involved, and I want to express, that I do appreciate that Alcor is taking them seriously and trying to find measures to deal with them, in principle. * If I now have to fund another - US-based - insurance, the question needs to be resolved, how I can switch from one insurance company to another, without cancelling my first contract before time, and thereby loosing a lot of money. Again, there has been no word from your side, showing any kind of empathy or help for this problem. * So far, my old insurance is still signed over to Alcor. At least the buy-back routine and how to practically apply it now should have been addressed in your last writing - if this is really the only way, you offer. * As you probably are aware of, the current Dollar/Euro exchange-rate will work strongly against my interests, if Alcor really forces me to find a new insurer. This means, I will have to accept much less favorable conditions next time. I would also not be surprised, if you told me in the next writing, that Alcor's rates have increased too, so that a new membership will cost a substantial higher amount of money, adding to all the other costs: a further visit at the notary, the raised insurance rate, the loss in value from the cancellation of my old insurance and all the fees, that Alcor will charge me for processing my new membership application, etc. But from the sound of your letter(s), I am now getting used to the idea, that this is Alcor`s most favoured solution for my case. My initial reaction to this was a strong feeling of anger and of beeing treated unfair. But now, after a little more time between, I want to try to keep a balanced and constructive view as much as possible. I will try to sum up my position and come up with a proposal, how to continue: The whole thing is in my eyes a summation of smaller omissions on both sides: I, for my part, did overlook to inform Alcor about the change of my creditcard number, eventually my e-mail, too; and I did not take it as a sign of alarm, when Alcor's magazine stopped to be delivered to me. On Alcor's side, there is the mistake of not informing me about the unresolved uncertainties about my insurance, and also the failure, not to take my correspondence a year ago as an opportunity to check my data in your database and find, that there is a problem. Then, on a more general level, it has been my failure not to stay in closer contact with Alcor. I imagine, that eventually - by carefully reading all your policy updates - I could have become aware ahead of times of the strictness, that is being applied from Alcor's side towards cases with payment or address problems. On Alcor's side, I see the failure of not hard enough trying to contact its "disappeared" members, and in applying the rules of membership cancellation in a premature way, as well as being too rigid in dealing with cases like mine, where it is all but clear, that the failure is only on the client's side. Having read Alcors s paper on the difficulties with foreign membership, I can understand, that German customers with German insurances pose bigger problems and uncertainties on Alcor, than a not-so-big institute can take. And even if it wouldn t be for those problems, the far distance between Amerika and Germany is maybe a psychological factor, that shouldn t be neglected. Maybe I would be better off with the Alcor UK people. In fact, I would be willing to try. But I want you to get some help from your side. I feel it would unfair, if I would have to undergo the whole trouble and take the whole costs one more time. Please keep in mind my arguments above: I think that Alcor has its share in the responsibility about what happened with my case and I would like to see some kind of acknowledgement of that fact. As a minimum request, I would want Alcor UK to take over my insurance; in exchange, I would be willing to see, that any uncertainties regarding a future payout from this insurance are straightened out. I am sure, this is possible. I would also ask for Alcor s obligingness, regarding the numerous fees that will be due upon my new registration at Alcor UK. Respectfully, Thomas Kirschner ------------------------------------------------------------------- I had to write another letter before I received an answer, on Oct. 16th: Dear Jennifer, I had written you a lengthy letter via mail, dated 14th of October. I haven t heard from you since then. If you need more time, I would appreciate a short notice, so that I know that at least my mail reached you and is being processed. Sincerely, Thomas Kirschner -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I received the last letter from Alcor later the same day: ar Thomas: I must begin by offering you an apology. It does seem that miscommunication has occured between Alcor and yourself. I would now like to provide you with my cooperation in resolving the situation with fairness and efficiency. I am certain you understand that your membership was cancelled several months ago for non-payment of dues and that Alcor did attempt to notify you of this. As a comparison, imagine the electric company suddenly fails to receive payment from you for their services. Of course, they will eventually cease to provide you with such services...as did Alcor. Although, I cannot reinstate your membership because of this, I do sympathize with your circumstances and admit that Alcor should have notified you sooner of the possible funding difficulties. Apparently, your membership was not given enough consideration and this could have been harmful to both yourself and Alcor. However, now that you are no longer a member and Alcor is taking responsibility for the prevalent funding risks involved with foreign memberships, our current requirements must be met...for your protection and ours. Providing adequate funding will likely be difficult for you and I will bear this in mind when considering any additional requirements which typically apply to new applicants. For now, the most beneficial effort you can make will be to secure funding for our services. This means you will be required to either obtain an American insurance policy or provide pre-payment. These are currently the only two options that Alcor can accept with confidence. However, I will mention that we are very close to accepting insurance funding from Scottish Amicable Life European in the United Kingdom. If the meet our requirements, you will be eligible to apply with them. Until then, you may want to inquire about your eligibility with the following American insurance companies (refer to this letter from me): New York Life 1-800-645-3338 Mary Naples () Investment Services 1-800-749-3773 Rudi Hoffman () Alcor U.K. representative 0115-928-1019 Graham Hipkiss () Best of luck to you, Jennifer Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=14787