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Starwood letter re: Ernst & Young regular audit?

Denise L

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Did anyone else get a letter from Ernst & Young today:

"Dear Sir or Madam:

Our auditors, Ernst & Young, LLP, are performing their regular examination of vacation exchange programs operated by Starwood Vacation Ownership.

..."

It goes on to list one transaction from 2006 (reservation). I'm supposed to sign and date and send it back.

Just curious if anyone else got one?

It would be nice for Starwood to communicate in the letter regarding why this information is important and what it is used for.
 

rocky

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It's a standard confirm that auditors do randomly when they perform annual audits. Sometimes they will write your vendors and say "were these the invoices you issued to Starwood in 2007" or they will write your banks and say "please confirm the Starwood bank balance as of Jan 31." It a way of getting information independently to ensure Starwood's books and records capture information timely, accurately and are supported by real transactions with appropriately detailed supporting documents.

You got picked in the random sample they took across a population of reservations...... it's a very common approach. I work in audit and we do it all the time for various things.
 

arlene22

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I got one of those last year or the year before. Not this year, though.
 

ciscogizmo1

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I wonder how many owners are really gonna fill it out. I bet not many because they will think it is a scam or something.
 

stevens397

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How about if I write back that I'll fill out the questionnaire for 20,000 Starpoints!;)
 

LisaRex

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Back when I worked as a temp, one of my jobs was to work for an auditing company that verified subscribers to magazines. Magazine publishers use the number of subscribers they have in order to set rates for advertisers. The more readers, the higher $$ they can command. In order to circumvent fraud, the advertisers established an independent auditor to verify that the publishers weren't inflating their subscriber base.

I was responsible for pulling a random sampling off the subscriber list and sending those fine folks a survey asking them to verify that they were, indeed, paid subscriber of X magazine. We enclosed a self-addressed, postage paid envelope but no compensation other than that. Because a lot of people would pitch it if we used some unknown auditor's name, we used the magazine name as the sender.

Now if, after several weeks, there was no response, we'd send a second letter out, but this time we'd send it via certified mail to ensure that the recipient would open it. People weren't real happy with that tactic, as you can imagine. But the auditor refused to change this practice.

Then we started working on a magazine that had an ongoing annual million dollar sweepstakes. Let's just say it was Reader's Digest. (If anyone used to subscribe to RD, they know all about the bazillion sweepstakes promos that were sent out.)

Imagine, if you will, being a subscriber to such a magazine and receiving a certified letter from them. What would be the first thing that went through your mind?

Yeah.

Let me tell you, there is nothing that will make a person angrier than the double insult of finding out that not only did he NOT win a million bucks but he hauled his butt to the post office to personally collect ...a survey! That some bozo wanted you to fill out, for free!

We quit sending them out via certified letter after that.
 
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