Irritated by fear!

Hi All: Here is a draft letter for publication in a local paper! It irritated me greatly:) Mike

I am an irritated small business owner who thinks the recent articleI How To Avoid Losses If A Retailer Goes Bankrupt in the Essex Reporter of January 8th creates fear among my customers where none is warranted. I am not going to dispute the facts of the article. I am going to dispute the notion that masses of consumers are somehow going to loose their shirts because a company goes bankrupt! I had customers approach me during the holiday season asking if the gift certificates would be good next year. I had customers ask me if they should even buy a gift certificate from me. As if I was going to sell the certificate and close my doors the next day! The customer said they had received an email warning about it. Now you chose to publish an article that implies masses of retailers are all going to go belly up any day now. Let's ignore a trillion dollars to the financial services sector. Let's not worry about entire life savings wiped out by Bernie Madoff but let's instead get my community worried that I am going to rip them off for a gift certificate. You don't suppose this somehow deflects attention from important issues and continues the mythology that big companies are safer? That this article indirectly benifits big chain stores? This kind of fear mongering is simply not news. Take a minute, take, for example a small independent bookstore or the Sacred Grounds Cafe(which had a big article and numerous letters about it) . Wouldn't the community know the company was going out of business. Anybody seen any going out of business sale signs lately? What do you suppose happens when a small retailer closes their doors. Anybody noticed any unmarked vans sneaking up at midnight to spirit away the goods and leaving masses of surprised customers banging at the doors the next day? Please! If that happens it won't likely be an independent retailer but it might be a big chain, maybe even a big chain bookstore!