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owed, petitioner immediately posted a credit to such customer’s
account and treated the overpayment as a liability for financial
accounting purposes.
While respondent notes that petitioner did not routinely
inform its customers of the existence of the customer credit
balances, we do not view this factor as decisive. First, we
accept the testimony of Dr. Hamann, petitioner’s president and
chief executive officer, that the credit balances tended to be
eliminated through their application toward the purchase price of
subsequent orders. Second, we do not believe that petitioner
intended for its customers to remain ignorant of the credit
balances. It was the practice of petitioner’s customer service
personnel to inform those customers who placed calls to
petitioner of the existence of any credit balance to their
account. Furthermore, the sales personnel charged with servicing
approximately one-third of petitioner’s customers had an
incentive to inform their customers of any credit balances, as
the existence of the credit balance would increase the likelihood
of additional sales upon which such personnel collected a
commission. Third, Dr. Hamann testified that customer
satisfaction is of paramount importance to the financial success
of petitioner’s operation, given the limited number of health
care professionals in need of the product line offered by
petitioner. We therefore do not believe petitioner would risk
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