Creative Entropy, owned and operated by Seneca native Shane Green and his business partner, Bruce Brandolino, recently started www.SqueakyFax.com, a Web-based service that helps companies collect payments from past-due business accounts by sending invoice reminders via fax.

The service provides a way for companies to collect past-due payments, especially amounts too small to be handled by a collection agency, without the hassle, confrontation, time, or effort typically required by traditional methods. It is based on the notion, often proven in the collections business, that "the squeaky wheel gets the grease."

Green and Brandolino create and sell online applications in their Salem, Ark.-based business, Creative Entropy. Over the last decade, the company"s owners encountered their share of "deadbeat clients." Often, the only way to collect payment from these accounts was to constantly call and harass them. When one of their business accounts refused to pay a $70 bill and then repeatedly claimed to be out of the office to avoid the ensuing collection calls, partners Green and Brandolino reached the point where, "The money didn't matter so much. It was more the principle of the thing ..."

Frustrated, they applied their creative energies and came up with the SqueakyFax.com idea.

Here"s how it works: the SqueakyFax.com customer signs up online and sets the interval at which the faxes are sent to the customer (daily, weekly, monthly, etc., at random times). The faxed reminders are generated from random fax numbers to prevent number blocking by the recipient. The service is effective because customers give most faxes more attention than mailed invoices and the faxes are more difficult to avoid than phone calls or e-mails. Faxes are sent only to other businesses — not to consumers — as different laws apply to U.S. consumers.

For more information, visit www.squeakyfax.com.