You have been assigned to the confirmation of aged accounts receivable for the Blank Paper Company audit. You have tested the aged trial balance and selected the accounts for confirming. Before the confirmation requests are mailed, the controller asks to look at the accounts you intend to confirm to determine whether he will permit you to send them.

He reviews the list and informs you that he does not want you to confirm six of the accounts on your list. Two of them are credit balances, one is a zero balance, two of the other three have a fairly small balance, and the remaining balance is highly material. The reason he gives is that he feels the confirmations will upset these customers because