Ordinary Nothing

A client of ours was having problems, caused by two rather old hardware devices. We could have serviced and fixed those devices by ourselves, but that’s a lot of work and quite a mess, so we contacted the manufacturer in the US, and shipped the parts to them.

After an examination they replied that one of the devices they can deal with easily, but the other is more complicated and they would charge a hefty sum to fix it. After thinking about it a bit my boss decided it’s better that we’ll deal with it ourselves.

Since the international shipping charges are on us, my boss asked them to send back both devices together (after they deal with the first, of course) in one shipment. He also asked them to use the international shipping company we usually work with for US deliveries, since the costs will be lowest (I’m not sure if it’s because they’re generally cheaper on that route, or if it’s due to some customer agreement we have with them. What matters is the bottom line). Naturally they agreed.

And shortly afterward they sent back the problematical device. By itself. With a different company than the one we asked, with higher shipping fees. My boss complained to them, and they apologized (But we’re still paying for it).

A couple of days later they finished working on the other device, and shipped it back. With yet a third shipping company. And one which based on past experience is more expensive than the previous two.

My boss looked at the shipment invoice that was faxed to us, and noticed the the price wasn’t listed there. There was just a customer number. Since we had business with that shipping company in the past, we had a customer number from them, so he assumed the prices will be billed separately by the company. He did want to know the cost, however, so he rang the company to ask.

The receptionist there confirmed that it’s possible that for registered customers there won’t be a price listed, since billing is handled for each customer monthly instead of per shipment. She got the customer number from him, which he read directly from the invoice. And to verify she gave back the company’s name from their records.

Not our company.

An old client of ours. And not the one that the current two devices are from.

It so happens that about five years ago we sent something from this client for repairs, to the same manufacturer in the US. And to save time and hassle they then sent it back directly to our client.

And now they took another device, from us and belonging to another client of ours, and sent it to that old client of ours. Charged it on that old client of ours, I may add. Meaning that the old client will need to pay for the shipment before the device is released.

Just in case anyone wonders, we did have more dealings with that US company in the interim. Quite a lot. Why they decided this time to fish that old customer number from their records, and actually use it, I haven’t a clue.

Luckily for us, after a lot of explaining the old client agreed to pay the fee, give us the device, and charge us for what they paid.

December 2nd, 2004 at 19:17 EET | Categories: Miscellaneous | Track comments. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.