Hello;
Now that I’m finally back from a road trip chasing parts and at a real PC I can better respond.
First issue I’d like to address the members that posted that they felt they were spoken to rudely.
I want to apologize for that, whether it was an employee or myself that you spoke to, it was wrong and unacceptable, and am truly sorry that you had that experience. We are always helping customers and callers with technical advice and or input, or even referrals as to where to search for a part that we don’t have. So the rude treatment isn’t typical. Perhaps we were busy or had something else going on, WHICH IS NO EXCUSE, but if it happened then I truly am sorry and apologize and I’d welcome the chance to try and be of help in the future. This issue will be addressed and corrected here at the shop, I promise that.
Second issue is that I’d like to thank all of our customers who have posted to support us and also the members who posted that have an understanding of business and shipping operations and shared their experiences or input or support, thank you.
And lastly I’d like to properly address Bruce aka Bruzilla.
You complained about many issues, but then many times followup with something to the effect “but it wasn’t a problem or no problem”, that’s hard for me to understand because if it wasn’t a problem then why start this thread?
When you called last Monday and placed the order you were informed that the total with shipping was $62, as you posted prior.
You didn’t ask if it was overnight shipping. BTW an overnight letter cost $39 thru UPS to ship to you and $23 thru USPS, neither of which the shift rod would have fit in or safely shipped in.
I’m wondering why if the shipping cost was a concern to you, why you didn’t inquire more about it when we were on the phone?
It wasn’t “day 4” of shipping as you posted. You placed the order on Monday. Day 1 would have been Tuesday, day 2 Wednesday and day 3 was Thursday, that’s the day when you received the package at 12:25 pm.
UPS ground (even figuring a 2 pound weight) from our zip code to yours costs $14.73, $2.27 was added for handling for a total of $17 shipping.
BTW, the shift rod would not have fit in a USPS small flat rate box, and USPS shipping cost is more than the amount that you posted it would be.
Anyone who ships knows that shipping companies require that there needs to be a 2” perimeter from the item inside of the box to each interior wall of the box or else if there is a damage claim the claim can be denied for not enough clearance.
The 66-70 B-body and A-body lower shift rod is about an inch longer than the 71+newer B-body rod that you ordered. We had 1 box made that would accommodate either rod. You said the box is 22” long, that is incorrect, and I have 100s of them here to confirm that with. The outside dimensions of the box is 16-7/8” x 4-3/8” x 4-1/2”, which according to the shipping companies gets rounded up to 17”x5”x5”. Which due to that size makes no difference if the contents weigh 1 ounce or 3 pounds, it ships for the same amount due to dimensional weight as per UPS. Catalogs are free with an order and didn’t effect the shipping charge. I wonder if you would have been displeased if you didn’t receive a catalog with the order, this is the first time that I have ever heard of a customer that didn’t want one or complaining that they thought it affected the shipping cost, ever.
The reasons why we shipped your order via UPS is 1st that UPS typically picks up from us in the early to mid-afternoon, while USPS picks up from us in the morning. So there wouldn’t have been enough time to have your order out with Monday’s USPS pickup, but we did have plenty of time to ship it with Mondays UPS pickup. So your order was shipped on the same day as it was placed. I wouldn’t even want to imagine the potential mayhem that would have ensued if your order didn’t ship out until the next day via USPS.
The 2nd reason that we prefer UPS is that your order can be tracked every step of the way. If you would have called us on Wednesday afternoon inquiring where your package was I could have told you exactly where it was, where it was prior to that and when it would be delivered. USPS tracking is very sketchy, sometimes they are good with their tracking, other times there is little if any information available until after it’s delivered. Can you imagine what your reaction would have been if we did ship it via USPS and you called us to track it but we couldn’t tell you where the package currently was?
Since we didn’t have your email address it would have been impossible to provide a tracking number to you “automatically” as you posted. A tracking number isn’t issued until the shipping label is created, so it would have been impossible to give you a tracking number when you placed your order. In regards to tracking info being offered, you are correct that we don’t have an online store, yet. That would be virtually impossible to do with our enormous inventory of used and NOS parts as they don’t come in boxes or at least ship ready boxes, much less a standardized size box per part. Those parts are boxed on an individual basis as they are sold. But since we have been coming out with a large amount of our own new reproduction parts we will in the near future have an online store for those items. Customers do pay with PayPal and other customers inquire about parts via email and some submit their payment info thru an email so we would have their email addresses that we send tracking info to. As a rule we don’t like to take email addresses over the phone as they typically can be difficult to understand correctly, please try to understand the tremendous amount of variables with spellings, abbreviations and symbols that could be used in an email address. So if someone asks for tracking when placing a phone order we just ask that they send us an email thru our website. Again, if tracking info was important to you then why didn’t you ask while placing your order?
I hope my reply didn’t come across as confrontational. If there is an ever an issue I always try to put myself in the customers position, but in this case I just can’t see the basis for Bruce’s complaints, assumptions and need to take it to a public forum like this. Hopefully my post is explanatory enough so members can see the other side of the coin
And lastly, Bruce, your payment has been 100% refunded ($62), but for some reason I feel like that may not be satisfactory for you.
ain10:
