AKinHI

Thanks SWIM, I'm sure you are happy to provide me a shipping quote $70 more than what was agreed on at the time of purchase and charging me the price of my items in shipping.

It's a shame companies can do this, it's not like I changed my address after I placed the order. I know that after I pay for something I don't get to say "No, that's more than I want to pay give me another tow-strap for the same price." But you better believe they'll do everything they can to get what mony they can out of their customers.

As I'm sure you may imagine I sent them a rather colorful email telling them exactly how I felt about their attempted thievery. This is what the order was for and what the mutually agreed on shipping cost was. It is mutually agreed on right? They quoted me a shipping price, I agreed to that price, they charged me that price. Then instead of fulfilling their end of the contract they decided $21 wasn't enough money to ship two tow ropes and a ****** strap...

As I was writing this post I got a reply back from them:

Thanks, it's good to know that when they try to steal your money and you refuse, rather than filling the original agreement that had been made between the buyer and Morris4x4 they just cancel the order.

I will never ever order from them again, nor will I recommend them to anyone.

Gee oh Dee

Interesting...

chadh92

I find their prices expensive for a retailer. I'd much rather purchase parts directly from places like Rough Country, Rustys, or if I need replacement parts, i've never had an issue with Autopartswarehouse.com

Thanks for posting this

Gee oh Dee

For what its worth, shipping to HI isn't cheap, and I guarantee its not going 'ground' like it says. And its not going by boat, so its going air.

Have you checked via FedEx what it costs to ship from them to you?

okcjeeper

Yeah if you can give them both to and from zip codes and weight of item they can give you a rough estimate. That price for shipping seems a bit on the hgih side but that's just me.

When a price is agreed upon always and I mean always get that in writing weather it be in a quote, an email or what. At the point it's written it becomes a bindable contractual agreement.

AKinHI

I have not checked, I do realize shipping will be high. I grew up on an Island in Alaska so I've spent my whole life paying outrageous island shipping charges

The part that miffs me isn't the fact that they're asking so much, but the fact that I placed my order on the understanding that there was a mutual agreement of $19.99 for shipping and began happily waiting for my new recovery equipment, only to wake up and have to deal with this. If they could have given me the quote of $91 from the beginning, I wouldn't be a dissatisfied customer, I simply would have taken my business elsewhere and possibly used Morris4x4 in the future when I am living in the mainland.

Because of their poor handling of this situation (I feel it was handled poorly at least) they have forever lost me as a customer and I will never have a good thing to say about them.

When I worked retail, if we quoted a customer a price that turned out being too low, we bit the bullet. We didn't tell them one price and then think about it and say "You know what? That's just not gonna cut it, I know we agreed on this but now I want this much instead."

Correct me if I'm misunderstanding this, but what you're telling me is that the first confirmation email I have from them is indeed a legally binding contract to the price?

After the email I sent to their sales rep the VP of national sales called and left me a voicemail, if this is indeed the case I may return his call with this as ammunition.

Evil Drew M

When you got the "mutually agreed upon price" for shipping did that come from a live person or was that price a mutual agreement between you and a piece of software (ie: their website)?

If you look at just about any website's agreement they have something in there about making final adjustments to the price should the need arise. As a result in most cases submitting an ecommerce order is NOT a legally binding contract.

AKinHI

The $19.99 was from their site and also that was the price in my order confirmation invoice that they emailed to me later that day.

Thanks for clearing up whether or not it is a binding contract Evil Drew, it's unfortunate they can do that.

Evil Drew M

Both were automated through the software.

This is the price you pay for convenience. Had you called to place the order I bet the outcome would have been different - but you didn't want to call to place the order did you?

Don't get me wrong - it sucks and I believe the shipping quote was high. I also believe the $19.99 quote to be low.

It also sounds like they didn't take your money. They asked for confirmation before they ran your card.

AKinHI

They had ran the card when the order was placed, I had the fees "pending" on my online bank statement, after I got the email this morning I checked my bank and I no longer had the charge.

What it looked like by watching my bank is that they ran the card, decided they quoted me too low for shipping, refunded the card and then tried to get me to say okay to a much steeper bill.

Evil Drew M

No it isn't - that shipping price was an esitmate and I bet if you reed the agreement you checked to agreeing to (you did read it right?) it tells you that shipping quote was an estimate subject to final approval.

I'd say you'd have much more of a case had they come back to you and said the price of the products weren't correct on their website and wanted to upcharge you.

Shipping is a volatile cost as in it is always changing based on fuel costs and things of that nature. Those are out of the control of the businesses that are shipping the product.

Again - it sucks but businesses aren't in the business of losing money. I've had similar things happen to me and I can't fault them. I myself am a small business owner and I understand how something that seems insignificant to a consumer can drastically cut into our margins.

As I said in my previous post - nothing is set in stone until they run your card and charge you. Until that happens their is no agreement. It works both ways. They changed the price of the shipping - and you had the option to decline.

Evil Drew M

Nah that isn't how most PCI-compliant ecommerce works. They run an authorization on your card but until someone reviews it and finalizes the order that will show up as nothing more than a pending charge and if they don't finalize it within a certain timeframe (24 hours for example) the authorization disappears.

Restaurants do the same thing. A lot of times if you go to dinner and then check your statement as soon as you get home you will see a pending charge for the bill amount but not the bill plus tip. They run the final charge at the end of the night.

AKinHI

In the end, it really comes down to how much you value your customers. You DO NOT send them a confirmation email and then days later send then a different email asking them to pay more.

For instance: I have a 1989 Corvette and I ALWAYS take it to the same corvette shop because the owner really knows how to take care of his customers. He once quoted me a maximum price for some work, and the work ended up running him about $500 over the quote but he bit that bullet even though I signed a contract agreeing to pay whatever the cost of parts+labor ended up being. His quote was not in writing, it was just us talking in his garage but he stuck to it.

Why? Because, you absolutely cannot expect to quote a customer one price and charge them something that is ridiculously higher than the original quote. If it's a $5-10 difference no big deal but when it starts getting up there, it's bad business to do that to your customers. That is why he still has my business and why Morris4x4 will never see any of it agian.

xjcrazy

I work for the brown shipping giant. I will never understand why people think its outrageous to charge x amount of money to have something picked up from a warehouse, taken to the center an unloaded, then loaded into another trailer, then hauled 200 miles, then put on a plane, fly that plane hundreds of miles, take it off the plane, put it in a truck , take it to the building, unload it, put it in a truck, drive that truck to your house, and have someone hand you the package. That pkg goes through so much stuff just to get to your house. Its a wonder how these companies can even do it for the prices they are right now.

AKinHI

Do you get free shipping since you work for them?