The angry thread

[Bob Wild]

Bought a bed from a well known high street store. Delivery was promised yesterday between 2pm and 9pm. Got a phone call at 7pm to say they would deliver at 9pm. Got another phone call at 8pm to say they were running late and had to take a break for legal reasons; said they would deliver at 9:45pm. Arrived at 9:45 and installed bed by 10pm.

Read label on bed which said do not use for 4 hours after delivery !!!! They must be joking.

[Geoff]

 

[BudgieJane]

Got a phone call yesterday asking for my partner. "Is Mrs S. available?"
"No," I said.
"Oh. Um, ..., um," and he hung up.

If only he had asked the right questions!

[jonclox]

Having just spent my monthly limit on track/ lectrics etc the TV downstairs decides to throw a wobbly.
We`ve had it since the beginning of 2009 but it seems like the power regulators getting tired.
I only watch about an hour a day during meal times but SWMBO relies on it.
I stream telly through this PC in the bedroom. A far more civilised way to watch it    especially since we went fibre optic to the cabinet last November and run at 72meg download with no usage limit

[jonclox]

  The cost of new TVs today  Still at least SWMBO only wanted a HD job without any of the up to date add ons such as 3D and net connection.
Told her she would have to make do with the old stuttering one till the new one arrives.Bit later I told her it arrives Wednesday. I think I`m in her good book (for once) 

[Bob Wild]

They say bad luck comes in threes:

• Spent hours cutting out the walls for my Scalescenes station, then found that my brassmaster etched window frames wouldn't fit. The original download was OO gauge so I scaled them down before printing. Must have had a senior moment cos discovered that the scaling was all wrong.
• My DMU is broken - I'm told the motor is dead. It's still under guarantee but the shop says it is out of production, so I must send it back to Bachman.
• Some idiot has scraped the side of my car in a supermarket car park

[EtchedPixels]

They say bad luck comes in threes:

• Spent hours cutting out the walls for my Scalescenes station, then found that my brassmaster etched window frames wouldn't fit. The original download was OO gauge so I scaled them down before printing. Must have had a senior moment cos discovered that the scaling was all wrong.
• My DMU is broken - I'm told the motor is dead. It's still under guarantee but the shop says it is out of production, so I must send it back to Bachman.
• Some idiot has scraped the side of my car in a supermarket car park

If it's within the two years sales of goods cover then providing it wasn't fit for purpose (it hasn't failed through you abusing it) then you can also return the item to the shop and ask to be refunded. Depends if you still want that model.

Bachmann uses a small number of very standard motors so apart from the hassle of getting it back to Bachmann (make sure they pay the postage) even though its out of production it's probably not a big problem to get fixed up.

[NTrain]

I have had a number of packages getting caught for customs duty. Fair enough, it is part of dealing with foreign suppliers, so I may not like it, but nothing to get angry about.

However, Parcelforce charge £12 handling fee and the Royal Mail charge £8, other companies have similar charges. Again, nothing to get angry about.

Both of the above carriers have websites where you can make your payment for the charges, and it is quite simple to use. Again, nothing to get angry about. You make your payment and agree a date for delivery, then sometimes you get the delivery as promised and sometimes you don't. 

When you ring up to chase delivery, it sounds like it is a manual process which releases the parcel and sometimes this get missed. 

[ParkeNd]

I have had a number of packages getting caught for customs duty. Fair enough, it is part of dealing with foreign suppliers, so I may not like it, but nothing to get angry about.

However, Parcelforce charge £12 handling fee and the Royal Mail charge £8, other companies have similar charges. Again, nothing to get angry about.

Both of the above carriers have websites where you can make your payment for the charges, and it is quite simple to use. Again, nothing to get angry about. You make your payment and agree a date for delivery, then sometimes you get the delivery as promised and sometimes you don't. 

When you ring up to chase delivery, it sounds like it is a manual process which releases the parcel and sometimes this get missed. 

During all my time as a Logistics Manager, which amongst other things involved getting components here from all over the world, I reckoned I could get anyone to do anything - except HMC. They are a law unto themselves and there is nothing you can do about it. So, referring to teeth, just grit and bear it. They will talk to you, they will give you endless status reports - but they won't move at your speed.

[Sprintex]

Had an interesting chat with the postie at the local sorting office on this subject.

Customs charge goes straight to HMRC (aka the Government) as we all know, but what I didn't know is that "handling charge" of £8 (or whatever) is nothing to do with the Royal Mail - they are TOLD to charge it and then have to hand it over to . . . yes, you guessed it . . . the Government!! 

Blatantly milking you twice for the same thing 


Paul

[daveg]

Had to pay tax and that £8 handling charge on an overseas shipment yesterday.

The PO bit doubled what was due in 'legitimate' tax.

Bit like the fuel duty added to petrol and diesel and then they add VAT to the total. Double whammy.

Dave G

[tim-pelican]

However, Parcelforce charge £12 handling fee and the Royal Mail charge £8, other companies have similar charges. Again, nothing to get angry about.

I get quite angry about it - it seems an entirely unreasonable charge for collecting a tax that I effectively have no other way of paying.  (Trying to pay import duty / VAT on things in advance?  Good luck!)

The other one that annoys me is them taking the full shipping amount into account.  I have neither bought nor consumed transatlantic shipping in the UK.  It's none of gov.uk's damn business, the same as when I buy other services that have no UK component.  (I do this for a number of computing / network services, and I don't pay tax on them).    I've bought shipping from the point of arrival in the UK to my house, and they're welcome to tax me on that.

[Newportnobby]

What's even worse it the P.O. have told me it's a complete post code lottery as to whether the 'handling charge' is applied

[BudgieJane]

What's even worse it the P.O. have told me it's a complete post code lottery as to whether the 'handling charge' is applied

Sometimes it seems to me to be a lottery as to whether the customs duty is applied as well. [I'm not talking about items of small value here.]

[ParkeNd]

For photographic goods there are a number of companies discussed regularly on the forums who ship UK spec goods from Hong Kong. Despite repeated warnings from forum members about import duty etc nobody ever seems to get caught for VAT, import duty, or handling charges. Freshly fuelled by having to pay about 27% for three taxes on the purchase price of a mint Nikon F2 bought on eBay from Florida I looked up the three duty percentages from Hong Kong - all 0%. So there does seem to be some kind of advantage given to Hong Kong exporters even if this is a deliberate device.

Is there a model train supplier getting say Dapol and Farish UK products in the same way from Hong Kong. The cost saving on cameras is about 25%.