Lost a customer

cdonovan

Hi Christine:
I have placed 2 smug mug orders from pictures you took at the horse shows. The first order was missing a picture which , after a few e-mails got fixed. Yesterday I received an invoice in the mail from FEd-EX for the second order I placed in December for HST $2.84 an Advancement fee of $7.00 and again 0.98 HST on the Advancement fee for a total bill of $10.82!
I am not impressed! This did not happen with the first order I did not request any urgent delivery of the second order, so I do not understand these extra charges.
So now , both orders had problems! And I have no intention of paying this Fed-Ex charge.
Just thought you wanted to know because I am sure you could do much better on your own than dealing with this smug-mug outfit. With these problems I will not order through them again

Recieved this email and wanted to get to the bottom of it. I have the order number if needed.

Andy

Hi Christine, this is a Canadian shipment, yes? I'm so sorry but we have no control over what the Canadian government charges at the border - I wish we did! It's definitely a problem, I don't blame you or your customer. But he Canadian customs is tacking on crazy fees, sometimes yes, and sometimes now. We had to put a notice stating such on our shipping info page.

cdonovan

Andy wrote:

Hi Christine, this is a Canadian shipment, yes? I'm so sorry but we have no control over what the Canadian government charges at the border - I wish we did! It's definitely a problem, I don't blame you or your customer. But he Canadian customs is tacking on crazy fees, sometimes yes, and sometimes now. We had to put a notice stating such on our shipping info page.

she's upset and not giving me all the information, is it duty fees? I don't understand why fedex wouldn't have just charged her at the time of delivery.....??? I have had to do that before, where they won't leave the item unless the duty is paid in advance.

When I asked for more info she said that she had paid the fees but wasn't going to provide more information becuase she wasn't going to order through smugmug again.:cry

Andy

cdonovan wrote:

she's upset and not giving me all the information, is it duty fees? I don't understand why fedex wouldn't have just charged her at the time of delivery.....??? I have had to do that before, where they won't leave the item unless the duty is paid in advance.

it's customs and import fees, determined by the governments on your side of the border:
http://www.smugmug.com/prints/shipping.mg

When I asked for more info she said that she had paid the fees but wasn't going to provide more information becuase she wasn't going to order through smugmug again.:cry

Email me ATTN: Andy at the help desk, I'll refund amount of $$ if you can find out - get the amount of extra fee paid, SmugMug will eat it so you don't lose a customer Christine.

Foochar

Did some digging just because I was curious, and thought I would post it here for anyone that stumbles across this and want to know more... FedEx details these charges at http://www.fedex.com/ca_english/rates/downloads/addcharges_express.pdf

The initial HST line is the Canadian "Harmonized Sales Tax" that is from what I can see from a quick internet search is supposed to be 14%.
The Advance fee is essentialy a fee from Fedex for having the "courtesy" to pay the HST up front and bill someone for it.
The second HST line is the "Harmonized Sales Tax" that the Candian government collects on the Advance fee charged by Fedex.

cdonovan

Andy wrote:

it's customs and import fees, determined by the governments on your side of the border:
http://www.smugmug.com/prints/shipping.mg

Email me ATTN: Andy at the help desk, I'll refund amount of $$ if you can find out - get the amount of extra fee paid, SmugMug will eat it so you don't lose a customer Christine.

:stud:jawdrop I have an email in to her right now, Thank you sooo very much Andy, I really appreciate the attention you've given this.

Yet another Rave for Smugmug