Uncommon Cents

Not long ago, I bemoaned that many vendors who sold on eBay or otherwise made products available for sale over the Internet would not ship to Hawai’i. My solution at the time was to have items sent to a friend on the continental United States, then have them reship the item to me. This has worked decently.

Not long after that post went up, it was suggested I try a forwarding service. Basically, a forwarding service is a shipping middleman, a professional way to do what I had my friend do for me–reship a package to somewhere that was too expensive (or perhaps even not a possibility as far as the seller was concerned) to another destination.

The forwarding service I used had some difficulty. I had an order from Fry’s sent to them–a couple of RAM modules for my MacBook. What followed became a series of issues, some of which were related to DHL (which shipped from Fry’s to the forwarding service) and some of which were related to the forwarding service:

DHL could not find the forwarding service and called me. I called them back and they said the package would be delivered the next day after verifying the address. They failed to deliver for one more day and had no explanation for the issue, just an apology (uh, customer service, please?).

In the meantime, however, the forwarding service told me that they had sent me a nine pound package and charged my credit card accordingly.

NINE POUNDS? This is a package that ought to be under a pound (interestingly a friend of mine who lived in Omaha, Nebraska ordered the same product I did at the same time; I asked him how large the package was and his answer was, “too large, but definitely not nine pounds.”)! I questioned the service and they eventually determined they sent me someone else’s package by mistake. I ended up doing them a favor by reshipping that package to the proper buyer.

One experience does not make a great review, but first impressions also count for a lot. I’m not sure I’d be using this shipping service again (although, to be fair, they were quite forthcoming with the issues, and no company or service is perfect), or for that matter, any shipping service again, as I can get the same kind of service from a friend. Still, this may be an option for those of you who live in places like Hawai’i (and Alaska as well as overseas) who have to deal with vendors who do not wish to ship to you.

Tags: Frugality, Social aspects, Technology

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