Canadians beware of CoolTech LLC CB Kit orders

[CanadianJLUser]

Hi folks,

Last night I ordered a CoolTech CB Kit for my Jeep JL. Today they emailed me asking for more money. Nothing on their website indicated I wasn’t being charged enough for shipping, or that I couldn’t get the items ordered.

Anyway, I’m posting the emails I exchanged with their sales department without further comment. I’ll let you guys decide for yourselves who is in the wrong.

————

Hello [redacted],

Thank you for your order. Unfortunately USPS prohibits us from shipping a 4' antenna (box dimension) to Canada. We have a couple of options;

1) We can substitute a 3' antenna. The total shipping charge is $67 for both packages, so I could send you an invoice for the add'l $44

2) We could ship the order complete without an antenna - saves $10 on the order which closely enough offsets the (total) $37 shipping charge. So, we could ship for the same price you have already paid.

Let me know what your preference is.

Best regards,
[redacted]

————

My response:

I paid for the entire CB kit, with 4’ antenna.

I also paid your shipping charge.

It’s not my fault that your site doesn’t properly account for your costs on shipping. If you’re losing money on the deal, you need to update your website to account for that with future customers.

As I see it, you have two options:

1) Send the order with the 3’ antenna along with an apology for not being able to fulfil the order as requested. There should be no additional cost for this.

2) Send the order with no antenna, and refund the full regular purchase price of the 4’ antenna.

Any other option is very poor customer service, and I will be sure to let everyone on the Jeep forums know about it.


—————

Resolution:

[redacted],

We ship to (reasonable) Canadians as a favor. You live there and YOU know that shipping costs are higher.

I'm canceling your order and issuing a refund.

Have a good one!

Best,
[redacted]

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[mwilk012]

We ship to (reasonable) Canadians as a favor

Ouch. That's some shit service.

 

[JP18]

They issued a refund. Let it go.

Shipping to Canada as a business is a pain, even more of a pain to ship as an individual. I'm from Canada and live in in the US and I long ago stopped shipping anything to Canada due to cost and the PITA factor.

JP18

 

[GreyFox]

Yeah they issued a refund, BUT it's always good to let your fellow Canadians know what to expect

 

[Arterius2]

This is why I’m glad I live in Vancouver and it’s only a 30min drive to the border (Point Roberts) to get parcels from my US mailbox. And fill up on much cheaper gas.

Makes me giggle like a lil girl every time I think about all the money I’ve saved over the years!

P.S my avatar is also taken in Point Roberts WA looking across the strait at Vancouver!

 

[D60]

I wouldn't ship to Canada either. The heavy handed regulations and exorbitant fees are more trouble than they're worth.

At least, that's what Brian Boitano would do....

 

[tCub]

You don’t think that maybe your response was a little too aggressive?

 

[CanadianJLUser]

You don’t think that maybe your response was a little too aggressive?

Yeah, that's why I included the full exchange for people to decide for themselves.

 

[digitalbliss]

I agree with @tCub , while your scenario is less than ideal, their response was a professional one. You replied like d!ck and got a response in kind.

 

[Maverick909]

i agree with the OP. i would be upset with the seller if there website doesnt account for proper shipping. and i would have the same response. Its obvious that the seller knows about the higher priced shipping cost. my other thought does the website have the fine print saying *Canada shipping may cost extra* dealio. As a company that ships things internationally quite often when we quote our products we give the buyer the option to she up the shipping them selves or once the order is ready and shipping label is being made we add the full cost of shipping at the customers expense (per the noted quote in bold letters shipping charges will be added to the total cost after shipment is picked up). Find another CB place and enjoy a beer. lesson learned

 

[UKCATS]

They issued a refund. Let it go.

Shipping to Canada as a business is a pain, even more of a pain to ship as an individual. I'm from Canada and live in in the US and I long ago stopped shipping anything to Canada due to cost and the PITA factor.

JP18

My wife is from Canada. Pain in the arse to mail Christmas/Birthday gifts.

 

[imthatguy]

Odd, as I didn't have any trouble ordering a 4ft antenna kit to Canada back in April from Cooltech. Perhaps the $15 shipping charge I paid wasn't enough and they were losing money on the deal.

 

[JP18]

Odd, as I didn't have any trouble ordering a 4ft antenna kit to Canada back in April from Cooltech. Perhaps the $15 shipping charge I paid wasn't enough and they were losing money on the deal.

I think the automatic shipping calculators out there on mail-order websites work fine for the US but are not capable or inaccurate with Canadian shipping costs.

This is without even mentioning that UPS charges brokerages fees when mail ordering from the US to Canada...

JP18

 

[CoolTech]

Cool Tech here:

A small percentage of our business comes from our friends in Canada. I suppose the easiest thing to do is to simply state that we won't ship anything to Canada and be on our way. However, we have elected to continue to sell to these customers and quite candidly we just eat it on shipping costs of the smaller items we sell. On larger (2-package) items like the op ordered, there is a big gap between what the website collects and what our actually costs are. We try to get an email out to these buyers as quickly as we can to outline their options - as we did here. 99%+ of the time our experience is that customers are very cool and living in CANADA and ordering products from US websites, they are understanding that shipping IS more. We DO NOT try to profit on shipping and we don't add bogus "handling charges".

I've tried twice to pay to get our website adjusted to account for the increased shipping charges to Canada. It's not easy as the issue is not only weight but also the size of the box and the long-ish antenna boxes are problematic. And it is only recently that USPS is telling us that we can no longer ship 4' antennas - so the rules change as well.

Clearly I didn't appreciate this buyer's "entitlement" attitude and it is the reason we elected to just issue an immediate full refund. As I said, 99%+ of our Canadian clients have a more mature, professional perspective and there's never an issue. But then there's these occasional special people who are aghast at higher shipping charges and then who threaten to smear your reputation on-line.

I stand by our policies which I both create and execute. I would like one day to have the site account for these costs automatically at the point of sale. If it were easy, we'd have it by now. A 1 in 100 complaint is a better threshold than the complaints we used to get when we couldn't ship to Canada at all so in the interim, I suppose we'll live with the situation and hope most (Canadian) people can understand.

 

[Maverick909]

My suggestion is you need to have that on your cart page of your website. it would be much simpler than having to email *as quick as you can* to the customer to relay information as such. something along the line of. * Canadian shipments will cost more due to international shipping fees. We are currently working on the shipping estimator to accurately charge our Canadian customers. Sorry for any inconvenience this may cause* Something like that will atleast forewarn the customers of the extra fee that may not know that rates are in accurate per the estimator and its a lot less of a shock than to have an order placed and two days later a company wants more cash. that id really frustrating in general as a customer. I have canceled orders myself for that same reason... just a mere suggestion IMO. Not trying to bash just trying to help.

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