Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Guestimating stinks

So I ordered four 6-gallon plastic food storage buckets from Grandma's Country almost 2 weeks ago online. Under "shipping info" it says, "Most orders are shipped within 3 days of the time they are placed and arrive within a week." Sounds normal.

But then a week went by and nothing was showing up at my house or on my credit card. I was wondering if something was wrong with my order, so I finally called them today, 2 weeks after my initial purchase.

I found out 2 things.

First, they finally shipped my things (and charged my card) last Friday, so maybe it will get here tomorrow with a little delay due to the holiday.

Second, they charged me $13 more than their "shipping estimate"!!!!!!!!! I couldn't believe it. I didn't know it was an estimate (maybe it was in fine print somewhere, but it never says on their shipping info page that they just estimate the price), and to go from $11 to $24 is a big jump!

I'm a bit peeved right now, but what can I do? Not a whole lot.

Why can't Texas grocery stores (or Costco!) just sell food storage buckets like they do in UT?

4 comments:

Celia Marie (W.) B. said...

I found my invoice and decided to write them an email. This is what I wrote:

I ordered four 6 gallon buckets without lids on Monday, August 20th. The order number is 531669. More than two weeks later, they still have not arrived. However, today when calling customer service I found out they were shipped last Friday. While it is taking MUCH longer than I expected, that is not my main concern.

Upon checkout shipping said $11.40. The total I was given in my invoice was $33.40. However, my credit card was charged $46.17. That's a $12.77 jump in shipping! The woman who helped me on the phone said that the cost of shipping I was given was just an estimate, however, I never saw anything on your site indicating that. If it were a few dollars I could kind of understand, but shipping more than doubled! That is one poor estimate, and I feel a little swindled, quite honestly.

Is there any way we can resolve this issue?

Juls said...

you could go to bakeries in the area. they usually get frosting in huge buckets and will sell them at a nominal fee (at least I have been told this...)

good luck...it does seem like you are being ripped off!

Celia Marie (W.) B. said...

Matt ordered some of the awesome gamma seal lids (the kind you twist on and off rather than pry) from a plastics company about a year ago when he was making some other plastic purchases. We didn't get any buckets because it was so easy to find them in UT. I didn't realize it was not so here. The bakery idea is a good one to look into, but if they don't fit the gamma seal lids, it would be a little pointless for me to buy them...

Anonymous said...

i used to get the frosting buckets from costco for free. if you call ahead they will even wash them out for you and have them waiting. they are not too big though, like 6 quarts or 2 gallons or something. still, very handy.