My first babysteps in the Mp3 car entertainment domain were made with a Neo35 player that I bought from carplayer.com in june 2001.

When the unit arrived on my doorstep, the UPS guy demanded an extra $170 of taxes. I hadn't expected this, but I went to the bank (with the UPS guy following me), got the money and payed him.

Since then I've received about three documents from UPS. I thought this was an invoice (because they looked like invoices). The first two times in Belgian Francs, the last one in Euros. I thought this was something their accountancy department did because of the francs to euro conversion.
Nowhere on this document was written that it was a reminder that I still had to pay $170. There also was no accompanying letter that said this. Also no form to wire the money (which is custom over here when you still owe a company money) was attached to the document.
Knowing that I fully paid everything I ever owed to UPS I didn't put much notice to the letters and forgot about them.

But today I received a new letter from them. For the first time an actual written letter an not some sort of invoice.
This letter states that I still have to pay them $170 and if I fail to do so within 10 days legal action will be taken.

I can tell you, this was quite the surprise! Almost TWO years later!!!

I've seached everywhere, but I can't find the receipt I got from the UPS guy (I don't even remember ever getting one). I guess if there ever was one it was thrown away when I got rid of the packaging of the Neo35, one year later when the warranty was expired!

My guess is that the UPS guy just put the cash in his pockets and never paid it to his company.

So that's it then. I have no proof that I actually paid that amount, so I guess I'll have to pay whatever they ask to avoid legal repercussions.

I hate UPS!

I'd say just phone them up and explain it to them. It's not that unusual to have lost or thrown the receipt away if it really has been two years!

Trouble with shipping companies is normal
DHL are normally quite reliable but I've had a few packages which seem to have been routed via a war zone and been kicked around a fair bit as well. I've had no trouble with Fedex but they did lose a package of mine for a few weeks but it turned out that I hadn't filled in the commerical invoice properly and they can't track stuff when it's in customs. UPS seem to enjoy telling me that I don't live at my address anymore and send stuff back...

- Trevor

I did phone them. I got a very non-interested person on the other side of the line who just told me bluntly that I had to pay, nothing to do about it.
He was so uninterested that I could actually hear him think : "oh god no, not another one of those freeloading bastards who wants to get away with not paying"
When I told him I had paid and signed for receiving the package and that surely they must be able to find a trace of that in their archives, he just told me that wasn't possible and that I just had to pay. He then just hung up.

I was practically fuming when that phonecall ended.

So I made a call the the juridical department of a consumer magazine (on which I'm subscribed), and they told me to just write them a letter in which I state that I don't agree with what they're saying and that I don't intend to pay twice for the same "service".

I've just written the letter. Am going to the post office now to send it by registered mail.

I've decided that there's no way that I'm going to pay that amount just because they either have a thieving staff or a lousy accountancy section. I will take this to court if I have to, if only because it's a matter of principle.

Yeah. If it was $10 or so then I would just pay it just to save the hassle but $170 is a fair bit.
Waiting over two years to notify you is also stupid.

- Trevor

Couldn't agree more! Like you say, if it were only $10 then it's not worth the effort. But $170 is worth fighting for!

Do you keep old bank statements? Could your bank have a record of the withdrawl? It might help a little to show that a transaction of the same amount they are claiming was carried on the day your package was delivered.

Yeah, I've also thought about that. I've actually found that bank statement back, for a withdrawl of $150. (I must've had $20 still in my pockets)

It shows the date and the time of withdrawl, so at least I have some sort of proof that within the first 15 minutes that the UPS guy came over to my house I made a withrawl of almost that exact amount of money owed.

In my opinion that's a bit too big of a coincidence and it will also be my biggest ace when/if this case actually goes to court.

That's good. Hopefully they won't take it that far and realize it wouldn't be worth it.

UPS is the biggest JOKE that I have seen. About 3 months ago I had my turntables sent down here to me. They arrived all busted up even though they were sent in a road case. This didn't bother me, they were insured... YEAH RIGHT.. UPS made all kinds of bogus claim and then finally said they couldn't insure it because the travel case itself didnt have 2-4" of foam around it. ITS A TRAVEL CASE! I told them. It made to be thrown around with no problems. I talk, argued, screamed (in that order) to just about every UPS department and the insurance company they used with no results. I still have not received any money to this day. They play a game with you and redirect you to another person after you have talked to them for a couple of hours and since there is no REAL number to reach someone who can do anything at the company I got [censored] out of luck. If anyone knows someone at UPS thats high up I would still like to recieve my insurance that, in what I see, they frauded me against. ::there is a lot more to the story but it would take pages to tell::

-Greg

I've had variously bad experiences shipping consumer electronics. I had one CD player destroyed by UPS and one destroyed by a moving company. The moving company pointed out some insane fine-print that basically said "we have no proof it was ever working beforehand, so too bad for you". UPS, as I recall (this was 1989, so my memory is fuzzy), came out, looked it over, and wrote me a check.

Hmmm. So before I move I need to get a witnessed notarized statement or something about everything I have working.

"We have no proof it was working." "You do now." "We can't honor that." "Talk to my lawyer."

While I did have my own negative experiences with UPS recently (Rob can attest to this), eventually they did pay out, to the mutual benefit of the shipper and myself

I now quite enjoy my new receiver

Rob can attest to this

It was a pain in the ass getting money out of them, and we are a business with a UPS shipping terminal! Luckily, I am not in charge of shipping and someone else had to deal with it. It took months to get DiGNAN's money back.

You've made me curious : what had actually happened? Did they loose a receiver you sent him?

Did they loose a receiver

Ahh! Wild Rio on the prowl! Everyone lock your doors! Mothers watch your babies!

Oh. Maybe you meant ``lose''.

It sounds to me like someone got a tuner and a refund! MMh?

They dented it to the point that it functioned improperly in some way. DiGNAN sent it back to me, then we sent it to UPS for the claim. They examined it for a few weeks and then sent it back to us. Then they wanted proof of its value. I insured it for $299. The receiver was not even made anymore, but some company on pricegrabber still had it listed for a high price, so I sent them that.

Then, we heard nothing for a while. Then we heard that they paid but someone in our factory took the money. That seems impossible to me. Eventually, they sent a guy in a suit over here to check everything out and discuss what's going on. We were then told to send them the receiver again. A couple weeks later we got the check. What a bunch of choads.

Ahh! Wild Rio on the prowl!

Not that kind of Receiver. It was a Sony STR-DE945 stereo receiver.

Aaargh! Bitted!

Oh well...I've postponed it as long as I could.

In my defence : English is not my native language, how's your Dutch Bitt?

Hmmm. So before I move I need to get a witnessed notarized statement or something about everything I have working.

In essence, yes. The next time I move, even if it's across town, I plan to be much more careful about the fine print and get some sort of foreman to personally observe and sign off on everything that plugs into the wall. And, I'll get it on videotape.

"Okay, now let's have a look at my clock radio."

Speaking of UPS... I have a package coming that arrived at my depot at 9:38 this morning. Scheduled delivery *still* shows as yesterday, and it doesn't look like it's even going to make it today.

Feh. I want my Thunderbirds DVDs.

In my defence : English is not my native language, how's your Dutch Bitt?

Oops. I try not to do that. Het spijt me. It happened to be pretty funny in this case, though, kinda like one of those signs in a Japanese hotel like ``You are invited to take advantage of the chambermaid.''

My Dutch would be non-existant to exceedingly poor. On the other hand, my German is simply very poor.

Oops. I try not to do that. Het spijt me

No problem. And might I say that those three Dutch words are simply perfect. Spelling AND grammar!

That might seem silly, but I wouldn't be too surprised if a lot of Dutch young people would spell that incorrectly. Probably as "Het speit me" (the pronunciation is the same). The difference between, "ij" en "ei" is thought at a very young age in schools, but some never quite get it. I've even seen spelling mistakes like that one appear in peoples' curricula vitae. Truely shameful.

Sheesh...what a story. Glad it worked out eventually. But I must say, after what I experienced with them today it doesn't surprise me one bit.
I curious what their next step will be. I doubt they'll leave it as-is.

those three Dutch words are simply perfect

Through no fault of my own. That's just one of those ``this phrase equal that phrase'' things. I couldn't even begin to examine the grammar involved. And I'd probably butcher the pronunciation.

Which reminds me of my German teacher. It was at least a year before I figured out the word he used to get us to repeat what he said, ``alluhtuhssambituh'', was, in fact, the phrase``Alle zusammen, bitte'' (``All together, please'').

I often wonder about how well native speakers of languages other than English actually use their languages, if they are as poor at them as most native English speakers are, and if that has anything to do with how ``difficult'' the language is to begin with.

I often wonder about how well native speakers of languages other than English actually use their languages, if they are as poor at them as most native English speakers are, and if that has anything to do with how ``difficult'' the language is to begin with.

I guess this is a universal issue. Though I do expect eg. Chinese to be more difficult to learn than Western language, if not only for the different "alphabet".
I found English to be relatively easy to learn, (much more so than French), because it's a more "intuitive" language. (if you know what I mean). French has so many exceptions to their general rules, it's ridiculous.

Something I've always wondered about natively English speaking people : do some song lyrics sound as stupid to them as to me? When I hear song lyrics, I can't help sometimes but translate them into Dutch in my head. When I try to sing the "Dutch version" of the song then, it just sounds utterly stupid. Not only because most of the times the words don't match or rhyme anymore, but mostly because then I really realise how stupid the meaning of the lyrics is.

When I hear songs in Dutch, most of the time I'm ashamed. The song lyrics are mostly so corny, like you wouldn't believe. Granted, there are some exceptions, but very few.
Then I also think : people who speak English natively surely must experience this too? Or has this effect "faded out" because English songs are practically all you hear?

I found English to be relatively easy to learn, (much more so than French), because it's a more "intuitive" language.

Well, it's intuitive to you, as Dutch and English are fairly closely related. I imagine that the Italians out there would find French easier.

However, what I meant was, are Dutch speakers, on the whole, as poor at using Dutch as Americans are at using English? And so on for the French and French, Spaniards and Spanish, etc. I don't even have a good feel for how well the British are at speaking English. TV is my only largesource of information there, and that's hardly a good sample.

Oh, and as to lyrics, to be honest, I hardly ever think about lyrics until something jumps out at me, and that's likely to be something exceptional, so, I suppose, I'm somewhat inured to lousy lyrics.

And I can only think of a very few times when I've heard non-English lyrics in popular American music. ``99 Luftballons'', of which there was an English translation, ``99 Red Balloons'', oddly. There is a German version of ``Games Without Frontiers'' that I used to hear on the radio occasionally. That's all I can think of at the moment, other than a spattering of non-English lyrics in otherwise English songs (``Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto'', et al.)

UPS is the biggest JOKE that I have seen

Not the first time I've heard this.

A guy on a newsgroup had a computer totally destroyed by UPS and was given the *full* runaround for insurance. While the first one was being sorted, the replacement package was broken into en-route and had parts stolen, and was delivered with the tape resealed. He had photos of it before being shipped, and UPS helpfully removed *all* tape before delivering it back to him claiming the old "unsufficient packaging"

Well, cutting a huge amount of successful sueing (for £2500+), judgement setting aside, alleged lies etc. right before the "main trial" last month the site www.ups-are-crap.com disappeared and had a short notice saying the matter was settled and it redirected to www.ups.com

He succeeded, but they fought *very* hard and dirty.

Gareth

Can you not "abuse your position" and make an "official visit" with a couple of colleagues, flash badges and so forth? I realise the stupidity of this type of abuse of power, but if it was done with subtlety, it might work....