I hate to keep bitching but Empeg has to get a grip on the shipping. After three emails and few calls to England to confirm my shipping address, it was still wrong. Why did you guys not taks my word as correct? It ended up going to a city 5 hours away from my place. On top of that, I called TNT three times from overseas to fix this and it STILL was miss-directed. Now my player has been handed off to another courrier as "undeliverable" and I MAY see it sometime next week, if I am really lucky. It now sits in Moncton NB, which is nowhere near Cape Breton, NS. Come on guys, please get a grip on who you have picked for shipping your consignments. John

Technoweenie
12 GB Blue / Red MK2

I'm sure Rob will jump in here and get you taken care of. Unfortunately, it's after 8pm in England right now and there's little he can do tonight. But I'll bet he'll get on top of the situation first thing tomorrow.

I've never heard of this kind of a problem happening before-- the only complaints have been with customs, never with empeg's end of the shipping transaction.

___________
Tony Fabris

I don't know any background on this as others look after the sales and service side of the business now. I'll make sure someone looks into it in the morning.

If it's an empeg mistake I apologise. If it's a TNT mistake the timing is good, as their area manager is visiting us tomorrow and I'll be sure to have a word.

What country is the consignment going to?

Rob

OK, I saw the country in your profile - Canada. TNT coverage can be a little wierd there sometimes, for example I am aware of a recent shipment for which the TNT computer could not find the address - we had to route it to another city and let the depot take care of it there. Maybe that was your consignment, I don't know the background.

We've looked at other couriers and whatever their shortfalls we have found that TNT provide by far the best overall world-wide service (excluding the USA, for which we use FedEx). In any case US and Canadian shipments will become Rio's responsibility soon.

Rob

I don't want to dismiss ineedcolor's aggravation over this shipment gone wrong. On the flip side, though, I would like to say that I appreciate Empeg's consideration of the various delivery options and note how well that has worked (for most, I think.). In my case, not only was the initial Fedex overnight hitch-free, but in a recent case where I needed to return my unit for a minor fix, I was doubly impressed. Jim drops Empeg for Fedex in Seattle on Tuesday at 3:00 PM, receives the fixed unit back on Friday at 10:00 AM. I don't see how that could be improved upon, and I appreciate the service I've gotten..

Anyhow, would that all deliveries would go without a hitch. I hope the unit in question finds the right province. Soon!

Jim

John,

Our customer services department thought they had explained this to you, but clearly some further clarification is necessary.

The TNT routing system does not extend to your delivery address. Apparantly it is quite common for major carriers to redirect consignments to some Canadian destinations through local shipping companies, and that is what they have done. The package has shipped to the correct depot for transfer to another courier as planned, and is showing "undeliverable" because that just happens to be how they scan consignments in this situation.

Luck should have nothing to do with you receiving your package - so far it has routed exactly as TNT said it would.

I have asked the dispatch room to use FedEx in situations where TNT cannot route direct to an address but FedEx can, however TNT tend to be much better at getting goods smoothly through customs so this may not be much of an advantage.

Regards

Rob

Some things seem to be pretty complicated..

TeeMcBee
Got my Mk2! # 080000143

Greetings!

I feel really sorry for him because (if I am not mistaken) this is the second attempt - the first one going to Bosnia...

Hang in there - it is really worth it!!! Imagine the time before, when we were all eagerly / impatiently waiting in queue as production ramped up and the backlog cleared...

Paul G.
SN# 090000587 (40GB Green)

Actually, I got the impression he wasn't around here then.

I can empathize with shipping difficulties. It eventually took about 6 days with all the customs and redirecting and such. Eventually I drove into DC myself to the FedEx hub (in an area of the city I'd rather not be in).

IT WAS WORTH IT THOUGH!!

DiGNAN
Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, etc.

I'm kinda in the same boat pal... here's my TNT tracking info.

12 Feb 2001 09:00 Toronto Other Out for delivery
11 Feb 2001 15:27 Toronto Out for delivery
11 Feb 2001 14:47 Toronto Import received
10 Feb 2001 10:30 New York J.f. Kennedy Intl Apt Potential linehaul delay due to bad weather
10 Feb 2001 08:40 New York J.f. Kennedy Intl Apt Consignment passed through transit point
09 Feb 2001 20:22 London Stansted Shipped from originating depot

And here it is on the 16th and still no empeg, but I am patient... you would be surprised how hard it is to get something shipped out of my hometown... oh well, good things come to those who wait.


P.S. I'm a little farther East of you pal, Southern Newfoundland.

#170... I got SN: 080000101 12 gig Blue!

Never mind, It showed up 2 hours after I posted this message. Although TNT used Same Day/ Right - o - Way who shipped it to me in rough condition and upside down (packing and delivery labels on bottom side) and my poor nice looking empeg box is covered in brown packing tape and has some of the print torn off of it.. .oh woe is me. :)

Thanks empeg/Sonicblue.

Edited by ShadowMan on 16/02/01 06:05 PM.

We pack players in plain outter cardboard boxes. Sometimes customs like to be nosey.

Rob

Hello All - I apologize for not responding sooner to you Rob, I am at my parent's place now and have no Internet access there...

So here it is 20 Feb and my player is still not in my hands. The story is: The player cleared customs in Toronto over a week ago. It was sent to Dartmouth NS (5 hours away from my shipping address) Purlolator (who has it now, explained by Rob above) could not find my parent's address in their system. They did not try to call my house nor investigate it further. The player was shipped to Moncton, New Brunswick (400 miles further away) and could not be delivered (obviously!) It sat there for almost a week while I frantically tried to find out where it was. I finally tracked it down, and it is on it's way back to Dartmouth to be redirected to my parent place here. The problems I was told were: No phone number on the shipping label; an incorrect postal code and finally, no one knew where our house was. I say it is all crap! I made two calls to Empeg and three calls to TNT to comfirm my address, each time stating that the address is nowhere near Dartmouth. I double-checked the postal code and phone number to make sure it was correct. I am pissed because I feel that the shipper isn't giving me the whole story and covering up their professional incompetance. My only concern now is with the amount that my player is bouncing around the country, that it will arrive damaged. I know that the box is open too, I was told that yesterday. The killer is that I get different stories from different people everytime I call to get the shipping status so I am still not really sure what went wrong.

To sum up, I appreciate the effort that Rob and Empeg is making to ensure that this kind of thing doesn't happen that often. I also appreciate the responses here in the forum. I just hope that the package was labeled properly to begin with - there is no reason why that box had to go to Dartmouth in the first place. Thanks for allowing me to vent somewhat....John

Technoweenie
12 GB Blue / Red MK2

I must say that you've kept an amazingly cool head about it all. If i were in your situation, damn, i can't imagine going through all that. On the one hand you have to sit there and realize getting all fumed about it doesn't help your box arrive any faster, but on the other you have to deal with that amazing level of incompetence you mentioned. I hope it arrives soon and in one piece... and as others have mentioned...it's definitely worth the wait!


|| loren.cox || 080000446 ||

As I said, the package was deliberately shipped to the wrong town because according to the TNT system your parents town doesn't even exist. The invalid shipment would then flag up an exception, and the package would be re-routed by the local depot. It does seem that this worked as expected, and the package was passed to a contractor. From that point on it sounds like the contractor has screwed up.

From what TNT said the destination town is remote and not served by any of the major couriers - is this the case? Shipping to such destinations can be very troublesome, and I have been tempted in the past to decline orders where shipping is likely to be a problem. This may seem hard line, but these few (maybe 4 or 5 out of a thousand) orders create a lot of customer disatisfaction and public criticism, where in fact we've made no mistakes and have put in great effort to resolve the problem.

I'm very pleased to say that SONICblue will take over most sales and shipments pretty soon!

I hope your player turns up complete and in one piece (Canadian customs make a habit of opening empegs, but I haven't heard of them losing or breaking anything). I'm sure you'll find it worth the extreme efforts of getting it!

Rob

Hi Rob - Thanks again for the reply. My player finally arrived yesterday. I sent off an email to support with the details, suffice to say here that the player is damaged. As for the courrier, the company servicing this area (Purolator) has a reputation for screwing shipments up, maybe TNT could find a better company to service Atlantic Canada? I would also recomend that you guys look into a foam packing or bubble wrap to secure the player with...mine appeared to have moved all over the inside of the box while in transit. Now I will sit and wait for the replacement part to arrive ......John

Technoweenie
12 GB Blue / Red MK2

Ouch, man that sucks. Mind if i ask what exactly was broken?


|| loren.cox || 080000446 ||

Hi Again, damn internet access is spotty here in Cape Breton....My facia mounting bolts supports were pulled out (broken inside the facia) and the bottom corner of the facia was crushed. I am happy to report that the player works just fine and I continue to be so impressed with it's features. I CANNOT wait to get home after my tour in Bosnia to get it into my car...Summer cruzin' this year'll be so sweet

Technoweenie
12 GB Blue / Red MK2

That's really awful that your unit arrived damaged. Sorry to hear that. I'm sure the damage happened during shipping, rather than at the hands of Empeg.

The good news is that those parts should be pretty easy to replace, just have Empeg send you new ones.

___________
Tony Fabris

> just have Empeg send you new ones

Already done.

..and yes, the damage was done during shipping - the box was crushed on one side. I'm pleased to say that this is a very rare occurance, but John has been unfortune enough to attract every single shipping disaster that could possibly happen short of meteorite strike. I was starting to think I would have to hand deliver the player!

Rob

Hello all again, from Toronto this time! I just wanted to publicly thank Rob and the rest of the Empeg gang for their support through all of this, I did have quite the experience getting my player. I continue to be very amazed at what it is capable of doing and continue to rave about it to my friends...I just very happy that it is here and in my care now. Thanks again Rob, you went above and beyond in this case. John

Technoweenie
12 GB Blue / Red MK2

It's always nice to turn a into a

Credit where due - most of the effort on this was put in by Andrew, Daniel and David in customer services.