After finally figuring out which size of props I needed, I finally pulled the trigger and ordered a pair of Flexofold 18x13x3L. I want to thank my contact at Nautitech, Paul Colin, who has been an absolute Godsend. He’s exceptionally responsive and goes out of his way to answer all of my questions. Thank you Paul!
Of course, I forgot Europe shuts down for holiday in the summer for a month. For Flexofold, this was from July 8 until August 1st.
Finally on Wednesday, Marlene at Flexofold told me the props are packed and ready to be shipped!
Fast forward to today, Friday, August 5, I received a call this morning from someone who allegedly worked for UPS. Apparently, the declared value of the props of $5352 is some $2500 or more above the limit of importation without duty…or something like that. I didn’t research it and I could barely understand the woman who called me. Frustrating.
Anyways, she went on to say that she needed a Tax ID number from me. I told her this was not a business and she suggested my SSN would suffice but, of course, if I wasn’t comfortable giving it to her over the phone I could call Customer Service. I thanked her and, of course, told her I was uncomfortable giving her that information. That started to be what turned out to be a very frustrating 40 minutes of my Friday morning.
Calling UPS’s Customer Service was futile. There was simply no phrase which could get me to speak with an actual person nor was there any means for me to clear this problem up. I tried at least three times before finally giving up. Finding the Contact Us page, I saw there was an International Shipping Customer Service number. However, I met the same fate as with the other Customer Service number.
Then I proceeded to setup a MyUPS account…or whatever it’s called. I was successful. I could see my shipment but there was absolutely no way to pay duty or put my TIN into the system. In fact, the Website seemed to suggest that the packages were en-route and nothing was wrong.
Then I noticed one more number on the Contact Us page for Technical Service. Might I be able to worm my way through Technical Service and finally get this thing cleared up? Success! After speaking with 4 people, repeating the story 4 different times and repeating the tracking numbers at least 8 times, I was finally able to give a credit card number to pay the $39 needed for Duty. No TIN was needed.
Now, I recognize the volume of packages UPS ships. I realize that customer service must be very expensive but, I could not have imagined a worse customer service experience. Here’s a vendor that is likely making several hundreds of dollars to ship a package from Denmark to the United States and this is how poor you treat your customer?
UPS is not alone with this approach to Customer Service. Many companies nowadays have resorted to voice recognition systems at least for the initial customer service contact. They’re all horrible and I think it sends an absolute terrible message to your customers. by adding insult to injury.
I don’t know what the solution is. I suppose that ultimately natural language comprehension will become almost as good as a human…I guess that’s the holy grail. But, until that happens, we’re all going to have to suffer or protest with our pocketbooks and pray for change.
