Last Updated on: 16th November 2017, 07:46 pm
Oh boy. Remember back in January when I was all proud of myself for finding mutt mitts? Well I should have never done it, and this will be the last package of mutt mitts I ever buy. The product is fine, it’s just the bullshit surrounding it.
The bags work fine, although I can’t put as many in my leash luggage thingy on the harness. I used to easily fit fifteen bags of the old size in there, but only ten of these will fit. But that only makes a couple days’ difference really, so no biggy. The way they’re packaged makes me laugh. They remind me of the way the garbage bags on the greyhound bus hang on the side of the seat and you rip them off as needed.
But here’s where things get fun. At the end of January, I got a nice happy delivery man at my door. “I have a package from winnipeg,” he said. I thought “woohoo, mutt mitts!” He brought the box up, and the poor fellow couldn’t figure out that I was blind. “Sign by this x right there, ” he kept saying. “right there! There!” Hey dude, blind over here. I keep telling you that, and you keep saying “Right there!” After he finally broke down and physically put my hands where the x was, all the while passing off the vybe that I must be the largest moron on the face of this earth, I got it signed and asked him how much I owed. “Oh no, ma’am, you don’t owe anything.” he said. I asked again, because I said I was told I would owe something. “Nope, nothing,” he said and left. I thought “Wow, that was a pleasant surprise. What I should have done was asked him his name.
Fast-forward until last week when I got a call. “this is Courtesy freight calling. We were wondering if you paid us for shipping of a package from Manitoba…” Pardon? I thought the shipper dude said I didn’t owe anything. So I called her and explained the whole thing. She was puzzled, justifiably so. Why would he say I owed nothing when there’s a bill that says collect upon delivery? I asked her how much I owe. I’m expecting 60, maybe 70 bucks max. “$174…”pardon? I believe words escaped my mouth that never do. I wanted to say “jesus Christ!” but figured I’d better be polite so…”Lord have murcy!” issued from my mouth. Then the poor woman began to stammer. “Um, er, you’re surprised? Maybe we got it wrong. We’ll check into it.” I explained to her that the product only cost $123. She then understood why I would be shocked.
I hung up the phone thinking I would get a call back explaining that she had some how factored the cost of the product in with the shipping or something. I was sure this would all be a big mistake. Well, there were a lot of mistakes made, but that wasn’t one of them.
Then I got a call the next day from Guardian Traffic’s own shipping guy. “You have a problem with your shipping amount?” he said. Uh, yeah, you betcha. I asked him to check how much it was. He said the same amount. I explain to him that I was never informed before this was sent out how much the shipping would be, because the front desk girls didn’t know, but they thought it would be no more than $70. “Oh!” he said. “I don’t know why they didn’t check with me. I could have gotten them a quote within the same day. I do all the shipping stuff.” At this point I kicked myself for not demanding a shipping quote right then and there. why is it that even when I know all the right things to do, I still manage to not do them some of the time?
At the end of the conversation, he told me to call a number, and didn’t even give me the whole number. He said it was transit pro something. And you do all the shipping? From what he gave me, I managed to google out the company. It was Transprovincial! Yeah, transit pro, Transprovincial, they’re in the neighbourhood. Oh boy.
I called them, and got more disconcerting news. First they couldn’t figure out why on earth I was calling them, since Courtesy Freight should know how much it is since they were the ones who passed it off to Transprovincial. They told me that yes, they had in fact handled the parcel on its last leg of the journey from Thunder Bay to here. they then told me that since it was a home delivery, it would have cost more, and had I just gone with Purilator, it would have been way cheaper. At this point I was about to snap, because Guardian Traffic told me that they couldn’t send it via Purilator because I didn’t have an account with Purilator. When I said this, I believe this made the person at Transprovincial raise her eyebrows and say in the most polite manner that this was a load of horse poop.
After explaining the whole saga to her about how I was not informed of the shipping costs, and the shipping man said I owed nothing, she said she would do more checking into it, and maybe if she spoke to the general manager, the price could be lowered. I thanked her, and waited, and waited, and waited.
I then heard from the woman at Courtesy who told me more bad news. She told me that they in fact would not have taken my credit card on the day the box arrived, and they would only take cash or cheque. This made me even more angry because Guardian specifically said they would ask Courtesy if they would take credit cards. I guess they didn’t. She was telling me what I had to tell Guardian to do to fix this whole mess. I was about to call them when she called me back and said “Wait wait wait, I just spoke to Transprovincial and they said management was going to look into this.”
I have to say both Courtesy Freight and Transprovincial have been very good about this whole thing. It’s kind of unfair that they were the recipients of most of my wrath. But they seemed to understand why there was wrath, which I thought was awesome. I’ve had some shippers who don’t even call you when you don’t pay fees you don’t even know about. They just mail you a couple bills, and then send the collection dogs. And collection dogs don’t understand anything except “Ok I will pay!”
Finally, yesterday, I heard back from Transprovincial. The manager had decided to lower the shipping fees to $77.60. That’s still a little high, but I can stomach that, knowing that this will be the last time I go through this.
Thanks to my big post about biodegradable poop bags, I heard about a place called www.ElmhirstPackaging.ca that makes biodegradable poop bags for way cheaper, in large quantities, is Canadian, and I believe I read that they ship for free. So I can still be green without losing mass amounts of greenbacks. I’ll give them a try when this box runs out.
What a disaster. I should have listened to my gut when I didn’t get a good feeling about Guardian Traffic. Oh well, at least it’s all solved, or as solved as it can be. I’ll write them their cheque and be done with it. And to fellow Canadians, don’t go Mutt Mits if you have to deal with Guardian Traffic. It’s probably more painful than it should be.
