On-line Stores & Sellers

[Moonfish]

I had virtually the identical experience back in September with them. I swore them off, the lowlife bastards. Almost 6 weeks before I bought something else. Their shipping has always sucked. It appears they have ended their contract with DHL, the worst shippers in the world, but they aren't a whole lot better off now. 

Amazon.jp uses DHL for international delivery and they get their shipments to me in two days (seemingly DHL is their standard shipping for parcels heading to the US west coast). I was very impressed as the feat has been accomplished many times over the last year. Go DHL!!
Amazon.jp has been a very pleasant shopping experience as I expected all kinds of issues. Great vendor for Asian releases.

[Gurn Blanston]

Amazon.jp uses DHL for international delivery and they get their shipments to me in two days (seemingly DHL is their standard shipping for parcels heading to the US west coast). I was very impressed as the feat has been accomplished many times over the last year. Go DHL!!
Amazon.jp has been a very pleasant shopping experience as I expected all kinds of issues. Great vendor for Asian releases.

But that is direct to you shipping. This was one of those unholy alliances between DHL and the US Mail, like FedEx Smartpost and UPS / USPS. Those two suck bad, but DHL was incredible. I do enough of a significant volume with ImportCD to say it wasn't once in a while, they would, every time, send parcels back and forth between Dallas and Houston (North Houston is the correct terminal), and then to any number of smaller post offices, then back the next day to Houston etc., before finally coming to me. Every stop on the journey dutifully recorded. And this was every time! It's like they didn't understand how the ZIP code system worked. The net result was each package took about 3 weeks to arrive from Kentucky to Texas, while on other systems they take about a week.

And ICD say 'call us back when it is overdue'. Well, I don't want every parcel to take the full time allotted.

[Ken B]

But that is direct to you shipping. This was one of those unholy alliances between DHL and the US Mail, like FedEx Smartpost and UPS / USPS. Those two suck bad, but DHL was incredible. I do enough of a significant volume with ImportCD to say it wasn't once in a while, they would, every time, send parcels back and forth between Dallas and Houston (North Houston is the correct terminal), and then to any number of smaller post offices, then back the next day to Houston etc., before finally coming to me. Every stop on the journey dutifully recorded. And this was every time! It's like they didn't understand how the ZIP code system worked. The net result was each package took about 3 weeks to arrive from Kentucky to Texas, while on other systems they take about a week.

And ICD say 'call us back when it is overdue'. Well, I don't want every parcel to take the full time allotted.

Well Gurn, that's natural. You are shipping sophisticated music to Texas. You must expect puzzlement, disbelief, confusion, fear. I'd worry about posses.



Kidding, kidding

[Gurn Blanston]

Well Gurn, that's natural. You are shipping sophisticated music to Texas. You must expect puzzlement, disbelief, confusion, fear. I'd worry about posses.



Kidding, kidding

Nah, it's just Haydn...

[Moonfish]

But that is direct to you shipping. This was one of those unholy alliances between DHL and the US Mail, like FedEx Smartpost and UPS / USPS. Those two suck bad, but DHL was incredible. I do enough of a significant volume with ImportCD to say it wasn't once in a while, they would, every time, send parcels back and forth between Dallas and Houston (North Houston is the correct terminal), and then to any number of smaller post offices, then back the next day to Houston etc., before finally coming to me. Every stop on the journey dutifully recorded. And this was every time! It's like they didn't understand how the ZIP code system worked. The net result was each package took about 3 weeks to arrive from Kentucky to Texas, while on other systems they take about a week.

And ICD say 'call us back when it is overdue'. Well, I don't want every parcel to take the full time allotted.

Yes, I can imagine the confusion with DHL linking up with the local system. My worry about Japan was more about address format, names etc as things are formatted a bit different in Japan.   

[Mookalafalas]

Here is something rare. I have to retract a former complaint.  I got a package from ImportCD of a bunch of Naive label stuff and a Mozart Violin Sonatas set.  A few days after I got it, I saw Que post the same violin set in the listening thread and realized I hadn't gotten mine. I sent ImportCDs a number of emails and eventually was responded to and then received the replacement. Later my wife came in and said "I found this in a box in the garage"--and there was the CD.  I don't know how I had missed it

[Moonfish]

Here is something rare. I have to retract a former complaint.  I got a package from ImportCD of a bunch of Naive label stuff and a Mozart Violin Sonatas set.  A few days after I got it, I saw Que post the same violin set in the listening thread and realized I hadn't gotten mine. I sent ImportCDs a number of emails and eventually was responded to and then received the replacement. Later my wife came in and said "I found this in a box in the garage"--and there was the CD.  I don't know how I had missed it

A classic CDCDCD syndrome!   

[Dancing Divertimentian]

Today's update: she requested her money back, but they did NOT give her the money back. Instead...they mailed her the stamps.

So at least she successfully received them!

It seems ironic that the post office is having problems mailing out...stamps.....

[Dancing Divertimentian]

Nah, it's just Haydn...

HA!!

[Mirror Image]

Today's update: she requested her money back, but they did NOT give her the money back. Instead...they mailed her the stamps.

So at least she successfully received them!

Oh jeez..... How irritating.

[The new erato]

Here is something rare. I have to retract a former complaint.  I got a package from ImportCD of a bunch of Naive label stuff and a Mozart Violin Sonatas set.  A few days after I got it, I saw Que post the same violin set in the listening thread and realized I hadn't gotten mine. I sent ImportCDs a number of emails and eventually was responded to and then received the replacement. Later my wife came in and said "I found this in a box in the garage"--and there was the CD.  I don't know how I had missed it

There you are, no help in hiding them in the garage.

[Gurn Blanston]

It seems ironic that the post office is having problems mailing out...stamps.....

No, irony would be sending them FedEx.

[aap1960]

With all these examples of poor service, I would like to chime in on a great experience I just had with archivmusic.com.

I ordered The Karajan 1980's box set from them. I received it and put if off to the side for a couple of days. Days later I was looking through the set, slowly. After a few days I had reached the 2nd of the 4 boxes that divide the 78 discs and found that cardboard cover of #38 had no disc!. I sent off an email to customer service at archivmusic telling them of this. They answered my email about 5 days later. That email stated that they "regretted the error, and would get back to me soon". About another week later I received another email (which I read from my phone at work) stating that they would send me the missing disc in the mail and be on the lookout for it. By the time I got home, there was the package with the missing disc inside the correct cardboard cover! Amazing.

I received the original box on the 19th of December, and by the 2nd of January had the replacement. Considering two major holidays came and went within the time period, I was extremely pleased with the service.

ps. This is one of the major drawbacks of ordering these large boxes. Unless you check every single disc immediately, chances are that when find something that's missing, it might be to late to correct it!

Tony

[Brian]

FYI: Amazon seller "Last Page Media" is Half Price Books's overstock. Now, I don't know how they did this, but they just shipped me a used Bruckner 6 (Dohnanyi/Cleveland) CD and it took eight days to get shipped from their warehouse...which is five miles from my house. That package traveled an average of 0.026 miles per hour!!

Anyway, I'm playing it now and despite looking beat-up, the CD plays just fine.

[Ken B]

FYI: Amazon seller "Last Page Media" is Half Price Books's overstock. Now, I don't know how they did this, but they just shipped me a used Bruckner 6 (Dohnanyi/Cleveland) CD and it took eight days to get shipped from their warehouse...which is five miles from my house. That package traveled an average of 0.026 miles per hour!!

Anyway, I'm playing it now and despite looking beat-up, the CD plays just fine.

I order stuff from Detroit that goes via Chicago and Bowling Green before coming back here.

[Harry]

I would like to issue a warning concerning the internet CD firm from Austria, "Inandout" Their service is below par, especially their return service, and it takes ages before replacements arrive.
The send me the box Bach and beyond, which I ordered before Christmas. When it arrived I found out that it had considerable water damage, and inside there was mould, almost bursting out in mushrooms, and thats still an understatement. When I contacted them, they send me a return address, without a bar code, meaning you have to pay the postage for them in advance, otherwise you get no proof of sending the package. They finally delivered a new box which seem to be okay, but no apology why this box was send in the first place, because you could clearly see it had considerable damage. Some friends of mine had similar experiences with this firm.

[Harry]

And as a extra, there are things one should not do when ordering cd's. In approx ten times 50% of the credit card payments gets mixed up.
Say they have free postage, which they do once a month. Say you order a few CD'S and think that's it. But suddenly you see this incredible bargain, and you add it extra on your already ordered cd's which you also paid for already. Then their might be a problem. Sometimes they will charge you again the first amount you paid already again and the new one on top of that. This situation landed me in a credit card charge of almost 400 euro's while I ordered only for 180 euros. And since JPC gave the money part into the hands of another firm, its no use complaining to them. They will tell you contact your bank, we cannot help you. And when I did, they threw me out of JPC because I ordered the bank to take my money back, which was completely legal. I just figured it out that I spend about 40.000 euro's of my money with JPC over a few years, and this was my reward.
Be warned then.

[Obradovic]

This situation landed me in a credit card charge of almost 400 euro's while I ordered only for 180 euros

How did this happen? jpc unlike other sites maintains very low P&P price tags all time. For Greece is only 5.99EUR for whatever you order. How it added up to 220EUR for neighbouring Holland?

[Harry]

How did this happen? jpc unlike other sites maintains very low P&P price tags all time. For Greece is only 5.99EUR for whatever you order. How it added up to 220EUR for neighbouring Holland?

They could and would not explain. I am not talking about the free postage.

[Obradovic]

They could and would not explain. I am not talking about the free postage.

I think your run into the court was the least you should have done... I for my part could have done worse...