Farnell - non-UPS delivery method for non-UK customers??? Disappointing!!!

Hello,

let me add my experience with the ordering process:

RS: registered on 29.02.2012 at around noon, no contact since...

Farnell: placed order with sk.farnell on 29.02.2012 at 14:14 (what a coincidence ), delivery expected w/c 21.05.2012 (as stated in the email update), despatched on 23.05.2012 by Royal Mail 1st class air mail, untracked, despite having delivery by UPS on the invoice.

I brought this up with the customer support (via the form) and received a promt response which stated "it was decided at a later stage, because of the amout of packages that UPS was unable to ship, but the mention of UPS was kept in the system"...

The customer support said it would take between 1 to 2 weeks, but received it in 5 days on 28.05.2012.

After all the time I was just happy to have the board, not overly satisfied with how the delivery was handled, but quite happy with the support response time.

BTW: A friend was among those who had to express their interest, was promised a t-shirt, delivery in w/c 28.05.2012 and received it on 25.05.2012 minus the t-shirt.

e82492184 wrote:

 

despatched on 23.05.2012 by Royal Mail 1st class air mail, untracked, despite having delivery by UPS on the invoice.

I brought this up with the customer support (via the form) and received a promt response which stated "it was decided at a later stage, because of the amout of packages that UPS was unable to ship, but the mention of UPS was kept in the system"...

But did they charge you for UPS delivery, that's the key question.  It's not fraud unless they charge you for UPS but don't use that expedited delivery, it's merely misinformation.  It's still not nice, and it's confusing for customers, and it should be fixed prompty of course, but it's still just misinformation.

But if they charged you for UPS, and knowingly held onto your money instead of using it for UPS delivery ... well they can get into big trouble legally, as well as gain a tarnished reputation.  Whichever CS staffer you spoke to must understand that I'm sure, no matter how poorly trained.

I sure hope they started fixing this as soon as you notified them of the discrepancy.

Morgaine.

e82492184 wrote:

 

despatched on 23.05.2012 by Royal Mail 1st class air mail, untracked, despite having delivery by UPS on the invoice.

I brought this up with the customer support (via the form) and received a promt response which stated "it was decided at a later stage, because of the amout of packages that UPS was unable to ship, but the mention of UPS was kept in the system"...

But did they charge you for UPS delivery, that's the key question.  It's not fraud unless they charge you for UPS but don't use that expedited delivery, it's merely misinformation.  It's still not nice, and it's confusing for customers, and it should be fixed prompty of course, but it's still just misinformation.

But if they charged you for UPS, and knowingly held onto your money instead of using it for UPS delivery ... well they can get into big trouble legally, as well as gain a tarnished reputation.  Whichever CS staffer you spoke to must understand that I'm sure, no matter how poorly trained.

I sure hope they started fixing this as soon as you notified them of the discrepancy.

Morgaine.

Pavol C:

I don't know who e82492184 (maybe Farnell agent? ) is but I like his experience anyway!

That I am not , just wanted to share my experience and let you know your Pi might be already closer to you than you (or CS) think!

 

Morgaine:

But did they charge you for UPS delivery, that's the key question.  It's not fraud unless they charge you for UPS but don't use that expedited delivery, it's merely misinformation.  It's still not nice, and it's confusing for customers, and it should be fixed prompty of course, but it's still just misinformation.

Pavol C:

I've been already invoiced with lower price (lower than mentioned in http://www.element14.com/community/docs/DOC-43546/l/updated-27-march--raspberry-pi-pricing-update)

It would have been interesting to know what those charges for UPS and Royal Mail were and generally make the whole ordering experience more transparent. To be honest I don't know what I was charged for, however I had this on my invoice:

RASPBRRY-PCBA SBC, RASPBERRY PI, MODEL EA 1 0 1 CN 84714900 21.9100 20.00 21.91

FREIGHT CHARGE GBP (UPS) 20.00 4.50

ORDER PLACED BY MR *********************

*** PAID BY CREDIT CARD ***

Producer Registration Number: WEE/AK0049TZ

which adds up to GBP 31.69 / 39.24 EUR in total which is slightly lower than £32.70 from the pricing update. Maybe that's the difference between UPS and RM?

PS: If Farnell wishes to send my friend his missing t-shirt, please contact me for the details.

My invoice was identical. It's clearly stated UPS! I hope you are right and I will be nicely surprised by a postman on Manday.

@Customer Service: Please can you finally OPENLY DECLARE what it means to be charged for UPS and what for Royal mail?

Pavol

Farnell UK's delivery charges are clearly detailed on their website under "Delivery & Tracking":

Delivery & Tracking

Farnell offers fast same day despatch, normally delivered to you free the next working day.

Standard free next day delivery

• Same day despatch when you order before 8.00pm
• No minimum order quantity
• Goods under 1kg will be delivered by Royal Mail
• Goods over 1kg will be delivered by UPS standard next day delivery

Please note next day delivery can not be guaranteed in all areas of the country. If you would like to specifically request UPS standard delivery (irrespective of goods weight) we reserve the right to charge £2.99.

Need it quicker than next day?

Farnell offer a range of competitively priced guaranteed UPS* express delivery services:

• Weekdays pre 9.00am - £19.50
• Weekdays pre 10.30am - £12.50
• Weekdays pre 12 noon - £9.50
• Saturday pre 12 noon - £15.50

Same day delivery is also available. Please contact us for current pricing.

On a Farnell UK's order page and in their emails, the normal next-day Royal Mail delivery appears as "Basic Shipping:  £0.00", in other words the Royal Mail delivery charge is built in and not quoted.  If you choose UPS delivery then this line changes accordingly and shows you the actual UPS delivery charge.

I doubt that the basic Raspberry Pi package without accessories weighs 1 Kg or more, so unless you specify UPS then it should come by Royal Mail, and no extra charge made for shipping.

HOWEVER (and it's a big however), Pi appears to be coming from their "export" site even when both the depot and the recipient are both in the UK, and that site may be doing things differently to the normal Farnell UK site.  I hope that they don't screw this up.  The "normal" Farnell UK has a deservedly good reputation for efficiency and transparency of their ordering + delivery process, so it would be unfortunate if this were tarnished by the export site messing up.

Morgaine.

It seems, that Farnell won't answer this question clearly anymore...

Pavol

Closing thread:

Farnell, thanks for RPi. It has arrived today to Slovakia (one week later since invoiced). Despite of a little bit of misinformation in your invoicing system and based on the fact, that you never clearly stated the truth - It will be set by Royal mail, even stated UPS on the invoice, we apologyze for inconvinience, it will take generally up to one week - my RPi safetly arrived.

Kindly regards,

Pavol.

Yeah... I have the same issue with non-UPS.

I ordered the RPi, I paid the amount requested, which includes about 5 GBP for UPS delivery (explicitely stated somewhere).

On May 29 they sent the package (I don't know if by UPS or regular postal service - they didn't answer my question). Anyway, the delivery method doesn't really matter, because they didn't print the whole delivery address I entered... they missed the last line, which contained the floor and the phone number, so I suppose the carrier arrived in front of a 12 story building, with more than 1000 employees, and then went home.

After a while they resent the package, this time via regular postal service - so no tracking number, nothing. When I asked about some details (when it was sent, from where etc), they didn't answer. The only answer was that if I don't get it 20 working days I should contact them. I suppose I'll just ask for a refund if the package won't arrive in the next days and order from RS Components, even if I'll have to wait a few months more.

So this is my first and last order from Farnell, and I'll tell the story to all my friends, so they'll know they should avoid Farnell as much as possible. I suppose they won't really care about the small-scale bad publicity, because if they would care, their attitude towards clients will be different, but that's my only way to retaliate when I experience this kind of attitude.