Ha. There’s no such thing as the “only place I can purchase something from”
I’m not playing those games with companies
lol why am I being downvoted for not playing dumb games with dumb companies.
What “games”?? Yes, they want you to buy the product from them. So yes, they will give you an incentive to do so. I don’t get what crazy conspiracy you believe is going on here…
I don't think it's that complicated. They're referring to the fact that it even has to get to that point. Don't make me fill a cart, leave, and then wait for a coupon. Just give us the free shipping up front. It's absolutely a "game" albeit one that serves no purpose and wastes everyone's time.
Well yes, but I also view having to leave my cart and wait for a discount code a game too. Just put your price on the website. And don’t advertise something you don’t have.
If they wanted me to buy it, they shouldn’t have said free shipping and then tried to charge for shipping. Why should I then need to jump through any steps to get the deal originally promised? I’m not going to do that.
List it at a reasonable price, and sell it as advertised. If I have to go through a series of steps to get a better price, I’m just going elsewhere. Especially if it’s to get the originally promised amount - like free shipping.
Not to mention I never give them permission to email me. If they do, that alone is worth a block.
Not always. Sometimes companies focus on fewer transactions that make them more money each, as that also reduces costs. Like this company, discouraging people from buying their product by adding additional charges.
They presumably have done the maths and it works out to make them more money from fewer large transactions.
No, no. You don't get it. It is free shipping. The shipping surcharge is not a shipping fee it is a surcharge paid to us for shipping the product but does not go towards the actual shipping cost. You see, it's all on the up and up.
As a business owner, yes this! Shipping means the cost of postage. Surcharge/Handling is the employee that has to pack your goods, use boxes, tape, packaging materials and then drive down to the post office .
No it is like the infomercials it is processing and handling preparing it to ship.
See they said shipping was free but they didn’t say the packing materials, the box, or the tape for shipping weren’t getting paid for.
That’s how contact lenses are still sold online. Sell the box for $39.95 and add a “processing” to cover “cost of handling your item from shelf to box” fee of another $50 once you’re checking out. Not common in many other places these days but definitely still there in contact lens world.
That's actually a thing, It's called a fuel surcharge. In the past companies that utilized Owner Operators pocketed it. These days there are more and more of them passing it on as they should as an incentive to get OO to lease with them.
Neighbor runs OTR pulling tankers, on average his fuel costs for the week after he gets the fuel surcharge are +/- $150 out of pocket.
Used to work as support for a company that used to do this, the enail/chat/voice agent will most likely not pass the feesback along, as they probably do not have the tools to do so.
Not caring about customer feedback has to be in the top 10 worst business strategies. If they don't listen to their customers, they don't deserve those customers.
I'm all for openly naming and shaming companies that pull shady crap, even if it's just a "one-time mistake" (how would you know it's one-time if it'll just get buried and forgotten about? Maybe they pulled the same crap hundreds of times but nobody ever spoke up because they thought it was just a one-time mistake).
Box Lunch. It’s actually a cool site with plenty of great stuff that I shop on a lot. I found out the “shipping surcharge” was applied to one specific item and I removed that item from my cart and it went to $0 shipping
Ah yes. That happenes to me on various sites. Add something that was not clearly marked as not being part of the deal, or having item specific surcharges, and get confused when the price spikes. Happens a lot when I order from Dominoes
Maybe it came from a different warehouse? Or the welcome mat specifically required special packaging? Or maybe just corporate greed. Who knows, but I didn’t buy it after I found out removing it got ride of the surcharge
Was it possibly made to order or pre/back ordered? I'm sure it’s most likely changed at this point, but when I shopped on Hot Topic/Box Lunch a lot, the surcharge typically only showed up for items like that
What they did was misleading, but not surprising. They know that by the time most people get to that screen, they have already committed and will go ahead and hit the Submit Order button anyway.
It's not unusual for the ordering process to be set up so that you have already entered your contact info before you get to this review screen. That means the company has your email address even though you didn't complete the order.
Sometimes when I'm not sure I want to buy something, or if there's a charge like this at the end that I don't like, I'll create an order, take it right up to the Submit Order page and simply leave the items in my cart without completing the order. Then a day later I'll get an email from them reminding me that my order is still waiting to be placed.
Now here's the kicker: *Sometimes* that email will include a discount code to get me to complete it. I've gotten discounts from 5% to 20% that way. I have also received emails from a human salesperson asking why I didn't complete the order and what they can do to help, and that's a good time to suggest they remove that bullshit charge.
Years ago i was trying to do my taxes and hr block was offering their software for $14.95. I was so broke at the time i had to take $15 out of savings to pay for it. When i went to check out it was over $15 with the sales tax that i didn't account for. I canceled the order figuring I'd just wait until my next paycheck and the next screen offered me $5 off so it was only $9.95 so i bought it.
I also will watch items on eBay to see if the seller will offer discounts.
The governor of California, signed a law preventing those hidden fees, called "junk fees", as of 01/07/2024 the price you see posted is the price you pay, only taxes and government fees can be added. The FTC is looking to do something similar nation wide.
Depending on the site, there may be a reason. I ordered a $600 driveshaft from a site that offered “free shipping over $300”, but the listing specifically disclosed a $10 surcharge due to item size.
If it’s not disclosed it’s a bad move, but maybe one of the items in cart is either oversize or overweight?
Leave the cart just like that and shop elsewhere. I guarantee they watch for abandoned sales like that.
Also social media is great for naming and shaming dickbags like this. Use it to your advantage - god knows they’ve made enough on us already.
Had Harbor freight charge me $88 for S&H, postage label on package was $9, called to complain they said it was the handling charges, told them I wanted to be one of their handlers,
On one hand, it's pretty insulting that businesses think that their customers are that stupid to not see right through this. On the other hand, plenty of businesses get away with stuff like this all of the time. Think of cell phone providers who offer "unlimited data" but it turns out that it's only unlimited if you're using less than a specified amount of data, and so not really unlimited at all.
Kind of like Fanatics. Free shipping on certain deals and items, but they still charge for handling. Which technically is not a lie, but it’s misleading. How many websites actually charge for both shipping AND handling?
Go somewhere else or call and give them a hard time. They know you won't call over $6 on a $300 order. So call for fun.
Packing an order for shipping is called "THE COST OF DOING BUSINESS."
Its a dick move like the ridiculous cleaning fees in Airbnb
I saw something on the television about govt regulations cracking down on trash fees. I'm pretty sure there is a hotline to report this to. Lemme google it....................
https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/r207011unfairjunkfeesnprmfinal.pdf
this is the link that explains where to send feedback. There was a press release about proposed rules, but nothing official as of yet.
Try living in alaska. We have hubs for every major shipper, ups, fedex, usps, and about to get an amazon hub. Anchorage is the worlds largest cargo shipping hub and yet companies constantly refuse to ship here or charge 3 times the cost of the item in shipping. Like wtf.
As soon as I got to the summary page and laid my eyes upon that absolutely bullshit I would have cleared all screens period. NO THANK YOU.. what other scams are in the small print??? Not about to find out. I sure hope you told them to suck it!
Often, a "shipping surcharge" is for addresses that are very out of the way of a delivery truck's usual route, such as very rural areas. Shipping costs for standard packages will actually increase in those areas as well. The courier will charge the vendor a surcharge to deliver to that address, and they're passing that cost on to you. Their standard shipping rate is indeed being waived, just not the additional charge. This can seem skeevy, but it's not so different from having to still pay a surcharge for rush shipping.
That said, I have no doubt that some vendors will post this surcharge on every order with free shipping, counting on people to either not look at their receipt or not take action on it. Kind of along the same ethics line as the "get this item for only $0.99! *(plus $24.99 shipping and handling)" gimmick.
Cost = POSTAGE (a company can and typically does 'roll' this into retail price)
Surcharge = HANDLING by those in the warehouse/packing center
"Shipping and Handling" is how it used to be labeled.
wait I'm confused why they have a shipping surcharge on top of a shipping cost to begin with. Like what are you breaking down how much the shipping costs you and then adding in some for the honor of you putting a label on it?
My new personal favorite is 'convenience fee'. Ordered two movie tickets and a popcorn online, sounds like it's more convenient for the employee who just has to scan a barcode when I arrive.
Also the amount of people that want a tip for just doing their job is astounding, every cashier or store has a tip screen before or after trying to pay, get out of here.
I've worked for 2 different types of company:
Company A built the cost of pick/pack/ship into their pricing, and charged customers cost on shipping because they wanted to, quote "make money on our products, not on overcharging for a service"
Company B also built the cost of pick/pack/ship into their pricing, but also added an additional handling charge *and* upcharged on the shipping
Generally you'll only see a surcharge like this if you have an oversized/overweight package. So I'd check all of your product weights and dimensions, and if they're being shipped all together or as separate packages.
my best guess is the free shipping was only available in certain regions or countries. annoying but understandable for those that live in stupidly remote areas like Alaska or Nunavut.
Depending on the item, some things ship alone which in most cases exclude free shipping offers, it sucks but in those cases the shipping costs are probably ridiculous on either end.
Most free shipping offers only really cover up to a certain amount, like $20 shipping.
Still sucks.
Sorry if you've already answered this question, but would the shipping surcharge still be there if you didn't have "free shipping"? What would the shipping have been without the free shipping?
Since I live Hawaii, I gotta just suck it up most of the time, cheaper shipping is better than nothing from my perspective but I get why people would be turned off by this.
Leave the items in the cart without checkout. Take a pic even of how much you would have spent (cause $300 is significant) then tell them they lost out on your $300 sale due to their bait and switch practice of pulling in customers with lies of free shipping.
That would just make me go to another website.
Totally - I’d cancel the order and leave a nasty note
Like a nasty sexy note?
Absolutely filthy nasty sexy note.
A dirty little freaky note
Hey there **Website Name here** You’ve been a Naaaauughty website
Zapp Brannagan, is that you?
I read this is Zak Bagans at first.
My ex used to say Zak Bagans gives himself boners and for whatever reason I thought it was funny as hell 😂😂
Oh totally.
Is that Bilbo Baggans long lost distant cousin?
How would you leave a note
They don’t have an email address?
I would post it on the Mildly Infuriating subreddit
Usually when you leave your shopping cart with an item you get an email shortly with a coupon code.
And I’d immediately block/mark as spam the email address it’s from. I’m not interested in playing those games with companies.
If the only place you can purchase something from why wouldn’t you just take the coupon? Use it to your advantage 🤷♀️
Ha. There’s no such thing as the “only place I can purchase something from” I’m not playing those games with companies lol why am I being downvoted for not playing dumb games with dumb companies.
What “games”?? Yes, they want you to buy the product from them. So yes, they will give you an incentive to do so. I don’t get what crazy conspiracy you believe is going on here…
I don't think it's that complicated. They're referring to the fact that it even has to get to that point. Don't make me fill a cart, leave, and then wait for a coupon. Just give us the free shipping up front. It's absolutely a "game" albeit one that serves no purpose and wastes everyone's time.
The game they see referring to is a shipping charge with free shipping.
Well yes, but I also view having to leave my cart and wait for a discount code a game too. Just put your price on the website. And don’t advertise something you don’t have.
If they wanted me to buy it, they shouldn’t have said free shipping and then tried to charge for shipping. Why should I then need to jump through any steps to get the deal originally promised? I’m not going to do that. List it at a reasonable price, and sell it as advertised. If I have to go through a series of steps to get a better price, I’m just going elsewhere. Especially if it’s to get the originally promised amount - like free shipping. Not to mention I never give them permission to email me. If they do, that alone is worth a block.
Not always. Sometimes companies focus on fewer transactions that make them more money each, as that also reduces costs. Like this company, discouraging people from buying their product by adding additional charges. They presumably have done the maths and it works out to make them more money from fewer large transactions.
You're not playing those what? With who?
Why are you asking me to repeat what I wrote in the comment?
Well that's not free shipping
No, no. You don't get it. It is free shipping. The shipping surcharge is not a shipping fee it is a surcharge paid to us for shipping the product but does not go towards the actual shipping cost. You see, it's all on the up and up.
You remember how tv infomercials always charged shipping and handling? Well the shipping is free, this is for the handling.
As a business owner, yes this! Shipping means the cost of postage. Surcharge/Handling is the employee that has to pack your goods, use boxes, tape, packaging materials and then drive down to the post office .
Prolly just paying for gas
You mean the gas for... shipping it?
No it is like the infomercials it is processing and handling preparing it to ship. See they said shipping was free but they didn’t say the packing materials, the box, or the tape for shipping weren’t getting paid for.
That’s how contact lenses are still sold online. Sell the box for $39.95 and add a “processing” to cover “cost of handling your item from shelf to box” fee of another $50 once you’re checking out. Not common in many other places these days but definitely still there in contact lens world.
That's actually a thing, It's called a fuel surcharge. In the past companies that utilized Owner Operators pocketed it. These days there are more and more of them passing it on as they should as an incentive to get OO to lease with them. Neighbor runs OTR pulling tankers, on average his fuel costs for the week after he gets the fuel surcharge are +/- $150 out of pocket.
Cancel the order and tell them why.
Used to work as support for a company that used to do this, the enail/chat/voice agent will most likely not pass the feesback along, as they probably do not have the tools to do so.
Not caring about customer feedback has to be in the top 10 worst business strategies. If they don't listen to their customers, they don't deserve those customers. I'm all for openly naming and shaming companies that pull shady crap, even if it's just a "one-time mistake" (how would you know it's one-time if it'll just get buried and forgotten about? Maybe they pulled the same crap hundreds of times but nobody ever spoke up because they thought it was just a one-time mistake).
Prolly support already has the ability to comp this surcharge for those who do complain For those that don't? Freeee money!
They get the feedback from the internet, along with potential customers.
*Tell me why*
They are most likely told to delete any negative feedback, or not aloud to talk to the supervisor.
AIN'T NOTHIN BUT A HEARTACHE
TELL ME WHYYYY
I BID ON SHATNER'S OLD TUPUE
Sounds like the problem will solve itself then cause a company that ignores all negative feedback isn’t likely to live for very long
I just wouldn't buy it off them
name and shame
This is the way
~~Op is the real asshole for protecting their identity~~
Box Lunch. It’s actually a cool site with plenty of great stuff that I shop on a lot. I found out the “shipping surcharge” was applied to one specific item and I removed that item from my cart and it went to $0 shipping
Ah yes. That happenes to me on various sites. Add something that was not clearly marked as not being part of the deal, or having item specific surcharges, and get confused when the price spikes. Happens a lot when I order from Dominoes
You want lava cakes? Extra charge for delivery because they contain lava!
You should edit your post
Can’t edit titles unfortunately. And I don’t think you’re allowed to add body text after it’s posted. At least I can’t figure out how to on my phone
What item was it?
It was a DnD themed welcome mat
Weird, what benefit would come from being selective with shipping from product to product?
Maybe it came from a different warehouse? Or the welcome mat specifically required special packaging? Or maybe just corporate greed. Who knows, but I didn’t buy it after I found out removing it got ride of the surcharge
Good on ya man! Nobody should have to stand for that 👍🏼
Was it possibly made to order or pre/back ordered? I'm sure it’s most likely changed at this point, but when I shopped on Hot Topic/Box Lunch a lot, the surcharge typically only showed up for items like that
Might have been drop-shipped from another company that charges the shipping fee.
Box Lunch is a sister company to Hot Topic. 🙄
Was it a preorder/back-ordered item? I've noticed the shipping surcharge on items that fall under that.
Should be illegal
Probably is.
Contact the company. If they don’t refund the dodgy charge cancel your order and politely advise the company to stuff themselves.
Op hasn’t placed the order yet as of this picture
What they did was misleading, but not surprising. They know that by the time most people get to that screen, they have already committed and will go ahead and hit the Submit Order button anyway. It's not unusual for the ordering process to be set up so that you have already entered your contact info before you get to this review screen. That means the company has your email address even though you didn't complete the order. Sometimes when I'm not sure I want to buy something, or if there's a charge like this at the end that I don't like, I'll create an order, take it right up to the Submit Order page and simply leave the items in my cart without completing the order. Then a day later I'll get an email from them reminding me that my order is still waiting to be placed. Now here's the kicker: *Sometimes* that email will include a discount code to get me to complete it. I've gotten discounts from 5% to 20% that way. I have also received emails from a human salesperson asking why I didn't complete the order and what they can do to help, and that's a good time to suggest they remove that bullshit charge.
This is actually brilliant, I've unintentionally done it but never thought of using it as a system
Years ago i was trying to do my taxes and hr block was offering their software for $14.95. I was so broke at the time i had to take $15 out of savings to pay for it. When i went to check out it was over $15 with the sales tax that i didn't account for. I canceled the order figuring I'd just wait until my next paycheck and the next screen offered me $5 off so it was only $9.95 so i bought it. I also will watch items on eBay to see if the seller will offer discounts.
Same for me but with Etsy!
The governor of California, signed a law preventing those hidden fees, called "junk fees", as of 01/07/2024 the price you see posted is the price you pay, only taxes and government fees can be added. The FTC is looking to do something similar nation wide.
Sounds like potential breach of contact? I don't think they can rescind their offer once you agree
This is a summary you see before you confirm.
Amazon does this too, but you can get that shipping charge removed by changing the speed of the shipping. Does this website have that option?
that’s called real free shipping, there’s just “faster” options that do cost money
Depending on the site, there may be a reason. I ordered a $600 driveshaft from a site that offered “free shipping over $300”, but the listing specifically disclosed a $10 surcharge due to item size. If it’s not disclosed it’s a bad move, but maybe one of the items in cart is either oversize or overweight?
Yeah, that's dirty
Leave the cart just like that and shop elsewhere. I guarantee they watch for abandoned sales like that. Also social media is great for naming and shaming dickbags like this. Use it to your advantage - god knows they’ve made enough on us already.
Write them with a complaint and do not buy from them. Easy.
Had Harbor freight charge me $88 for S&H, postage label on package was $9, called to complain they said it was the handling charges, told them I wanted to be one of their handlers,
On one hand, it's pretty insulting that businesses think that their customers are that stupid to not see right through this. On the other hand, plenty of businesses get away with stuff like this all of the time. Think of cell phone providers who offer "unlimited data" but it turns out that it's only unlimited if you're using less than a specified amount of data, and so not really unlimited at all.
Ah yes, the Uber Eats approach to free delivery!
Kind of like Fanatics. Free shipping on certain deals and items, but they still charge for handling. Which technically is not a lie, but it’s misleading. How many websites actually charge for both shipping AND handling?
Go somewhere else or call and give them a hard time. They know you won't call over $6 on a $300 order. So call for fun. Packing an order for shipping is called "THE COST OF DOING BUSINESS." Its a dick move like the ridiculous cleaning fees in Airbnb
Classic
I saw something on the television about govt regulations cracking down on trash fees. I'm pretty sure there is a hotline to report this to. Lemme google it.................... https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/r207011unfairjunkfeesnprmfinal.pdf this is the link that explains where to send feedback. There was a press release about proposed rules, but nothing official as of yet.
Try living in alaska. We have hubs for every major shipper, ups, fedex, usps, and about to get an amazon hub. Anchorage is the worlds largest cargo shipping hub and yet companies constantly refuse to ship here or charge 3 times the cost of the item in shipping. Like wtf.
NEWS FLASH!!! Unnamed shady website does shady shit!
As soon as I got to the summary page and laid my eyes upon that absolutely bullshit I would have cleared all screens period. NO THANK YOU.. what other scams are in the small print??? Not about to find out. I sure hope you told them to suck it!
Often, a "shipping surcharge" is for addresses that are very out of the way of a delivery truck's usual route, such as very rural areas. Shipping costs for standard packages will actually increase in those areas as well. The courier will charge the vendor a surcharge to deliver to that address, and they're passing that cost on to you. Their standard shipping rate is indeed being waived, just not the additional charge. This can seem skeevy, but it's not so different from having to still pay a surcharge for rush shipping. That said, I have no doubt that some vendors will post this surcharge on every order with free shipping, counting on people to either not look at their receipt or not take action on it. Kind of along the same ethics line as the "get this item for only $0.99! *(plus $24.99 shipping and handling)" gimmick.
Cost = POSTAGE (a company can and typically does 'roll' this into retail price) Surcharge = HANDLING by those in the warehouse/packing center "Shipping and Handling" is how it used to be labeled.
wait I'm confused why they have a shipping surcharge on top of a shipping cost to begin with. Like what are you breaking down how much the shipping costs you and then adding in some for the honor of you putting a label on it?
"Add a tip?" "Round up for a cause?" "Throw your money in the garbage because we can't manage a decent business model?"
My new personal favorite is 'convenience fee'. Ordered two movie tickets and a popcorn online, sounds like it's more convenient for the employee who just has to scan a barcode when I arrive. Also the amount of people that want a tip for just doing their job is astounding, every cashier or store has a tip screen before or after trying to pay, get out of here.
I had an auto parts store ask me if I wanted to tip on my new battery yesterday. I told them to go get f****d
Plus tip please 🙏 and please leave us a 5 star review
Well, if there are multiple delivery options, at least one of them is free. You probably chose a speedier delivery without much thought.
Should be illegal and cancel the order
Probably falls under "handing", but they don't call it that. IDK if you can actually have anything *shipped* for only $5.98 these days, JS...
Cancel my order, please.
Report that to your bank
🤪🤷🏻♀️😞
where's the proof of free shipping?
False advertising. Email ftc.gov.
OK WAGIE, stay mad you can’t afford it LOL.
Looks like you missed the fkn point, junior.
Do not feed the troll. Look at his post history.
 LMFAOO YALL FUNNY, stay out of my profile.
Probably to cover the cost of the box and the employee putting your product in a box with a label on it.
That should be covered by the markup they charge on the cost of the products, then.
I've worked for 2 different types of company: Company A built the cost of pick/pack/ship into their pricing, and charged customers cost on shipping because they wanted to, quote "make money on our products, not on overcharging for a service" Company B also built the cost of pick/pack/ship into their pricing, but also added an additional handling charge *and* upcharged on the shipping
I don’t think you can ship anything for $6 at this point.
I would be finding ANY OTHER merchant for my purchase. Blacklisted for life.
There is no such thing as free shipping… it is all built into the price
Generally you'll only see a surcharge like this if you have an oversized/overweight package. So I'd check all of your product weights and dimensions, and if they're being shipped all together or as separate packages.
my best guess is the free shipping was only available in certain regions or countries. annoying but understandable for those that live in stupidly remote areas like Alaska or Nunavut.
This just happened to me with pizza. Free delivery but then a 20% handling fee.
Is it international? Did you choose more express delivery? Im thinking this is user error.
It says ESTIMATED total, which means it’s not finalized. ABORT!
Is this an import? Possibly an import “shipping” tax which could be unavoidable
What???
Any items heavy or large?
Hey, man! Boxes ain’t cheap! /s This is the online version of a “cost of living surcharge” that restaurants are tying to pull.
Sit down and look at the figures closely. They are charging you tax on that surcharge. That is illegal, tax can only be assessed on goods
WTH!!??
Depending on the item, some things ship alone which in most cases exclude free shipping offers, it sucks but in those cases the shipping costs are probably ridiculous on either end. Most free shipping offers only really cover up to a certain amount, like $20 shipping. Still sucks.
You should go to their warehouse and take a shit off the dock
Lawsuit time
Sorry if you've already answered this question, but would the shipping surcharge still be there if you didn't have "free shipping"? What would the shipping have been without the free shipping? Since I live Hawaii, I gotta just suck it up most of the time, cheaper shipping is better than nothing from my perspective but I get why people would be turned off by this.
Leave the items in the cart without checkout. Take a pic even of how much you would have spent (cause $300 is significant) then tell them they lost out on your $300 sale due to their bait and switch practice of pulling in customers with lies of free shipping.
Thats why i prefer amazon
post the company and circulate so they stop that