Andy bought some seeds and soil innoculant online recently. We had no problem getting the things he ordered, but then we received a bill for $0.50 in the mail. The company attached an addressed envelope, but no stamp.
Strange. Why didn’t they charge us the correct amount when Andy placed the order? Why didn’t they email him instead of sending the bill by the postal service? Why did they expect him to supply the stamp for their mistake? Was the mistake connected to them being short-staffed because of the pandemic?
It was easily handled. Andy sent this email with the order number as the subject line.
We received everything OK . We also received a request for $.50 more due to a cost change unknown to the computer when we paid by credit card? How shall we pay this amount–if you send a stamped envelope we will send a check or if you prefer tell us how to pay by credit card.
Thank you.
They responded the next day saying
I have cleared the $.50 that was shown as due on this order. You do not owe us anything. I do apologize.
It wasn’t a big deal, but very strange. Hopefully they eventually fix up their website to compute their charges correctly.
May 22, 2020
what the h*ll…total waste of both human and paper resources!
Which probably was much more money to deal with than the .50c!
Yes, just crazy, which is one reason we brought it to their attention.
That is so, so strange. I agree that probably much more money was wasted trying to collect the 50¢ than the 50¢.
With the experiences we had the past few years with hospitals/drs…some will bill for $2 difference between what they bill and what insurance leaves for us to pay…others write it off cause it is not worth the effort to bill for it.
I think when they got the email they realized their system was flaky and did the sensible thing. Everything is a mess nowadays, so we’re happy to cut them some slack.
It was probably one of those automated billing things that no human eyes saw and would have worked out for them if the amount had been much bigger. Something to scratch your heads over and laugh.
I agree, and it was best to tell them so they could fix it if they wanted to.
Much digital is often so limitedly automatic, incapable of accommodating many variations or applying common sense, I’m never surprised at such unusual billings and other strange computer generated contacts of which I’ve received a few. Glad yours was straightened out so simply.
It’s always nice when you can contact a human on the other end. That makes a big difference.
For that amount it hardly seems worth the effort especially considering that it costs more than that to mail a letter.
At least it was all cleared up.
I agree.
glad they let you off the hook, these days the stamp cost more than you owed. years ago i had a bill that kept coming, don’t remember. it was for 3 cents.. i taped 3 pennies to a card and mailed it to them.
The crazy thing was they made the mistake, we didn’t.
How weird is that?! Sheesh! It cost them more in postage, paper and manpower than the bill was for! It was probably a machine that spit that out…. the same machine that caused the problem in the first place. Anyway, I’m glad it was resolved without too much bother. xoxo
It was easy for us, and hopefully they can correct their system so it doesn’t happen to other people.