Hello I'm writing because I've recently had an issue and it's something that's happened before so I thought I'd air it out and this shouldn't be read as Heritage bashing or anything too mean.
I'm in Canada and the last five years has seen a tremendous jump in International shipping and especially from the US. I also collect records so I was very used to being able to estimate shipping for most standard orders of both forms of posters (rolled/flat) and records until the $ starting getting nuts. My first problem came when I found out that Heritage would no longer hold items beyond a maximum of three invoices. This was never how it had been for all the time I was buying there and had become used to and there was no warning of this and, at the time, I had amassed a good collection of stuff I wanted to ship as I always had...in one bulk go. It saves me a lot of money that I can continue to spend on paper rather than stamps. I started getting a bunch of shipping invoices as my stuff was filing out of Dallas three invoices at a time. It was going to cost me around $500 to ship all my paper so I freaked out and called them to stop. I had bought many posters that were cheap simply due to the fact that I knew (or thought I did) that they would be shipped along with the cream of the crop at little extra charge but now that the rules had changed, I'd have to rethink those buys and I was considering re-consigning them rather than ship them as it was way too expensive to consider. Thankfully Grey got involved and helped iron some stuff out and gave me a bit of an extra break in invoice shipping when I explained my predicament...I don't hold him responsible, naturally. It seems that what worked fine before no longer does and all I can guess is that more shipments out means more handling/material fees...more money for Heritage. Unless there is a reasonable explanation for the change I haven't been made aware of. But my most recent issues have come from me alerting Heritage that I want my items shipped and them sending them in two different shipments. I understand that rolled are rolled and flat are flat but the old Heritage understood how to put tubes in boxes and ship in one piece with ease. This is important in Canada as excise taxes are a reality as are brokerage fees and two packages incur two charges at the USPS end as well...costs that can be drastically cut by combining the items. Then extra customs processing equals extra fees and, again, I am spending more of my money on less posters. And I ask that they be shipped in one package and I am not consulted when they just ship it in two rather than contact me and work out how to do it, as I'd wish. On top of all that complaining (I am super cheap when it comes to costs OUTSIDE of the paper I want) I do want to point out that Heritage is by far the most expensive of the four main auctions that I regularly follow. They charge both handling fees and fees for materials and they are not cheap. I complain and I always hope that a sympathetic Heritage employee will just up and confess that they are what I assume they are...a greedy corporation trying to roughly yank every cent from my wallet in any and every way that they can...but nobody answering my emails has offered that as an explanation so they just kinda quote figures and such and remain kinda vague as to why my directions are ignored and I have to pay for it. Rich, Bruce and Peter all hold items for me for reasonable times and/or amounts. I am eternally grateful for this (and for Heritage's efforts in this too!) as it makes a really big difference now that International shipping is almost ridiculous. Bruce charges very little for materials and no handling that I know of. I don't detect any excessive charges from Rich either and Peter is just completely remarkable...give lots of business too all these people and maybe if enough people complain, we can bring these other, more serious capitalists around to helping the guys who help them exist to keep supporting them. Thanks, M ________________________________ From: MoPo List <mopo-l@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU> on behalf of Tommy Barr <tommymb...@gmail.com> Sent: Wednesday, July 8, 2015 12:55 PM To: MoPo-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU Subject: [MOPO] HA shipping costs Hi fellow Mopoers, Some of you must buy from Heritage Auctions but not live in USA, and I would be interested in hearing from you regarding the amount they charge for shipping to your destination. Tommy Barr ________________________________ To unsubscribe from the MoPo-L list, click the following link: https://listserv.american.edu/scripts/wa-american.exe?SUBED1=MoPo-L&A=1 Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com ___________________________________________________________________ How to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List Send a message addressed to: lists...@listserv.american.edu In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L The author of this message is solely responsible for its content.