CGC combined tier shipping 0

[427Impaler]

Just found out something new today I thought I might share.  Recently I sent in a package of books for grading, two different tier levels, both packages together and notation on both invoices to ship all books at one time.  This is not the first time that I have done this, in fact every submission I have sent in has been done this way and not one hiccup along the way.

I was surprised this morning to get shipping notification that the express tier books had been shipped!  I immediately called in to try solving the dilemma but was met with a response of “we  try to ship multiple tiers as a courtesy but it is not the standard way that we ship, we ship each tier separately”. Despite me explaining that this had never been an issue previously and that I had been instructed on how to accomplish this  by CGC I received zero empathy.  

The extra $50 in shipping won’t bankrupt me and won’t prevent me from feeding my family, but the response to my polite complaint was completely underwhelming. I work in a customer service management position and was surprised at the level of ambivalence to my problem.  Particularly in a niche market I would expect a very high concern for customer issues.

It would have been a nice effort if a future grading discount was offered or discount toward future membership dues or something, rather than cavalier comments about how I was asking for some special favor.

Edited November 2, 2017 by 427Impaler

[comicquant]

I'm in the same boat.  Two days ago I received a credit card acknowledgement email stating cgc had charged my checking account $521...  For two books in the modern tier.  Not only have the made an egregious billing error but they also used the wrong card (Not the one I put on the invoice).  So I've sent three emails asking for a detailed breakdown of charges and have yet to receive it.  I'm hearing more and more stories about people being overcharged, receiving the wrong books, wrong labels or having books shipped to the wrong person.  Sounds like someone needs to tighten up the ship over there.

[Bomber-Bob]

29 minutes ago, 427Impaler said:

Just found out something new today I thought I might share.  Recently I sent in a package of books for grading, two different tier levels, both packages together and notation on both invoices to ship all books at one time.  This is not the first time that I have done this, in fact every submission I have sent in has been done this way and not one hiccup along the way.

I was surprised this morning to get shipping notification that the express tier books had been shipped!  I immediately called in to try solving the dilemma but was met with a response of “we  try to ship multiple tiers as a courtesy but it is not the standard way that we ship, we ship each tier separately”. Despite me explaining that this had never been an issue previously and that I had been instructed on how to accomplish this  by CGC I received zero empathy.  

The extra $50 in shipping won’t bankrupt me and won’t prevent me from feeding my family, but the response to my polite complaint was completely underwhelming. I work in a customer service management position and was surprised at the level of ambivalence to my problem.  Particularly in a niche market I would expect a very high concern for customer issues.

It would have been a nice effort if a future grading discount was offered or discount toward future membership dues or something, rather than cavalier comments about how I was asking for some special favor.

It was always my understanding that books are never held to combine shipping. I've submitted multiple tiers, many times and have never been afforded the courtesy of combined shipping. In fact, it's annoying to me that they have accommodated you in the past. When I asked why they can't hold for combined shipping it was explained to me that they carry insurance on all the books while in their possession. Holding books longer onsite results in higher insurance costs for them. Seems reasonable to me. I think you should feel lucky to have received this courtesy in the past instead of complaining about it here. Sorry to be harsh but you do not have a legitimate complaint here.

 

[427Impaler]

39 minutes ago, Bomber-Bob said:

It was always my understanding that books are never held to combine shipping. I've submitted multiple tiers, many times and have never been afforded the courtesy of combined shipping. In fact, it's annoying to me that they have accommodated you in the past. When I asked why they can't hold for combined shipping it was explained to me that they carry insurance on all the books while in their possession. Holding books longer onsite results in higher insurance costs for them. Seems reasonable to me. I think you should feel lucky to have received this courtesy in the past instead of complaining about it here. Sorry to be harsh but you do not have a legitimate complaint here.

 

Appreciate your opinion, however when I intitailly asked for combined tiers it was made clear to me that it was not a problem and just to note it on the invoices, based on that I could reasonably assume it was standard practice.  I the four subsequent submissions the same practice applied.

if I had been told it was not a standard practice and some kind of “favor” I would have submitted differently, IE: made larger less frequent packages of similar tiers and saved shipping that way.  I am in Western Canada so shipping is not cheap

Edited November 2, 2017 by 427Impaler

[Bomber-Bob]

7 minutes ago, 427Impaler said:

Appreciate your opinion, however when I intitailly asked for combined tiers it was made clear to me that it was not a problem and just to note it on the invoices, based on that I could reasonably assume it was standard practice.  I the four subsequent submissions the same practice applied.

if I had been told it was not a standard practice and some kind of “favor” I would have submitted differently, IE: made larger less frequent packages of similar tiers and saved shipping that way.  I am in Western Canada so shipping is not cheap

They may have accommodated you because of the cross border aspect. I just don't think there is entitlement here. You were given a courtesy and they told you that when you called to inquire.  Knowing this, I just don't think you should have come here to complain about their customer service. You may have ruined any consideration for a future courtesy. What do you honestly want CGC to do, reimburse your shipping or something. What did you expect us to say ? What are you trying to accomplish by going public with this 'complaint' ?  

[comicquant]

15 minutes ago, Bomber-Bob said:

They may have accommodated you because of the cross border aspect. I just don't think there is entitlement here. You were given a courtesy and they told you that when you called to inquire.  Knowing this, I just don't think you should have come here to complain about their customer service. You may have ruined any consideration for a future courtesy. What do you honestly want CGC to do, reimburse your shipping or something. What did you expect us to say ? What are you trying to accomplish by going public with this 'complaint' ?  

He's obviously free to voice his opinion no matter the outcome.  I would wager to say he's far from alone in wanting combined shipping regardless of what CGC's rules on the matter.  However, think of the impact this would have on CGC's operations.  They likely don't have the floor space to store books while they wait for other tiers to complete.  I don't think its a case of CGC being "meh" about your request; they're unable to pull it off.  

Edited November 2, 2017 by comicquant

[427Impaler]

It seems you have taken my comments quite personally.  I was not told on my initial phone call many years ago that this was a courtesy, only on this latest call to inquire what had changed.  A service that I had received for a long time changed and I wanted to know what had happened, I felt the response was terse and inadequate.

I like CGC, I like their product and I like how well they are respected in the industry.  I manage a company myself and I value any complaints that come in, as they are always an area we can learn from and grow as a result.  This post was meant to be informational rather than offensive.

 

[Bomber-Bob]

1 minute ago, comicquant said:

He's obviously free to voice his opinion no matter the outcome.  I would wager to say he's far from alone in wanting combined shipping regardless of what CGC's rules on the matter.  However, think of the impact this would have on CGC's operations.  They likely don't have the floor space to store books while they wait for other tiers to complete.  I don't think its a case of CGC being "meh" about your request, they're unable to pull it off.  

Besides the logistics, it was explained to me that it's an insurance issue. The way I understand it, at the end of every day, the total value of the books in the vault are recorded and eventually reported to the insurance company. Since their vault content is a moving target they are not insured for a max value but a true daily value.  Storing 'courtesy' books for anyone that asks would affect their insurance bill.

[Bomber-Bob]

7 minutes ago, 427Impaler said:

It seems you have taken my comments quite personally.  I was not told on my initial phone call many years ago that this was a courtesy, only on this latest call to inquire what had changed.  A service that I had received for a long time changed and I wanted to know what had happened, I felt the response was terse and inadequate.

I like CGC, I like their product and I like how well they are respected in the industry.  I manage a company myself and I value any complaints that come in, as they are always an area we can learn from and grow as a result.  This post was meant to be informational rather than offensive.

 

No problem. I probably did take your comments personally because I was always told NO. You, were told okay, and complained the one time you didn't get it. If you truly posted this as an FYI, I apologize for my reaction. However, if you posted to complain, I stand by my statements. 

[427Impaler]

Just now, Bomber-Bob said:

No problem. I probably did take your comments personally because I was always told NO. You, were told okay, and complained the one time you didn't get it. If you truly posted this as an FYI, I apologize for my reaction. However, if you posted to complain, I stand by my statements. 

Partially it is FYI, as it was news to me that combining shipping was a problem.  I am not alone, as a search turns up several threads were seasoned veterans of the board talk about combined shipping not being a problem.   I will just change my grading methodology to work with the system going forward.

The CS call definitely could have gone better, That would be a complaint

 

[Bomber-Bob]

1 minute ago, 427Impaler said:

The CS call definitely could have gone better, That would be a complaint

 

I will totally agree with you on this ! It sounds like they could have been more polite on the phone. That is a complaint ! 

[MetaHuman]

Long-time lurker and recently joined member. I did get combined shipping on my recent Modern and Economy submissions. However I dropped my books off at Fan Expo Toronto in September with CGC directly since they had a booth. The CGC rep said she would combine the shipping for the two subs. She filled out the fees and shipping section for me on the two forms. I got the books back today in one package. I checked the submission status of both and noticed the Economy took almost two weeks longer to grade.

[comicquant]

On 11/2/2017 at 12:25 PM, comicquant said:

I'm in the same boat.  Two days ago I received a credit card acknowledgement email stating cgc had charged my checking account $521...  For two books in the modern tier.  Not only have the made an egregious billing error but they also used the wrong card (Not the one I put on the invoice).  So I've sent three emails asking for a detailed breakdown of charges and have yet to receive it.  I'm hearing more and more stories about people being overcharged, receiving the wrong books, wrong labels or having books shipped to the wrong person.  Sounds like someone needs to tighten up the ship over there.

Just to follow up on this.  I called CGC this time and accounting had everything corrected in a matter of minutes.  The guy was super nice and fixed it right away...  Problem solved.  Lesson learned for me here.  I should've called instead of emailed to begin with.

[mschmidt]

What I've seen CGC do at shows is try to combine shipping across multiple tiers for international shipments if the tiers will be done fairly close to each other - eg. a Modern and a Economy tier submission, for instance. Once you start doing Express or Walk-through books, CGC wants them out of the building as soon as they're done, though.

[Tony S]

What mschmidt said.  CGC's long standing policy is they do not combine shipping of tiers that don't have the same Turn Around times.  Below is a quote from the FAQ page. The only consistent exception I have seen with this is international shipments, since they do face extremely high shipping rates. 

• Will one shipping fee cover the return of all my submissions if I send in multiple submission forms at the same time? Will all of my submissions be returned to me in one package?
• You may submit multiple submission forms to the same grading company in one shipping box. Your submissions will be returned separately. For that reason, each of your submissions is individually calculated for its return shipping and insurance.

It is also worth noting that one of the things Voldy tried and does is combine shipping tiers into one shipment. HOWEVER, it was not without problems.  Finally they settled on a policy where they do combine shipments - BUT all the books are graded at the same time, based on the SLOWEST tier submitted.  So you might pay the equivalent of Express on a few books - but they get don't get graded (so you don't know the grades on those Express books) until all get done based on the slowest tier. Pay for fast, get slow. Just to save some coin on shipping. It is often not worth it.  It's usually not worth it. 

They did this because it was a hassle and a liability to grade books and then return them to the vault to sit and wait. 

Edited November 4, 2017 by Tony S

[Eric Rom]

On 11/3/2017 at 1:12 PM, comicquant said:

Just to follow up on this.  I called CGC this time and accounting had everything corrected in a matter of minutes.  The guy was super nice and fixed it right away...  Problem solved.  Lesson learned for me here.  I should've called instead of emailed to begin with.

Also, it's not a good idea to complain about something the instant you aren't given exactly what you want -- RIGHT NOW!.  Some people and/or businesses can't be at your beck and call.