Is this good business?

I just bought some Viper merchandise online from a sponsor of this site for my '02 GTS. My total came to $202.35 and that's what I printed out as my "receipt". I got an email the next day labeled "Invoice" for an amount of $203.00. I emailed the seller and was told they round up to the next whole dollar to keep things simple. It seems to me if there's any rounding taking place it should be down, not up. This is another form of Viper tax and probably fraud. It's not the $ amount that's important here, it's the principle. I had a confirmation that my credit card would be billed for the lower amount. Anybody else think this is wrong?

Terry

Hmm... thats a fine line there. I suppose it really isnt a big deal, as long as you TELL the buyer that in the first place. I dont do it, and having to deal with cents is a PITA... but such is life in the business world...

Terry --

You're right -- particularly when they didn't tell you before -- bad business practice!

yeah i agree it does make him look a lil cheesey but i guess in 1 respect it does keep things simple

That's total b.s. If they can't add up the cents they shouldn't be in business.

How hard is it to input dollars and cents?

Now I've heard everything..

dispute the charge. they won't do it to another viper owner if you do... so i highly recommend it.

JD

First off, they should have let you know ahead of time. Second, when rounding off dollar amounts to the nearest whole dollar, they should have rounded down since you were under 0.50. Not sure how many transactions this company does per day, but it could amount to 100's of dollars over a years time.

Maybe they should have a 'round down' coupon you can print off the site. Cashier: "Sir, your total is 305.01, but wait we round up so your total is 306." Customer: "Not so fast pal, I've got a 'round down' coupon! I'm only pay'in 305.00 today."

Even Joe117, the king of complaints, wouldn't complain about this.
It's not the principle of the thing, it's sixty five cents.

I know how you feel...Doesn't seem right.
Tell them to stick it and go some place else.

-Lou

It isn't worth complaining about but it could be an indication of a careless way they do business or build their product.

Who is it ?

Well, what the vendor should realize is, if a customer complains about the rounding they should take it away- now for the sake of 60 cents, they've alienated a customer.

60 cents is nothing to complain about BUT you SHOULD tell us which vender it is As was already said it could indicated laziness in getting their invoice software inline and may be an indicator of other problems.

It "IS" about the principle! My money is my money. It doesn't matter if it's .02 or 200.00 it is mine to spend how I choose. This is akin to a waiter/waitress just assuming that they will get a tip for simply taking my order even if they don't keep my tea glass full. I purposely shop with venders who charge a little more than the low ball price because of the support that they give the Viper community, but it is my choice. The last 15,000.00 I spent with my tuner I never even asked for a breakdown on the price because I trust him to charge me what is fair. But, if he rounded up with my money to save him a little paperwork I would shop elsewhere. I can assure you that if I knew the name of this particular vendor, they would never get a chance to round up my bill.

Doc

I think the rounding up is kinda cheesy....
What's the problem with dealing with cents if you are charging it on a credit card??? HMMMMMM....just extra profit I suppose,
Cheers,

It "IS" about the principle! My money is my money. It doesn't matter if it's .02 or 200.00 it is mine to spend how I choose. This is akin to a waiter/waitress just assuming that they will get a tip for simply taking my order even if they don't keep my tea glass full. I purposely shop with venders who charge a little more than the low ball price because of the support that they give the Viper community, but it is my choice. The last 15,000.00 I spent with my tuner I never even asked for a breakdown on the price because I trust him to charge me what is fair. But, if he rounded up with my money to save him a little paperwork I would shop elsewhere. I can assure you that if I knew the name of this particular vendor, they would never get a chance to round up my bill.

Doc

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If you dropped $15K at your tuner, I guarantee he rounded up!

I own a retail store. I would never get away with this at retail why should on-line be any different?

Think K-Mart would get away with this? Wall-mart? Sears?

It is only pennies but they are your pennies.

If he wants to round to even dollars, then sell for even dollars!

Add me to the list of people who feel it was wrong for them to do.

I agree, its the principle, not the cents.

I dont mind giving away 65 cents (or much more), but I will get irritated if it is stolen from me...

I agree as well. The only place I lived with "rounding" was when we were stationed in Italy. On base there were no pennies. Not a single one....and nobody would take them if you did have one. Everything was rounded DOWN.

This reminds me of a news story about a certain telephone company, that was overcharging just a few cents on each bill. Multiplied by many millions of customers, over some time, it added up to a substantial amount. But the individual customers didn't notice, and most didn't care. Its only a signifigant amount to the vendor, and that is the advantage this vendor gets by rounding up. That practice shows godammed gall, and a little thing like that could just p*ss me off enough to not buy there again.

NO, it is NOT a good business practice! I've been running a wholesale business for the last 8 years, and I have run across a fair share of petty, lazy, and/or unscrupulous business entities during this time. But this one takes cake!

Thanks to all who have responded. I'm glad to see most of you agree that this business practice is unacceptable. I know some of you have directly asked who it is or for specific clues as to who it is. My intention for my post was not to badmouth a vendor on this site so at this point I'd like to work privately with the vendor to change their rounding practice. I will provide an update to the outcome within the next couple of days. One thing I've learned from this site is that negative PR for a vendor has a big impact and I don't want to do that prematurely.

Terry

Tell us the name of the business so we can avoid it if we choose. I would never do business with a place or person who was a cheap S.O.B. like that. Who knows what kind of service you could end up getting from them?

Thanks to all who have responded. I'm glad to see most of you agree that this business practice is unacceptable. I know some of you have directly asked who it is or for specific clues as to who it is. My intention for my post was not to badmouth a vendor on this site so at this point I'd like to work privately with the vendor to change their rounding practice. I will provide an update to the outcome within the next couple of days. One thing I've learned from this site is that negative PR for a vendor has a big impact and I don't want to do that prematurely.

Terry

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TS- I completely agree. However, next time I see your car I bet I can figure it out!

Round up to the nearest dollar? Can you imagine how much of YOUR money would be wasted if every vendor in your life did this?...Terrible business practice.

The REST of the story from the Vendor side:

On the concerned gentleman above, we did tell him waaay in advance. In fact he has NOT YET BEEN BILLED A PENNY, although he has received 70% of his order value in hand already. NOT YET BILLED ANYTHING. And we upgraded his last item to Priority at no additional charge. And will bill his invoice when the final item ships. And YES we rounded up 65 cents. GUILTY. We also offered him an apology and a revised invoice if he is serious.

{ I honestly thought the guy was kidding......I'm stunned it went HERE!!! )

This is not about honesty or fairness, but about practicality, UPS weekly fuel surcharges, etc..... as mentioned somewhere in the fine print on our website. This is not a soap-opera secret!

Our website cannot real-time update weekly changes in UPS fuel surcharges, Air Freight fuel surcharges, zip-code wierdness, and Oversize packaging needed on things like floor mats and chinguards and seats, etc....Nor International. We end up subsidizing many, many s/h bills to the tens and twenties of dollars, especially on drop-shipped stuff. The web cannot compute this. So we EAT a lot of s/h...... Bad business practice too ! So we round subsidized orders UP.
Most others Down. His web order was UNDERCALCULATED about $3 vs. actual s/h, so we felt OK to round up SIXTY-FIVE-CENTS. And we told him DAYS ago. And we have yet to bill him. And still this 'principled' thread erupts.

We do loud and angry battle with some of our vendors to keep s/h costs as low as possible. We calculate options, negotiate rates, and do NOT surcharge.

P.S. Our s/h line-item expense has been a loss every year but one..... We had about a $300 profit for the whole year on s/h, due to 3 automobile shipments, and we increased our VCA charity budget by that amt. "I'M NOT A CROOK" !

And NOW you know the rest of the story. PS JOE D. We even rounded your last order too ! I CONFESS.. But Thanks for your understanding.

Well said Jon! This is not the place to vent your anger towards a vendor about something that you are not happy with. A phone call should have been placed in my opinion. Things happen in owning your own business that sometimes, we cannot control. You are a good man Jon and I know you did not willingly do this on purpose.

Always interesting to hear both sides of a story. I stayed out of this one waiting to hear 'both sides'. So he WAS told in advance and was even offered a new invoice while he knew this was the policy.

JonB is a stand up guy and I will do business with him.

Now having all the information I see no problem with this business practice. There is a logical business reason for it and it is disclosed on the front end of the transaction.

Bill

Well said Jon! This is not the place to vent your anger towards a vendor about something that you are not happy with. A phone call should have been placed in my opinion. Things happen in owning your own business that sometimes, we cannot control. You are a good man Jon and I know you did not willingly do this on purpose.

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Many thanks, but I think this IS a good place to investigate REAL issues and problems..... but the innuendo, and partial story, and bashing-to-entertain makes me nearly ill with disbelief.

I just wanted you to see the WHOLE STORY.... Altho he 'kept me anonymous' and claims a principled, open mind, I OUTED myself! And he is 100% entitled to his principles. I am NOT hiding on this issue or these facts:

He says we overcharged. We have charged ZERO. Nothing, NADA, Zip, Zilch.
We DID tell him of the 65-cent revision in advance of billing / shipping.
We DID subsidize his underquoted-actual shipping by approx $3.
We DID NOT BILL HIM ANYTHING altho we sent 70% of his purchase.
We DID offer an apology and a .65 revision if he was serious. (Disbelief here)
(And we offered it BEFORE we saw or knew of this soap opera)

At this moment I have no reply from him.....but he certainly made a MOUNTAIN RANGE out of a pimple. Supplier-bashing-as-entertainment. SHEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSH.