The old Split Shipment Scam...


Posted On: Wednesday - May 10th 2023 2:24PM MST
In Topics: 
  Cars  Economics  Big-Biz Stupidity  Scams

... 2nd time I fell for it this month!

I'm not really singling out the huge* on-line auto-parts company and website Rock Auto in this scam report. Shipping costs, ground and air, went way up back in the peak oil price days of early '08. They never came down. That's usually the case, and that's not the scam here. Now that fuel is up again, and inflation is probably in real double-digits yearly, 11 bucks to ship a small box by ground to another State is a reasonable deal, I suppose.

I haven't shipped anything of my own in a long time, so I don't know if some of what's dubbed "shipping" is handling/profit. They've got to make money one way or another. In this case, my stocking up on oil and air filters for a couple of vehicles, these parts were 1/2 of what they are at the store, and I can't get certain FRAM oil filters at the store (LUV that hand grip - excellent idea!), but then there's the shipping. The lesson there is GET A LOT OF STUFF... stuff that ships together.



(Note for doxxers: Have at it determining my vehicles, but ... well, do you know what a primrose path is? Guess what? You're on one!)


It's a much better deal to get 5 or even 10 of some regular maintenance part like an oil or air filter.** A multiple count of the same item will ship together. I would also think that FRAM oil filters would be in the same warehouse, and common sense things like that. Here's where the scam starts. Note that in the above image from Rock Auto, of the 4 part numbers, they are coming from 3 different places, [A], [B], and [C]. The FRAM filters (2 part #s) are coming from location [C]. That makes sense, but at first I had a [D], meaning I was paying a separate same shipping charge on all 4. I had to delete all items and then mess around a while to save one of those charges.



Maybe that was my fault. An auto mechanic friend says no - he has to play around with the orders too, to bring the shipping charges down.

Then, I received all the air filters for both vehicles together in one box, and the oil filters for both vehicles together in another a few days later. (Nothing was in any kind of hurry, making this easier than it would have been otherwise.) I just now looked at the packing slip for the latter. It all came from the same warehouse in Carson, California. Yet, right there on the slip, it shows my 2 vehicle models and reads "Shipping Separately" OK, now this last part is just a lie. That's the real scam here, being screwed out of 11 bucks (never mind what's on the image). One package came from one place. That's not "shipping separately" where I come from.

You've gotta watch this kind of thing. I'm still used to a little honesty, even out of Big Biz.


* I write "huge" to refer to the website database, but not necessarily the company itself. This rockauto.com site has SO MANY parts listed - they must number in the high 100,000s to millions. The company Rock Auto, OTOH, has no real-time human-interaction customer service. It wouldn't take my debit card for a while, and I spent half an hour digging up a corporate phone number in Cleveland or somewhere. The lady was miffed I was calling her, and there was no way for any live human to help me, she admitted, including her. That's the way Big Biz wants it - no human interaction.

** This goes for anything with a good long shelf life like these filters. They are only going to go up in price (see Inflation and Prepping), quality will go down if anything, and this is the other reason, shipping. What could go wrong? The car gets totaled, that's one.

Comments:
Moderator
Thursday - May 11th 2023 11:52AM MST
PS: Yes, Mr. Possum, they still send the magnets. My auto mechanic friend is done with Rock Auto for a different reason*. They only allow 1 return on a given item.

That sounds fair enough, but he had a problem that was a design flaw. The electrical contacts on the harness of the electric cooling fan were thinner than the original manufacturer's part. He saw overheating going on, had to take it out and send that one in. The next one was just the same. Rock Auto wouldn't give him credit, and/or the return slip, so he disputed the CC charge. So, he's locked out from buying until he pays for the 2nd flawed fan. He ain't agonna do it.

That's after many years, probably well over a decade of his buying, who knows, maybe 10,000, maybe 20,000 bucks a year on that site or more, and, as I wrote, there's no human he could talk to, to tell directly "check out how much I've ordered. You sure you want to do it this way?" Emailing is simply not the same.

Yeah, he's got a whole metal door full of their magnets.


* He does do a lot on his own (way too many!) cars, but for customers, the price/shipping are on them, of course.
Adam Smith
Thursday - May 11th 2023 11:43AM MST
PS: Good afternoon, possumman,

“Do they still send the cool magnets with customer's car pics on them”...

Yes. Got another just the other day with an order.

I like RockAuto, but don't waste your time trying to get them to honor a warranty. Zero customer service.

possumman
Thursday - May 11th 2023 11:16AM MST
PS Do they still send the cool magnets with customer's car pics on them--I kind of stopped using RockAuto when the shipping got stupid spendy
Moderator
Thursday - May 11th 2023 8:01AM MST
PS: SafeNow, yeah, they've gotta make money one way or the other, unless you're dot-com era Amazon, always building market share but "we'll make money later". That phase did last a long time for them.

As for your point directly, all that does it make the people in locations that would entail cheap shipping costs subsidize, slightly, those who live in locations that entail large shipping costs. Form Amazon, Wal-mart, etc, they have warehouses/stores all over, so this is probably not that big a thing.

There is no free lunch.

Haha, yes, the told you wrong about the Math Team Captain position - shoulda put away the set, gained 30 lb of muscle, and tried out for QB. (This is why I don't give out advice on these matters.)
SafeNow
Thursday - May 11th 2023 1:24AM MST
PS
The shipping scam that bothers me the most is when their advertisement is “free shipping.” Of course, nothing is really free; they are going to add the shipping charge to the price of the product itself, and then advertise that $0 is the shipping fee. Bothers me that they assume that I, the captain of the math team in h.s., is stupid. Then again, when they told me “captain of the math team” would be a chick magnet, I believed it, so I guess I have a bit of the stupid gene.
Moderator
Wednesday - May 10th 2023 3:35PM MST
PS: Yeah, all of a sudden you're in for 3 times the money.

A different bit: "If these pills don't work as guaranteed, we will send you another bottle, for FREE!!"
The Alarmist
Wednesday - May 10th 2023 2:55PM MST
PS

I’m reminded of those infomercial specials where you get two sets of something, the second one “free,” if you just pay the shipping and “handling” for the second set.
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