HTA Spain urrrrggghhhh
Posted by Calvinx66
|
HTA Spain urrrrggghhhh May 20, 2016 05:54PM |
HTA Spain....................... 
This is My Buying experience with them. if you don't want to read the back story STOP reading after #3 as those points explain the problem I have with them.
But I feel that people should know what they are getting from a seller before they purchase so that they can avoid the hassle that I am having (or at least make sure they dont get the terrible delivery method I got) because it is most obvious that the seller has the following mindset problem
1. I paid a decent price for a courier service which I haven't received. They (quite understandably) are trying to get carriage at the cheapest cost they can, which is not always the best service. And certainly not in MY case.
2. They most evidently do not (and are not willing to) understand that their customers know the local condition's better than they do.
3. In my case I get the distinct feeling that they think I am making the whole story up about our postal service to get the cost of my delivery refunded (DO I want my delivery cost refunded in full, YES I DO, WHY? Because the service purchased has not been provided end of)
STOP HERE NOW unless you want a very long read and a laugh at daily life in Cyprus
If you want a read I will post the timeline of this farce (so far) I bought a P3Steel from HTA recently and it’s been a firkin nightmare.
Website blurb says:
I try to place an order...... I get the "shipping is not available to your area" WTF !!! contact them and ask if they can quote for a COURIER delivery service to my location. 07/05/2016
HTA Are in Spain, I am In Cyprus. Reply comes back "certainly" we have just added shipping to you on our website.. Great!!!
Go through the purchase procedure and pay the extra €40.00 / $45.00 for the following : Shipping Method: Courier Service.
Special instructions request: Have the driver call me on my cell BEFORE trying to deliver so I can be there. The local indigenous population here are still at the level of walking/fornicating with donkeys on a daily basis so you have to explain everything in very simple terms to get anything done.
The order was placed over the week end and dispatch did not take place until the following Tuesday which is understandable. 10/05/2016
A day after dispatch 11/05/2016 I get notification that the Printer has been dispatched and they supplied the tracking number & that the delivery will be between 7 to 12 days!!! Eh?? WTF (again) 7 to 12 days within Europe???? You are aving a laugh mate!! I thought I was paying a fair price for a fairly decent courier delivery service, I have had free postage stuff from china arrive here is less time than that!! So I go to some obscure Spanish Courier website "Packlink.es" that then leads me to "trackyourparcel.eu" which shows shipment date only nothing else........
Google's definition of a courier service is as follows:
Don't think I’m expecting too much to get an update every couple of days, for within the EU anyway, not like when a Chinese package goes missing into the ether for two months!!! 11/05/2016 the parcel pops up as being in Amsterdam (Netherlands) I'm left thinking why the **** is package going to Northern Europe to come south when the main international delivery hubs are Germany ?
Day after that 12/05/2016 the package shows up at Greven (Germany) ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh and it now shows a DHL logo and a tracking number on the "trackyourparcel.eu" website
Ah-ha!! progress methinks, hopes are rising (FOOL) I go to the DH(EL)L website and I am presented with the following message : DHL Paket International....................... Service: Premium.
I decide to go and see what "premium " actually means !!!
Now I'm a quivering wreck getting all excited at the prospect of my printer arriving very soon (again FOOL) Later in the day the DHL website changes all its info to:
GONE is the premium paket service.....
Friday 13/05/2015 the shipment shows up in Saulheim (Germany) its seems to have been having a very nice time travelling around Europe for the price!!!
Later on on Friday 13/05/2015 the shipment shows as Leaving Frankfurt (Germany) and says the most ominous following words:
OMG now we have finally arrived at the problem!!! The key words being "Cyprus Post"
I have been coming to Cyprus since the late 90's and lived here since 2004, so I understand the countries "foibles" with regards to daily life. People here still to this day do their shopping using Donkeys, or a Massey Ferguson tractor driven by a frail old woman dressed in black who should officially be classed as blind!!! You think I joke, our village was not fully paved until a few years ago and although we have a mains sewage system we cannot use it because even though the piping from the house to the street is connected to the main piping system, the sewage treatment plants don't actually exist yet!!! (And wont for quite a few years yet)
So on to the Cyprus post office….
We recently got a new post mistress because the last one got caught sitting having a frappe in Ikea in Nicosia (over an hour from the post office) having left a "back in 20 minutes" sign on the post office door once too often !!! But as she is someone high up in the post office’s "cousin" she got to keep her job but was moved to Larnaca!!!!
The village next to us (which is larger) has no actual post office. You are expected to go in to a "designated" kiosk (shop like a 7/11) and collect your mail!! How very secure.....
So now we have a post mistress who opens at 10 am, closes at 3pm, and just might have a half day on a Wednesday if she thinks she can get away with it !!! Now forgive me if I’m wrong on this but I thought that the remit of a post office was to "deliver mail & parcels” and to do so you need a post man/woman? Ah but this is Cyprus and while in the towns & cities that may be so, in the villages there is no "official" postman... ah but we have better we have a (usually drunk) old guy who rides around the village, when he can be bothered (i.e not on a daily basis) delivering "mail"
Now this guy MUST related to the village Muktar (mayor) because said post man only ever manages to deliver FOUR types of mail (in 12 years have only ever had this four types of mail delivered)
1. Water bill (this is paid directly to the village)
2. Council tax (bins lighting etc again paid to the village)
3. Electric Bill (paid to the state owned electric company)
4. And finally a small white (or pink if customs want to screw you) piece of paper telling you that you have mail/parcel that you must COLLECT from the post office
Heaven forbid that the “expat’s” don’t pay their bills!! Even though some locals were caught supplying their houses water from the lines normally used to feed water to the village flower display!! And had been doing it for years.
Oh you might ask how Cyprus post office gets round not actually delivering, but showing online that they have? Well they do two things, the main one is to put up online is “delivery attempted- but refused” Or just plain old “signed for” (yes maybe but only after you have actually gone to collect it) so if it says refused then they can say “nope tried once no one at home” come and collect it!!!
NEVER EVER in the last 12 years have I (or any of my local friends) have anything other than the above delivered to our homes.
And that's fine we accept this as a "foible" of the cost of living here. So knowing this you become an adept "freight" forwarder. YOU NEVER EVER use Cyprus post office to deliver anything other than a letter. You also soon learn which local couriers will do what, in the beginning I used to get some ditsy female who would call and say what the company is and "you have a package bring your passport come and collect it" (who then usually puts the phone straight down) you call back and explain the meaning of a courier service, this usually brings a huge "sigh" (because they will actually have to do some work) before asking for all the details they already have (like asking for your phone number) my reply is :how did you manage to just call me, which results in yet another huge "sigh"
You soon have them trained so they no longer try it on.
As soon as I saw "handed over to the delivery organization. (Homepage / online shipment tracking: [ips.cypruspost.gov.cy])"
I'm like NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
I contact HTA and "try" (like banging my head against a brick wall) to explain to them that if Cyprus post office gets their hands on my package that the job is as good as F***ed. I get the standard reply "Don’t worry we have contacted the shipper & DHL insist that they will be delivering the parcel" (even though I had just spoken DHL Cyprus, given them the tracking number, then getting the reply "Cyprus post office will deliver it" followed by the "Click" of the bitch putting the phone down!!!)
Now at this point I have a sinking feeling as I know it’s going to go SOUTH from here on in, I'm like a condemned man waiting for the gallows!! Its Still 13/05/2016 by this time and now I get a link to the Cyprus post office: [ips.cypruspost.gov.cy]
Cyprus post office Own my package now, and as I suspected it goes south!! There are NO FURTHER tracking updates with the following message:
SILENCE, NOTHING until 20/05/2016 which by my math means as soon a CY post got a hold of the job there was NO updates for SEVEN days!!!! When the thing finally did update it was NOT displayed online until late afternoon (about 14:00) shows the item arriving in the country (YIPEEE) That is until I remember this is Cyprus post office, and that the last time I got shafted in this manner was when I bought a chrome towel rail online (don't ask why I bought it online that's an even longer story) it was sent on a Guaranteed 48hr service from the UK, it arrived in Cyprus 18hrs after dispatch, then took TEN DAYS to travel 30kms !!! (And I had to collect it from the post office)
It’s safe to say I have no confidence whatsoever in Cyprus post office…. With the online update happening around 14:00 and the fact that the local office closes in less than an hour I am fully aware that delivery is NOT going to happen today 20/05/2016….. And we can be 100% sure that delivery is not going to happen on Saturday or Sunday, so the earliest possible delivery being Monday 23/05/2015 (ye right from past experience that’s not going to happen either))
Now by my math from 10/05/2016 to 23/10/2016 is THIRTEEN days which allows the delivery to fall outside the pre advised delivery time.
I try to explain this to HTA!! who suddenly change tack and advise that we are only on day NINE (EH?) with them seemingly trying to say that (week-ends days) are not included… Horse manure…
Having encountered many others trying to use this delaying ploy before, I have it in writing from DHL our supposed delivery supplier, where they advise that delivery estimates INCLUDE weekends.
This is where we are at, I know for a fact that if I go to the post office on Monday that the printer is not going to be there and that they are going to want me to go and collect it when it finally does arrive.
What’s the problem in that you might ask? NOTHING per se.
But it’s the principle of the matter that as consumers many of us are being shafted and not getting what we pay for, in this case a courier delivery service to a customers designated delivery address and add to those facts that HTA just downright do not believe me that DHL are not going to be the ones who will deliver or that I will be expected to go and collect the thing.
Hope I have given you a good laugh at life in Cyprus, for a Friday night.
What’s this got to do with 3D Printing? F**k All really. Apart from HTA not having the best understanding of how life works outside their own little sphere !!!
Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 05/21/2016 08:30PM by Calvinx66.
This is My Buying experience with them. if you don't want to read the back story STOP reading after #3 as those points explain the problem I have with them.
But I feel that people should know what they are getting from a seller before they purchase so that they can avoid the hassle that I am having (or at least make sure they dont get the terrible delivery method I got) because it is most obvious that the seller has the following mindset problem
1. I paid a decent price for a courier service which I haven't received. They (quite understandably) are trying to get carriage at the cheapest cost they can, which is not always the best service. And certainly not in MY case.
2. They most evidently do not (and are not willing to) understand that their customers know the local condition's better than they do.
3. In my case I get the distinct feeling that they think I am making the whole story up about our postal service to get the cost of my delivery refunded (DO I want my delivery cost refunded in full, YES I DO, WHY? Because the service purchased has not been provided end of)
STOP HERE NOW unless you want a very long read and a laugh at daily life in Cyprus
If you want a read I will post the timeline of this farce (so far) I bought a P3Steel from HTA recently and it’s been a firkin nightmare.
Website blurb says:
Quote
FAST DELIVERY
We provide you with fast and free delivery regardless of the product size and value, Most orders are processed within 24 hours.
I try to place an order...... I get the "shipping is not available to your area" WTF !!! contact them and ask if they can quote for a COURIER delivery service to my location. 07/05/2016
HTA Are in Spain, I am In Cyprus. Reply comes back "certainly" we have just added shipping to you on our website.. Great!!!
Go through the purchase procedure and pay the extra €40.00 / $45.00 for the following : Shipping Method: Courier Service.
Special instructions request: Have the driver call me on my cell BEFORE trying to deliver so I can be there. The local indigenous population here are still at the level of walking/fornicating with donkeys on a daily basis so you have to explain everything in very simple terms to get anything done.
The order was placed over the week end and dispatch did not take place until the following Tuesday which is understandable. 10/05/2016
A day after dispatch 11/05/2016 I get notification that the Printer has been dispatched and they supplied the tracking number & that the delivery will be between 7 to 12 days!!! Eh?? WTF (again) 7 to 12 days within Europe???? You are aving a laugh mate!! I thought I was paying a fair price for a fairly decent courier delivery service, I have had free postage stuff from china arrive here is less time than that!! So I go to some obscure Spanish Courier website "Packlink.es" that then leads me to "trackyourparcel.eu" which shows shipment date only nothing else........
Google's definition of a courier service is as follows:
Quote
Definition of a courier service: A Courier company is one which delivers messages, packages and mail and is known for their speed, security, tracking service and specialization.” A courier service was developed to offer a faster and more secure alternative to the usual mail service
Don't think I’m expecting too much to get an update every couple of days, for within the EU anyway, not like when a Chinese package goes missing into the ether for two months!!! 11/05/2016 the parcel pops up as being in Amsterdam (Netherlands) I'm left thinking why the **** is package going to Northern Europe to come south when the main international delivery hubs are Germany ?
Day after that 12/05/2016 the package shows up at Greven (Germany) ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh and it now shows a DHL logo and a tracking number on the "trackyourparcel.eu" website
Ah-ha!! progress methinks, hopes are rising (FOOL) I go to the DH(EL)L website and I am presented with the following message : DHL Paket International....................... Service: Premium.
I decide to go and see what "premium " actually means !!!
Quote
Service Premium
Service Premium is the ideal solution to reduce international shipping transit times.
The benefits for you
Short and calculable delivery times
Priority shipping via the fastest means possible
Standardised processing thanks to the international foreign parcel registration card
Shipment tracking via the Internet or by telephone through customer services
Premium: The Premium service ensures particularly short and calculable delivery times, including transport insurance, for your international shipments to business (B2or private (B2C) recipients.
The Premium service is available for the DHL Paket International.
Now I'm a quivering wreck getting all excited at the prospect of my printer arriving very soon (again FOOL) Later in the day the DHL website changes all its info to:
Quote
Product / service: Shipment for Export (Cyprus)
GONE is the premium paket service.....
Friday 13/05/2015 the shipment shows up in Saulheim (Germany) its seems to have been having a very nice time travelling around Europe for the price!!!
Later on on Friday 13/05/2015 the shipment shows as Leaving Frankfurt (Germany) and says the most ominous following words:
Quote
The shipment will be transported to the destination country and, from there, handed over to the delivery organization. (Homepage / online shipment tracking: [ips.cypruspost.gov.cy])
OMG now we have finally arrived at the problem!!! The key words being "Cyprus Post"
I have been coming to Cyprus since the late 90's and lived here since 2004, so I understand the countries "foibles" with regards to daily life. People here still to this day do their shopping using Donkeys, or a Massey Ferguson tractor driven by a frail old woman dressed in black who should officially be classed as blind!!! You think I joke, our village was not fully paved until a few years ago and although we have a mains sewage system we cannot use it because even though the piping from the house to the street is connected to the main piping system, the sewage treatment plants don't actually exist yet!!! (And wont for quite a few years yet)
So on to the Cyprus post office….
We recently got a new post mistress because the last one got caught sitting having a frappe in Ikea in Nicosia (over an hour from the post office) having left a "back in 20 minutes" sign on the post office door once too often !!! But as she is someone high up in the post office’s "cousin" she got to keep her job but was moved to Larnaca!!!!
The village next to us (which is larger) has no actual post office. You are expected to go in to a "designated" kiosk (shop like a 7/11) and collect your mail!! How very secure.....
So now we have a post mistress who opens at 10 am, closes at 3pm, and just might have a half day on a Wednesday if she thinks she can get away with it !!! Now forgive me if I’m wrong on this but I thought that the remit of a post office was to "deliver mail & parcels” and to do so you need a post man/woman? Ah but this is Cyprus and while in the towns & cities that may be so, in the villages there is no "official" postman... ah but we have better we have a (usually drunk) old guy who rides around the village, when he can be bothered (i.e not on a daily basis) delivering "mail"
Now this guy MUST related to the village Muktar (mayor) because said post man only ever manages to deliver FOUR types of mail (in 12 years have only ever had this four types of mail delivered)
1. Water bill (this is paid directly to the village)
2. Council tax (bins lighting etc again paid to the village)
3. Electric Bill (paid to the state owned electric company)
4. And finally a small white (or pink if customs want to screw you) piece of paper telling you that you have mail/parcel that you must COLLECT from the post office
Heaven forbid that the “expat’s” don’t pay their bills!! Even though some locals were caught supplying their houses water from the lines normally used to feed water to the village flower display!! And had been doing it for years.
Oh you might ask how Cyprus post office gets round not actually delivering, but showing online that they have? Well they do two things, the main one is to put up online is “delivery attempted- but refused” Or just plain old “signed for” (yes maybe but only after you have actually gone to collect it) so if it says refused then they can say “nope tried once no one at home” come and collect it!!!
NEVER EVER in the last 12 years have I (or any of my local friends) have anything other than the above delivered to our homes.
And that's fine we accept this as a "foible" of the cost of living here. So knowing this you become an adept "freight" forwarder. YOU NEVER EVER use Cyprus post office to deliver anything other than a letter. You also soon learn which local couriers will do what, in the beginning I used to get some ditsy female who would call and say what the company is and "you have a package bring your passport come and collect it" (who then usually puts the phone straight down) you call back and explain the meaning of a courier service, this usually brings a huge "sigh" (because they will actually have to do some work) before asking for all the details they already have (like asking for your phone number) my reply is :how did you manage to just call me, which results in yet another huge "sigh"
You soon have them trained so they no longer try it on.
As soon as I saw "handed over to the delivery organization. (Homepage / online shipment tracking: [ips.cypruspost.gov.cy])"
I'm like NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
I contact HTA and "try" (like banging my head against a brick wall) to explain to them that if Cyprus post office gets their hands on my package that the job is as good as F***ed. I get the standard reply "Don’t worry we have contacted the shipper & DHL insist that they will be delivering the parcel" (even though I had just spoken DHL Cyprus, given them the tracking number, then getting the reply "Cyprus post office will deliver it" followed by the "Click" of the bitch putting the phone down!!!)
Now at this point I have a sinking feeling as I know it’s going to go SOUTH from here on in, I'm like a condemned man waiting for the gallows!! Its Still 13/05/2016 by this time and now I get a link to the Cyprus post office: [ips.cypruspost.gov.cy]
Cyprus post office Own my package now, and as I suspected it goes south!! There are NO FURTHER tracking updates with the following message:
Quote
13/05/2016 08:26:00 Germany FRANKFURT/FLUGHAFEN Item sent to country of destination/Αποστολή αντικειμένου στη χώρα προορισμού.
SILENCE, NOTHING until 20/05/2016 which by my math means as soon a CY post got a hold of the job there was NO updates for SEVEN days!!!! When the thing finally did update it was NOT displayed online until late afternoon (about 14:00) shows the item arriving in the country (YIPEEE) That is until I remember this is Cyprus post office, and that the last time I got shafted in this manner was when I bought a chrome towel rail online (don't ask why I bought it online that's an even longer story) it was sent on a Guaranteed 48hr service from the UK, it arrived in Cyprus 18hrs after dispatch, then took TEN DAYS to travel 30kms !!! (And I had to collect it from the post office)
It’s safe to say I have no confidence whatsoever in Cyprus post office…. With the online update happening around 14:00 and the fact that the local office closes in less than an hour I am fully aware that delivery is NOT going to happen today 20/05/2016….. And we can be 100% sure that delivery is not going to happen on Saturday or Sunday, so the earliest possible delivery being Monday 23/05/2015 (ye right from past experience that’s not going to happen either))
Now by my math from 10/05/2016 to 23/10/2016 is THIRTEEN days which allows the delivery to fall outside the pre advised delivery time.
I try to explain this to HTA!! who suddenly change tack and advise that we are only on day NINE (EH?) with them seemingly trying to say that (week-ends days) are not included… Horse manure…
Having encountered many others trying to use this delaying ploy before, I have it in writing from DHL our supposed delivery supplier, where they advise that delivery estimates INCLUDE weekends.
This is where we are at, I know for a fact that if I go to the post office on Monday that the printer is not going to be there and that they are going to want me to go and collect it when it finally does arrive.
What’s the problem in that you might ask? NOTHING per se.
But it’s the principle of the matter that as consumers many of us are being shafted and not getting what we pay for, in this case a courier delivery service to a customers designated delivery address and add to those facts that HTA just downright do not believe me that DHL are not going to be the ones who will deliver or that I will be expected to go and collect the thing.
Hope I have given you a good laugh at life in Cyprus, for a Friday night.
What’s this got to do with 3D Printing? F**k All really. Apart from HTA not having the best understanding of how life works outside their own little sphere !!!
Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 05/21/2016 08:30PM by Calvinx66.
Sorry, only registered users may post in this forum.