Any Fulfillment Center Customers here experiencing billing issues?

[kangamoose_shop]

Are there any other sellers using a fulfillment center and experiencing  rampant overbilling via their misrepresentation of letter/package dimensions?

I've been a customer with a "certain Fulfillment center" since 2020, but I've finally had enough of what I perceive as dishonesty on their part. I'm interested in hearing if anyone out there is experiencing similiar issues.

In December 2023, the fulfillment center decided to reclassify my stocked large letter sized items as small parcels, which is MUCH more expensive to ship with them. All of these items were prepackaged by myself, and vary between 15mm and 23mm in thickness when laid flat. They didn't inform me of this, I only noticed it when my bill was much much higher than usual for the number of items sold. These same items (and packaged identically) have been restocked repeatably and billed as large letters since 2020.

So now to the photo...

I had plenty of stock of one particular item which was a small flat rectangular box inside a poly envelope. I asked them to check, and they sent me this photo of the package, but in the photo I can see that the item inside has been turned on it's edge rather than laid flat, so the WIDTH of the item is being shown as it's thickness. The thickness of the envelope (the bulge) was maximum 22mm when laid flat, and total weight is just 20 grams. It feels like I'm being charged for the size of package SHADOWS or something.

From 2020 until mid 2023, the fulfillment center had no minimum billing other than a subscription fee. Then the minimum billing was suddenly raised to £375 per month and soon afterwards was raised again to £650 per month. This means that customers with no sales (due to being a start-up, poor sales, taking an illness or holiday break,etc) will still be billed £650 per month just for the "honour" of being a registered customer.

"Trustpilot reviews" are mostly comments on how friendly they are and how easy it was to become a customer and "onboarding", but fewer mentioning problems such as missing stock or overbilling. I've experienced problems with them over the years, but not respecting actual package dimensions is relatively new, they've always agreed they made a mistake when booking in the items and corrected their mistake, but they have stopped doing that. As they run  a business where they can  basically charge a minimum of £650 per month to each customer without providing any service at all, why not hire  a team of hypnotists for their sales team?

Has anyone had similiar experiences recently? 

[technthread]

I have never used a fulfilment centre but I wouldn't be happy with that either. 

I would ask them what that that poly bag about, why is it so massive? It seems like a huge waste of money to use those. For a small box. 

If that was Royal Mail large letter,

the bag might take it over the 35x25x2.5cm maximum in length or width. Forgetting the thickness, it looks like a small parcel size poly bag which will fail as a large letter anyway. 

[pg_kicks]

Just to add trust pilot is probably as trustworthy as a 4 year old telling you he didnt eat the easter egg whilst he has chocolate all over his face and hands. In my old job they basically had somebody whos full time job was to get the negative reviews removed, wasn't even that hard but he had so many to get removed it took all day but TrustPilot were more than happy to remove them, probably due to the company paying them money so obviously they were kept happy.

[plpmr]

these are the UK boards and you are in Sweden, best log into your designated site - https://www.ebay.com/

[kangamoose_shop]

I know, the bag looks HUGE in the photo,doesn't it!  But  is actually  a 6" x9" (15.24cm x 22.86cm) UNPADDED white poly  bag, you can see that one edge is hovering at his sizing tool at around 8cm and reaches across to around 22cm on the scale he is holding. Odd perspective in the photo.  What I noticed, and what bother me, is that the item inside has been placed on it's side instead of laid flat, so he's intentionally making the bag APPEAR much thicker than it actually is. The item in the bag is 22mm thick, so the bag itself makes it just a tiny bit thicker when laid down flat. It's a staged photograph taken by a company who wants to be able to charge £5 to ship a letter rather than just £2.  It's not just one item either, but hundreds for me alone.

Their large letter rate  is maximum 30cm x 22cm x 2.5cm, their fee for fulfillment of a 100g large letter is less than £2.  By shaking the bag (or some other manipulation)  the item inside is on it's edge, they've magically allowed themselves to charge over £5 to ship, as they can now call it a small packet instead.  SInce my profit when shipped as a large letter was less than £1 per, I am at a loss of nearly £3 for each item sold and shipped with them.

A sealed deck of playing cards is around 66mm wide and 17mm thick, but it you measure it turned on it's edge, it's  66mm thick and 17mm wide..   So if this were a sealed deck of playing cards in a small white poly bag, the fulfillment center is saying that packaged deck of cards is 66mm thick wheras a Postal Office would say it's 17mm thick.

That's what this fulfillment center has begun doing to my items since December. So that's why I'm asking if this sort of thing has happened to anyone else using fulfillment centers. 

[kangamoose_shop]

The fulfillment company is principally in the UK, with branches in 4 other EU countries, but I'm looking for people who have experience using them, so the UK is the place to ask.