LSP972

My Feedback: (13)

I've been eyeing the GP Patty Wagstaff Extra 300 for quite some time; today I finally decided to get off my behind and order it, along with some servos and a few other goodies.

Imagine my surprise when The Empire (Great Planes/Tower Hobbies, for those of you who are relatively new here ), in addition to the standard 9.95 shipping fee, advised that there would be a "shipping surcharge" of SIXTY-FIVE bucks.

After I got my breath back, I politely told the girl to cancel the order.

Those people have lost their minds. I don't mind paying extra in these trying days, but sixty-five dollars for a box that weighs MAYBE 20 pounds? That is larceny, pure and simple. I just took delivery of over a hundred pounds worth of bullets for less shipping costs than that.

Looks like I'm back to 60-size models from the LHS.

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RCKen

My Feedback: (9)

Along those same lines I have another incident that really chapped my hide!! [:@]

Last Friday I made an order from Tower which came to about $175. I was shocked to see the standard shipping went up to $9.95, but didn't sweat it too much because I know that shipping is going up at UPS and FedEx because of gas prices. It said that the shipping would take 10 business days. Now I order a lot from Tower and I've never had anything shipped standard take that long to get to me so I didn't worry about upgrading the shipping, but was shocked to see that priority shipping was $36!!!!!! Now for the part that got me. I ordered Friday afternoon so I didn't expect it to ship that day. But Monday came and went and it didn't ship. Tuesday Tower said it shipped, but the UPS tracking number I got indicates that it didn't ship until this morning (Wednesday). I called Tower and spoke with a service supervisor. I didn't yell at them, but rather stated that I thought it was ridiculous to take that long to ship an order. I understand that they are a big company with a lot of orders, but this is unacceptable to wait this long to get an order shipped.

Ok, off of my soapbox now.

Ken

MinnFlyer

My Feedback: (4)

We do a lot of shipping where I work and when I bring a package down to the UPS desk, enter it into the computer and stick a label on it, it is "In the system", so technically, it's been shipped - even though they don't come to get it till 4pm or so.

If, for some reason they don't come that day, it won't go out till the next day, but it still in their system and technically "shipped"

As far as prices, blame OPEC

And even though the box isn't heavy, it's big enough to be considered "Oversize" by most carriers.

RCKen

My Feedback: (9)

Mike,
I know that this is what goes on. But I still think that it's bad to have an order that was placed on Friday to not even be filled and have the UPS label printed until Tuesday. That's just not right in my opinion.

Ken

vicman

My Feedback: (10)

One more reason to support the LHS.
Well 65 or 36 depending on who you are

Robotech

My Feedback: (9)

Glad, well not glad, to see I'm not the only one that happens to. Many times it's 3 or 4 days before I get a shipping notice. They do have a box you can check that gets your ordered filled quicker but it's an additional $2.99 or something like that. The thought of having to pay extra to get them to fill my order faster chaps my arse. Once UPS gets it it takes the usual amount of time to get here. Must be nice to have so much business that you can charge extra for good service.

$65 for shipping a PW doesn't sound too unreasonable. I paid UPS $100 for a H9 33% shipped from NC to AR. And that was last summer before the oil prices skyrocketed.

LSP972

My Feedback: (13)

Well, the "reasonableness" of it can be argued from several different viewpoints.

Personally, The Empire can kiss me where the sun don't shine; I don't want the airplane that bad.

They went up on the price of the model by twenty bucks, too. For the same money, I can get a WildHare Extra that is the same size. The advantage of the GP, in my opinion, is the super-neat cowling paint job and the fact that it is built like a tank and will probably last longer than the lightly-built WH.

Some days you get chicken, some days you get feathers...

And, Ken, I too noticed that my last Tower order took its sweet time getting here. I wasn't paying that much attention because I wasn't waiting for it, so to speak. But it was 10 days before it arrived.

Sign of the times, I suppose.

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Scar

My Feedback: (3)

Did you check with your Local Hobby Shop?

The one close to me will usually give me the same deal as Tower. On smaller stuff, no shipping.

Just a thought,
Dave Olson

outdoorhunting

I wish !!!! The nearest LHS 50 miles !!!!! If I need to buy some corn or soybeans- 3 miles. This is farm country.

DavidAgar

My Feedback: (108)

I have to agree. My last couple of orders have taken a long time to arrive. As I live on the west coast, most of my orders come from the Reno warehouse, but what chaps my hide is if Reno does not have one of the items that I have ordered, then the whole shipment is shipped from Illinios. I have to agree, an additional $65.00 to ship a kit is over the top, OPEC or not. I am lucky, I can get kits at my local hobby shop cheaper than Tower any way and I have pretty much given up on Tower all together. Good Luck, Dave

summerwind

HEY NOW....let's not be too hard on the EMPIRE (OK Tower) as they are in business to make money just like everyone else.
i'm one of those who bought into the super saver deal and am so glad that i did as most of my orders are always over $150.00 which gives me free shipping............that said i also want to tell you all of my latest order issue, and NO it was not Towers fault.

my local postal carrier was off on Monday this week in which a temp carrier dropped the mail. my order that i placed last Thursday evening went out Friday morning via Priority mail (cost me 3 bucks more as my order was over the 150 mark).....was set to be delivered anywhere from the 22nd to the 23rd, but it came on monday the 21st.........the dumb broad stuck the package in one of the parcel box slots and left a key in my mail slot..........problem is, both parcel boxes had broken keys in the locks thus leaving my package in an unlocked box...............yep, you guessed it, the local neighborhood kids (now out of school) are the proud owners of my stuff................well at least i know i didn't get what i had paid for.

i emailed Tower of the incident, sent them pictures of the parcel boxes with broken locks. as of yesterday i had an email from Tower saying my order had shipped, meaning Tower sent out the complete order again..................today i have my stuff. i have filed a claim with the Postal inspector, but unfortunately Tower is out of luck as they hadn't insured the package........not fair to Tower, but they sure didn't waste any time making me happy.
so before any of you go shooting your mouths off about Tower and their shipping prices, think about it....................shipping (especially oversized boxes) ain't cheap, and if you were smart, you'd take advantage of the super saver club. my recent string of orders that totaled over $800.00 ended up costing me $685.00 due to my breaking the order into 4 aprox. $200.00 orders in which each qualified for the $30.00 discount and free shipping.

and fortunately for me, ground shipping where i live in relation to the Reno warehouse is like overnight shipping as i get my packages the next day after they ship.

TOWER is not a ripoff company, but the shipping companies are.

LSP972

My Feedback: (13)

I have been a loyal customer of Tower Hobbies for 22 years; so I'll "shoot my mouth off" if I feel like it. I never said Tower was a rip-off company; but I'm starting to lean in that direction now.

I HAVE thought about. Either Tower is trying to make something off the shipping, or they aren't trying hard enough to get reasonable "extra" shipping prices for their customers.

I'm glad that you're so smart (and have the time) to break an order up into four parts, etc.

I guess I'm just a simple dummy who declines to get raped without benefit of lubrication.

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summerwind

Steve,
there have been times when i was dumbfounded with Tower too, usually with them taking the full 2 days to get my order off if i didn't choose 2nd or next day shipping.
a couple time they sent me the wrong item, a defective servo or 2, and they always made it good (with the exception of taking the full 2 days to expidite).........but i seriously don't think that they are ripping any of us off with their shipping prices.................i shipped a GP Fokker Tripe to England............i had to go home and trim exactly a 1/2" off the end of the box to get shipping price down to $108.00 vs the $310.00 it would have been..............talk about being ripped off...........but that was UPS's price for that size box. and this was without insurance.

one thing i will share with you though, but since you have been doing business with Tower for 22 years, you probably already know Pat Warnick quite well right?
she is the GM for Tower which is owned by the employees now. drop Pat an email and ask her for some consideration...............i mean you spend a lot of money with Tower right?.......i know i buy all my stuff from them, and she has more than once stepped into one of my transactions and bent the rule here and there.......great lady to work with.
sorry if i got your panties in a bunch tho[:-]

LSP972

My Feedback: (13)

Never heard of her. I have gotten involved with Customer Service exactly once, years ago, on a defective kit. Prompt, efficient, trouble-free service is why I have continued to buy from them all these years.

I'm way ahead of you. After I cancelled the order and thought about it for a few minutes, I called back (got the same girl, I think, who had taken the order) and asked to speak to a customer service manager. After five minutes on hold, I had to get back to work.

As for e-mailing this person... I guess I'm old-fashioned. I like to speak with people I have a problem with. As for asking for "consideration"... that smacks of begging, IMO. I don't want or need the product enough to stoop to that, thank you.

If I have time today, I will call back, though... if for no other reason, to voice my displeasure and to see exactly HOW much I've spent with them over the years; assuming, of course, I get somebody from customer service on the phone. They keep a running total on your account. I asked one time, some years ago... and was mortified. Its one of those things you're better off NOT knowing... but curiousity overwhelms me.

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sfsjkid

Last summer I wanted a Quique 69" Yak and tried to get it at the LHS. It had to be ordered and after 3 weeks of getting the run around, I decided to go direct to the source. Shipping was $50 and I realized that the LHS was trying to batch a big enough order with them to make economic sense. It also made me appreciate Tower more since I've always felt they've always lost money on shipping especially when they had to split the order or had a backordered item. Others do this too it seems. My last order from Brodak, I paid something like $10(?) for shipping but noticed that the metered stamp read 4 times that amount. I think this "unpleasant" reality will become more common place as shipping costs go up.

As for shipping times, I seem to get 1 day standard service for items from Nevada during the off months, but that gets longer during the prime flying season. That is true of repairs also to any firm.

Its all just part of life.


BTW I noticed that GP's 25% Yak and 27% CAP do not have the shipping surcharge. Since Patty is an older plane they probably did not take box size into account and may do so in a future run(?).

LSP972

My Feedback: (13)

That is interesting.

Finally got someone on the phone; she said it was all UPS's fault (they dictated the amount of the surcharge), and that it had everything to do with the SIZE of the box; not the weight. I wish I had seen this before I called.

Moot point, anyway.

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sfsjkid

Oh well, I suppose that is one advantage of online stuff, you can spend hours just contemplating stuff. In anycase I'm sure you'll love the Wild Hare Extra a lot more anyways.

I think that is why they had a fire sale on the old Lanier stuff too, I've never seen so many planes with the oversized box charge. Even the 40 sized Quickee KIT was in a box twice as large as most 40 sized ARF!

skyraider71

What's sad is I'm a U.P.S. employee, and I don't get a break on shipping!

MikeL

My Feedback: (3)

I'd have asked them to compute the shipping charges for other carriers. It just might be that while it fits into UPS's surcharge category, it might not for DHL or FedEx.

I've had more than my fair share of odd shipping events with Tower. Things packed in Boston Market boxes, for example. Did the warehouse really run out of boxes? Did employees have to bring them from home? Who knows.

The latest is a Tower 46 muffler I've been waiting onsince early May. Do they not make them anymore? Did the boat take the really long way aroundtwice? Is Tower experiencing financial difficulties?

LSP972

My Feedback: (13)

I've already been down the alternate shipper road, too, on an earlier order; after UPS used my first H9 Extra for a tackling dummy. That was from Chief Aircraft, and it took two months to get THAT sorted out. Another vendor in the circular file...

Anyway, I had ordered a radio and some other fragile stuff from The Empire, and requested FedEx or DHL. They wouldn't even discuss it.

The upshot of all of this, it seems to me, is that since the employee buy-out, things have slowly started going south at Tower Hobbies. I see a lot more complaints of various kinds about them than I can ever remember. Might be real, might be my imagination. Don't really know; don't really care.

I'll just need to take some extra time to comparison shop from now on...

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reincarnate

Steve, have you checked Omni? Free shipping on orders over 100.00, and they have the same lineup as Tower. [link=http://www3.omnimodels.com/cgi-bin/woi0001p?&I=GPMA1305&P=0]Here's[/link] the link to the Patty.

JPGale

And on that page is a notice about an additional shipping charge.

James

Nathan_L

It's been a while since I lived there but....good luck getting the local hobby shop to eat part of the shipping...that's if you can get him to order something and it not wind up on the magic pad by the register where it gets written down and never ordered. Ever.

Back when I lived there I was in NO a bit for work and over to Mandeville. The guy in Mandeville (if he's still open after Katrina he was right off the water) would sell Great Planes kits/arf's for the same sale price as Tower with no shipping charge. He'd also have a decent stock of sizes greater than .60 which is kinda rare in BR. I'd call him up and 3 days later go pick it up while on business there. He also carries some other brands like saito if your not big on ordering etc....That's where I picked up my Gene Soucy Extra and my PW Extra and didn't have to pay shipping and got a chance to look at it before I paid for it. I lived in Central and maybe we had the same UPS guy but I finally just stopped ordering because it was too much hassle to send stuff back. I prefer nowdays to visually look at the kit. Even good kits have a bad run or someone in the store drops it or whatever.

Price of gas now makes it not worth the effort to drive over there but if your otherwise there you might check into it. Same thing for the shop in metarie on Veterans. Much more customer friendly in my experience.

LSP972

My Feedback: (13)

LOL. You must talking about Hobby Towne in BR.

Or, it DOES get ordered, arrives, and is sold to someone else before you can get back to the shop. I ordered a buddy cord via this method yesterday. I figure its 70/30 whether or not I'll actually get the thing.

Nathan, I'm not familiar with the Mandeville shop, but Dean at Slidell Hobbies has/had a similar set-up. He's sort of an odd duck, but good to deal with once you establish a relationship with him. I haven't been back over there since Katrina, but I used to go to NO several times a month on business, and would swing by there on my way back. Bought a lot of stuff, especially fuel, from him.

Mike's place in Metairie is, as you note, another good shop. He recently bought out Mercury Hobbies and re-opened it in Hammond. But also as you said, gas prices make it prohibitive to go there just to see what they've got.

I almost asked Andy yesterday what he would charge me to get a Patty in, but decided to bag the idea for a while. I've got several other projects going, so I'll keep flying the H9 Extra for a gasser until I kill it or get bored. I have to get a bigger ride before I can go with a true 30% airplane; I'm limited now to 70" overall length. Its my turn for a new vehicle, but the wife has been making noise about wanting an Infiniti or something, so gotta keep her happy...

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LSP972

My Feedback: (13)

That's because they are an in-house hack of The Evil Empire, intended to give folks annoyed with Tower the illusion they are buying from a different vendor.

Thanks for the suggestion, though.

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