I am making this post to truly be helpful rather than vent about the state of things. For those making larger orders there are helpful tips at the end that I learned the hard way. I would have been much farther along in my project if someone had tipped me to the below.
I purchased a damaged -8 from my friend, I quickly extracted all the bent pieces and put together an order 40 line items long.
I made the order May 29th. I expected 100% that with everything going on with the company it may take some time to get my parts.
Surprisingly, the order was held up by only three line items.
After a week I emailed parts to ask if it could be shipped partial, the response was that they did not want to do that. I sat on that for a few days and then I called to ask if they could just remove the three line items so it would be released. They said they didn't want to do that either, argh. A week later I emailed parts to again ask if that would be possible, the response was something like "yes we can do that", yay! I tried to follow up the next day and the girl I got on the phone said "no we don't want to do that", Argh. Although frustrated with the spectrum of information I was getting, I knew things were likely funky over there for everyone, so I decided to sit tight.
Fast forward to 8 weeks after order date, My order finally ships, one day to Reno and it lands at the local Freight facility. Excitedly, I call to arrange pickup and they say that it is on hold as freight has not been paid for. Another 8 days pass with me calling Vans to try and get them to pay, them telling me we will get it done tomorrow, then calling freight company the next day to see if payment had been made. Every other day I was told that payment would be made and it was not. (still not as of today but I have been promised by CS manager that it will be by days end, really hoping to get to work this weekend)
My approximate assumption is that there must be a bankruptcy appointed trustee type of situation overseeing any outgoing payments with a large stack of work on their desk resulting in the freight payment holdup. The big problem I have is that they told me after 7 days that they had just then received the invoice from the freight company, this is unfortunately not true and a big ding, freight is a commodity business and it's just not how things work, fright co. also sent it again for good measure while I was on the phone with them on day 3. Enough whining though.
note: During the 8 weeks, I had made 3 small orders of things that I had missed in the first go, these orders being UPS were shipped right away and here within a few days.
That being said
If you have multiple different sections or stages of work and you can break your orders apart based on that, you'll likely be able to get to work sooner.
I was told that if an order is freight size, it will hold things up as there are two giant tents filled with crated orders in process so breaking out some of the UPS-able parts into their own order will likely get you going sooner.
If you can convince Vans to do freight collect, you may avoid this (so far 8 day) payment lag and won't have your parts sitting 2 miles from you taunting you.
I purchased a damaged -8 from my friend, I quickly extracted all the bent pieces and put together an order 40 line items long.
I made the order May 29th. I expected 100% that with everything going on with the company it may take some time to get my parts.
Surprisingly, the order was held up by only three line items.
After a week I emailed parts to ask if it could be shipped partial, the response was that they did not want to do that. I sat on that for a few days and then I called to ask if they could just remove the three line items so it would be released. They said they didn't want to do that either, argh. A week later I emailed parts to again ask if that would be possible, the response was something like "yes we can do that", yay! I tried to follow up the next day and the girl I got on the phone said "no we don't want to do that", Argh. Although frustrated with the spectrum of information I was getting, I knew things were likely funky over there for everyone, so I decided to sit tight.
Fast forward to 8 weeks after order date, My order finally ships, one day to Reno and it lands at the local Freight facility. Excitedly, I call to arrange pickup and they say that it is on hold as freight has not been paid for. Another 8 days pass with me calling Vans to try and get them to pay, them telling me we will get it done tomorrow, then calling freight company the next day to see if payment had been made. Every other day I was told that payment would be made and it was not. (still not as of today but I have been promised by CS manager that it will be by days end, really hoping to get to work this weekend)
My approximate assumption is that there must be a bankruptcy appointed trustee type of situation overseeing any outgoing payments with a large stack of work on their desk resulting in the freight payment holdup. The big problem I have is that they told me after 7 days that they had just then received the invoice from the freight company, this is unfortunately not true and a big ding, freight is a commodity business and it's just not how things work, fright co. also sent it again for good measure while I was on the phone with them on day 3. Enough whining though.
note: During the 8 weeks, I had made 3 small orders of things that I had missed in the first go, these orders being UPS were shipped right away and here within a few days.
That being said
If you have multiple different sections or stages of work and you can break your orders apart based on that, you'll likely be able to get to work sooner.
I was told that if an order is freight size, it will hold things up as there are two giant tents filled with crated orders in process so breaking out some of the UPS-able parts into their own order will likely get you going sooner.
If you can convince Vans to do freight collect, you may avoid this (so far 8 day) payment lag and won't have your parts sitting 2 miles from you taunting you.
