Due to go away for 3 weeks to Spain tomorrow . Had booked my van in for fitting of new alternator. Mechanic said yesterday would benefit from new rubber engine mounts. Last night went on- line and ordered them. Gave shipping address as the garage as nobody would be home. All good. Paid by PayPal. Email confirming pay pal payment ( I only read the first line ) First thing this morning went on the suppliers website, got on their “chat” as they have no phone number. Sought confirmation that the part was being sent to the garage. Got a rather brusque reply that it had been sent to my home address as instructed. I explained that I had filled the shipping address in correctly. It was checked and I was told that it would be sent to the garage.I wasn’t asked for the address so they clearly had it. It transpired that “ It was my fault as I had paid via PayPal and they had advised the supplier (automated obviously ) that it was to go to my home. The supplier shall we say wasn’t customer friendly and felt it was my responsibility to check the emails. He may be right but when I politely said that perhaps he may have queried that whilst my instruction to him said one thing he had chosen to go by what PP said…he cancelled the order and refunded! In the last 3 weeks I have spent about £400 with this company. reordered with JK, cheaper price. Just a word to warn about how PP can override a customers specific instruction.
That's almost cutting it as fine as myself .. I would try to go a long way home from the garage to check the new stuff out.. rather than rolling off the ferry, smoke pouring out because they forgot to check the length of the positive bolt on the alternator ( if it's a Type 4 .. ) , and have the holiday wrecked. And do it while your garage is still open so you can go back and get the problem fixed on the spot..
^^ this, if its the £1oo - £130 type 4 alternator the + stud was too long, have not fitted one for a while so get them to check or your alternatoe to starter and alternator to regulator may go up in smoke. They always send to Paypal verified addresses or they are not covered by pay pal.
I guess thats a security thing. You wouldn't want some scammer who's managed to get your paypal password to be able to ship a bunch of stuff to an address that is different to what paypal has. How bad are the existing engine mounts? I'd guess they've probably been fitted for 40+ years so far, so (i might be wrong) likely to last one more holiday?
Personally I like to be in control of parts if I'm fitting them. Your mechanic would have done better to have ordered on your behalf what you wanted. I get that some garages don't want the responsibility of fitting aftermarket parts but then they aught to try harder to fit the best they can. As above, enjoy the holiday if the mounts don't arrive coz they weren't worn until you knew about them And it's a very good shout re the alternator...
Yes I think this is what happened. A bit lazy on the side of the supplier to not take note of my instructions to them. As they spend the whole day on a chat line or boxing stuff then a tweak on their website to warn of this scenario shouldn’t be beyond them. They have a “ Team member who is a lovely dog . Sadly he didn’t join the chat…
No Mike…no fine cutting here. van booked in 10 days ago. Small workshop 300 yards away. Took van around without fan belt , put on ramps and he suggested the new engine mounts, made sense. Took van home, ordered mounts to be delivered to mechanic. ……..Van was to be with mechanic whilst I was away , great for him…3 weeks to sort out ..and he would deliver it home when done ……..A very thought out operation . Got me thinking more about AI
Thanks Mick, Mine is a bog standard type 1 s.p….. I had a choice of alternators. From memory it went from about £175 for a 70 A one. I’ve had one ..lasted less than 2k miles. Sourced my new one a Bosch, 50 or 55 A can’t recall .It was 10 days ago , It was advertised on the suppliers site at £375, checked other sites who said £325 ( but not in stock ) contacted supplier to see if he could be flexible, he checked the site, altered his site price and I got it for £340 plus p&p . Everyone happy. I don’t do cheap for cheap sake, If the same product is available then I like to feel loyal to my supplier ( perhaps “ liked” would be more apt
Yes agree about security …but just think it’s a slight glitch in the companies website… when PayPal alternative comes up …why can’t there be a warning/box that alerts buyers that their chosen shipment address has been nullified by Amazon? The mounts are probably original, appreciated they may be ok ( 71 bus) but will change ( and keep the old uns ).
Totally agree , will always fit myself if possible. I always order the bits , as I’ve got ( or should have ) more time Confession Time….going away in a Fiat ducato motorhome……it was planned that way. ( thank goodness ) Will enjoy the trip, it’s just the brown paper bag on my head out of embarrassment driving ( or being driven ) in one of them which will increase my alcohol dependency
Probably boring now, but as regards payment to a supplier. Paying by Pay Pal is not a tri - partite agreement covered by S75 Consumer Credit Act, eg if you buy on Barclay card etc and thing is faulty allowing you to be reimbursed by Barclay card. PayPal didn’t exist when CCA came out, they have/ offer different forms of protection. BUT the main difference is that PP are simply an intermediary paying “ your own money” to a third party. Therefore the contract I had with the supplier was quite clear and he/his system should not have been usurped by a third party seeking to alter my clear instructions which formed a binding contract……but life’s to short to take this up with Cool Air.
If you buy on PayPal, the account address will override the delivery address - it’s a fraud thing. PayPal swallow the cost of fraudulent payments if a company is ripped off by a scammer, so they have 2 default addresses that get sent to the supplier/vendor - the vendors own if it’s a click and collect, or your own if it’s not. A requested delivery address different from the companies/your own probably wouldn’t have even made it to the company you bought it from unless they’d agreed to shoulder the cost of someone using a nicked credit card to buy stuff from them, which no one ever does as it costs more (as it would show as a fraudulent transaction on a PayPal account that PayPal would then have to declare - they charge for that risk and that’s why they have a near 0% fraud rate and can charge more as a fraud free payment solution!).
I accept what you say but I didn’t “ buy on PayPal” I used PayPal to pay for the item. The requested address had also clearly been received by the supplier as it was expressly stated on the invoice which they raised, ie it showed my address as “ customer address “ along side that it stated “ delivery address “ of the garage. I fully accept the intricacies that PayPal have but should I need to advise the supplier initially, then after making payment via PayPal , advise them again. As previously stated this seems lazy for a mainly web site based supplier with no phone number. I would not expect it beyond their capability to put some alert on their site for customers opting the PayPal route to warn of the overriding of specific delivery instructions.
