Oh Really?

[Dips]

And yet again we run into a state government agency that thinks we're going to jump through a million hoops to get one less-than-$200 sale.

This state is much larger than ours and, in order to do business with them, we have to have certify that we are following one of their laws.

Which is all fine and good but we aren't in their state AT ALL. And following this law would take weeks of our time and quite a bit of our money.

That's not going to happen since we are a 13-person company and just don't have any need or desire to establish a long-winded written policy to comply with another state's laws.

And, of course, they sprung this one on us AFTER we'd already filled out a bunch of other forms. Which, while annoying, aren't that unusual for government agencies to give us.

So I just told them "no" and offered to refer them to a reseller in their own state.

Sure the reseller will get a discount, so we'll make less money. We consider that loss an acceptable price for not dealing with that amount of hassle.

Grrrrr....

[bainsidhe]

Ah yes, those are fun. So are the customers (not always government entities) who tell you what payment terms they're going to have. Like if they pay in 30 days, you're going to give them a 10% discount. Even though you never offered or agreed to a discount. They demand it.

[Dips]

We get those too. Most recent incarnation is dictating that FOB will be Destination even though THEY are paying for the shipping.*

My reaction is like, "Oh, look at little pwecious pretending he gets to decide."

Then we just ignore it and enter FOB as Origin anyway.

*FOB pertains to when ownership of the goods is transferred. If the buyer pays for shipping FOB is always Origin which means that ownership of the goods transfers to the buyer when they are picked up by the shipping company. If we pay for the shipping FOB is Destination and ownership of the goods transfers when the buyer gets the package from the delivery company.

What follows is very boring but if you have questions about why we won't change it, read on...

FOB is normally moot unless something happens to package in transit. Regardless of FOB we normally replace anything lost in transit at minimal cost to us and no cost to the buyer so it doesn't matter.

In the few cases where what we ship cannot be replaced easily we can't just arbitrarily change FOB on the buyer's whim because our insurance won't cover us if we designate Destination when the buyer is paying for shipping. Our insurance would tell us that we were idiots not to list Origin and wish us a nice day.

And the buyer's insurance won't cover it either since he doesn't "own" the goods yet.

[Red_Dazes]

...It tells me I have been on the interwebs for too long when the first thought that popped into my head upon reading your title was

"YaRLY!"

And now we go bang our head against a wall....

[Andara Bledin]

Ah, yes, dealing with the government (any government). Isn't it fun?!?

>.<

We mostly get to deal with the military, and if they try to dictate terms, we just no-bid them and wait for some bigger company who's willing to jump through the hoops to come in for the order, since we're often the only people who have the parts (we sell a lot of obsolete parts and we are a stocking distributor instead of a broker, so we can ship immediately... unless we've lost the parts... again >.< )

I always laugh when they say Destination, too, since we don't do Destination except in very rare circumstances. (as an aside, i'm pretty sure that if the buyer dictates the carrier even though they pay shipping on the invoice, then it's usually considered Origin, but I haven't looked into it too much)

^-.-^

[Dips]

Ah, yes, dealing with the government (any government). Isn't it fun?!?^-.-^

Eh. They're no better or worse customers than anyone else. Some paperwork is just to be expected as the cost of doing business.

But the good news is that after I politely told them "no" to the compliance certificate they just went ahead and ordered without it.