I replied back and told him I guess I need to report UPS then for fraudulent package auditing. This was a 16 pound keyboard in a package not much bigger than the board itself! I also complained about Reverb's faulty shipping estimator comparing to Ebay's much superior setup, not sure I'll get anywhere with that though.
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I'm Reporting Reverb.com to BBB
- Thread starter PolkaHero
- Start date
- Status
Because of the market coverage, sites like that are a necessary evil. Who is going to come to a random website if I don't pay Google a hefty sum so my items come up in search results?
buldog5151bass
Kibble, milkbones, and P Basses. And redheads.
Something to consider. I don't know your exact situation, but these are ways to optimize your website so you could move up the ladder, without the big fees. I have a side business, and that is what I ended up doing - it's a niche market, so I don't know if our situations are identical (or even close), but just tossing up ideas trying to help.
I hate to deal with companies/individuals who's opinions are so fossilized that they can only see their version of the truth. - It sounds like there was a mistake made on the UPS end of things where they incorrectly invoiced for a different package that wasn't yours and Reverb just took their reporting at face value and back-charged you. Not right, but looks like that's what happened...
Everything everyone has said about the BBB is true. I believe the folks on TB who say the were able to "buy" a good rating, although that does make me sad. BBB does not investigate. BBB provides a publicly accessible rating that is supposed to be an accurate barometer of whether or not a business is providing what they say they will provide in a way that is pleasing to it's customers. The worst you can do to someone there is ding their rating a little...
Sadly, the rabbit hole of pursuing an option through law enforcement would be tedious, frustrating, and take forever to make you whole again. They will give up on it long before you will. Unless you want to go for a lawsuit against Reverb. The result would be roughly the same, expensive, and have no guaranteed results.
This is your best bet:
If you purchase with certain credit cards, you can dispute anything, get your money back practically immediately, and then the credit card company goes after (in this case) Reverb for the $20. It isn't justice, it isn't poetic, it isn't right, but it is the most efficient means to an end. I've been lucky. I haven't had to dispute anything in a very long time, but I have done it before. Once with Discover Card, and once with my Chase Manhattan Mastercard. Both went exactly as I said. I don't even know if either company was able to get their/my money back from the misbehaving retailers, but I was credited and never heard of the issue again. Maybe the credit card company wrote it off, or maybe they have scarier means of showing the light to retailers that misbehave. I prefer to believe the latter because right is right. No one on either side should be harmed in a transaction.
Everything everyone has said about the BBB is true. I believe the folks on TB who say the were able to "buy" a good rating, although that does make me sad. BBB does not investigate. BBB provides a publicly accessible rating that is supposed to be an accurate barometer of whether or not a business is providing what they say they will provide in a way that is pleasing to it's customers. The worst you can do to someone there is ding their rating a little...
Sadly, the rabbit hole of pursuing an option through law enforcement would be tedious, frustrating, and take forever to make you whole again. They will give up on it long before you will. Unless you want to go for a lawsuit against Reverb. The result would be roughly the same, expensive, and have no guaranteed results.
This is your best bet:
If you purchase with certain credit cards, you can dispute anything, get your money back practically immediately, and then the credit card company goes after (in this case) Reverb for the $20. It isn't justice, it isn't poetic, it isn't right, but it is the most efficient means to an end. I've been lucky. I haven't had to dispute anything in a very long time, but I have done it before. Once with Discover Card, and once with my Chase Manhattan Mastercard. Both went exactly as I said. I don't even know if either company was able to get their/my money back from the misbehaving retailers, but I was credited and never heard of the issue again. Maybe the credit card company wrote it off, or maybe they have scarier means of showing the light to retailers that misbehave. I prefer to believe the latter because right is right. No one on either side should be harmed in a transaction.
several members have suggested good/reasonable avenues, going forward. but if i was making 600 sales a year i'm not sure i'd be all blown up over a single $20 overcharge.
whatever you do: don't mention my name --- it won't work out well for either one of us!
good luck in the future! 
Geez. It is less than twenty dollars. How much is your time worth trying to fight them? The best way to get back at Reverb is just never use them again and go on and spend your efforts where you will get a better return for time involved. Just sayin.
How large was the box? Could 54 lbs be the dimensional weight?
Although the shipping calculator should account for that if dimensions are entered correctly, someone that shipped me a bass was bit by this. He received a bill from UPS for additional charges based on dimensional weight.
Although the shipping calculator should account for that if dimensions are entered correctly, someone that shipped me a bass was bit by this. He received a bill from UPS for additional charges based on dimensional weight.
As a one off, you’re absolutely correct. I’d be concerned this was repeated over multiple transactions with one seller and/or being repeated amongst multiple sellers.
May or may not be anything there in this case. But if it doesn’t get reported, there’s zero chance of a pattern, if a pattern exists, being recognized.
It’s like what my favourite archeologist says: “We find a rock, it’s just a rock. We find two rocks, it’s a Norman castle”. Tongue firmly in cheek. ;-)
OP here and this battle was just won. I received this email from a manager at Reverb this morning:
"Ray here with Reverb. I am a Manager with our Customer Engagement Team. I wanted to touch base to clarify the shipping overage that was placed on your account.
Per the UPS audit that we received, there was an issue with the weight of the package. The actual weight was 54 lbs. However, it had been entered as 26.75 lbs. This resulted in the $19.39 overage fee that was put on your bill.
Since this is the first time you have run into this issue, I went ahead and added a credit to the account so that you will not be assessed the $19.39 fee.
Moving forward, please note that these overage charges are outside of our control and come directly from the shipping carrier. For more information on what UPS uses to determine weight/dimensions, I recommend checking out this helpful Link Removed.
Please let us know if you need anything else and apologies for any trouble!
Thanks
Best,
Ray S. | Customer Engagement Manager"
So UPS is to blame here. I shipped a 16 pound keyboard and they came up with a weight of 54 pounds for the package?! I sure hope this was a one time mistake otherwise the next step is to report UPS and their fraudulent package auditing. Sorry guys but if people don't complain about this stuff nothing will get done and people will continue to get ripped off.
"Ray here with Reverb. I am a Manager with our Customer Engagement Team. I wanted to touch base to clarify the shipping overage that was placed on your account.
Per the UPS audit that we received, there was an issue with the weight of the package. The actual weight was 54 lbs. However, it had been entered as 26.75 lbs. This resulted in the $19.39 overage fee that was put on your bill.
Since this is the first time you have run into this issue, I went ahead and added a credit to the account so that you will not be assessed the $19.39 fee.
Moving forward, please note that these overage charges are outside of our control and come directly from the shipping carrier. For more information on what UPS uses to determine weight/dimensions, I recommend checking out this helpful Link Removed.
Please let us know if you need anything else and apologies for any trouble!
Thanks
Best,
Ray S. | Customer Engagement Manager"
So UPS is to blame here. I shipped a 16 pound keyboard and they came up with a weight of 54 pounds for the package?! I sure hope this was a one time mistake otherwise the next step is to report UPS and their fraudulent package auditing. Sorry guys but if people don't complain about this stuff nothing will get done and people will continue to get ripped off.
There are no better places to get a better return unfortunately. High end music gear doesn't sell well on Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist in my area and Ebay charges around 13 percent final value fee compared to around 8 percent for Reverb. Not many other option other than keyboard specific forums like this but you won't get the market coverage.
It might be interesting to punch in the numbers again (dim + weight) to see if the same price point shows up or not.
I'm glad it worked out for you @PolkaHero. Good for you to stick with something until you got the answer/resolution you wanted.
I'm wondering thought since it was a keyboard it was considered an oversized package? From my experience, cost to ship for those packages is a little more than just the actual weight.
-Mike
I'm wondering thought since it was a keyboard it was considered an oversized package? From my experience, cost to ship for those packages is a little more than just the actual weight.
-Mike
Alkali Ike
Gold Supporting Member
- Jan 1, 2011
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- I never actually learned to play very well
Actual weight is only one factor. The package dimensions are also a major factor in shipping costs. Length plus girth are a big deal regardless of weight.
Link Removed
No, no they're not. The customer is frequently extremely wrong. That saying originated in sales and just meant that if the customer wants to buy something don't talk them out of it, even if what they want seems stupid to the salesman. It's not "I'm buying something so I can be completely unreasonable but I'm still correct! no matter what"
As an example of how a customer might be wrong: the customer could fire off half-cocked and try to trash a business before ever contacting them (because the CS is done via chat instead of a phone number boo hoo), harass the CEO on social media (before actually contacting CS), receive amazing customer service and get a refund even though the mistake was with another company and there is no proof of what the customer claims, and then still go on a forum and without even acknowledging how wrong they were shift smoothly into accusing another company that's making $61,000,000,000 shipping 5,500,000,000 packages PER YEAR of trying to commit fraud and screw them out of $20 and bragging about what a hero they are for standing up to the man.
That's one way a customer could be pretty wrong on every level.
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