MSC Again

Man its hard to walk from them when I get things I use all the time like way oil cheaper than anywhere else, but sometimes they do things that bug the crap out of me. I have a cash account with them. If I have the money I buy what I want. If I don't then I just get what I need right now. Works great. I run my whole business that way. The only thing that can ever get behind is the credit cards, and I can budget them if I have to. It also makes my book keeping dead simple. Except for a few reports I could do all my books once a year at tax time.

The problem is I keep getting these invoices and calls from MSC saying I owe them money. They say they didn't charge me for everything on an order so of course the new invoice or packing slip (who pays from a packing slip) amount doesn't match any of my orders. So I have to track it down, find the real correct order, then track down my CC statement for that period and cross check them. I suppose I could just "trust" them, but I don't. Ever since I had a card compromised minutes after making a purchase from them with it I just don't. So I have to track it down and spend my time checking out their mistake instead of doing my job. Making parts.

WAH! Boo! Hoo! You might say.... well maybe I'd agree if it wasn't me, but earlier this week they called me about one of their mistakes from a year ago. I never heard a word about it until earlier this week when they called. What a pain in the ass.

So I keep looking for alternatives. I never had issues like this with Enco. In fact I never did much business with MSC until they assimilated Enco.

Reply to
Bob La Londe
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Have you looked, compared prices from Wholesale Tool?

I placed an order there years ago for a few odd items. They had decent prices, came the next day via UPS. Not surprising, came from the Detroit location. But I've had other places just take there sweet time getting the order picked and onto the shipping dock...

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I see they have way oil, don't know if it's a good deal or not. Not something I buy. I just use chainsaw bar oil when needed. Mostly as a rust preventative. If I had more, pricey equipment I might reconsider :)

They send emails out from time to time with percent off specials. If you want I can give you a heads up next time I get one.

Reply to
Leon Fisk

If these billing "mistakes" are costing you more than they save you; then it sounds like you could be better off taking your business elsewhere - at least until they can fix the problems at their end.

Reply to
Bill

On 2/8/2018 2:45 PM, Bill wrote: > On Thu, 8 Feb 2018 11:52:12 -0700, Bob La Londe wrote: > >> Man its hard to walk from them when I get things I use all the time like >> way oil cheaper than anywhere else, but sometimes they do things that >> bug the crap out of me. I have a cash account with them. If I have the >> money I buy what I want. If I don't then I just get what I need right >> now. Works great. I run my whole business that way. The only thing that >> can ever get behind is the credit cards, and I can budget them if I have >> to. It also makes my book keeping dead simple. Except for a few >> reports I could do all my books once a year at tax time. >> >> The problem is I keep getting these invoices and calls from MSC saying I >> owe them money. They say they didn't charge me for everything on an >> order so of course the new invoice or packing slip (who pays from a >> packing slip) amount doesn't match any of my orders. So I have to track >> it down, find the real correct order, then track down my CC statement >> for that period and cross check them. I suppose I could just "trust" >> them, but I don't. Ever since I had a card compromised minutes after >> making a purchase from them with it I just don't. So I have to track it >> down and spend my time checking out their mistake instead of doing my >> job. Making parts. >> >> WAH! Boo! Hoo! You might say.... well maybe I'd agree if it wasn't me, >> but earlier this week they called me about one of their mistakes from a >> year ago. I never heard a word about it until earlier this week when >> they called. What a pain in the ass. >> >> So I keep looking for alternatives. I never had issues like this with >> Enco. In fact I never did much business with MSC until they assimilated >> Enco. > > > If these billing "mistakes" are costing you more than they save you; > then it sounds like you could be better off taking your business > elsewhere - at least until they can fix the problems at their end. >

Its hard to quantify. What it costs me is time. I know what I was worth as a technician when I ran my contracting company, but its hard to quantify my time as a small specialty machine shop operator. I know what my machine time is worth, but my personal time is hard to nail down. Its not costing me any money. In fact every time it was legit. I owed it, but as a one man shop I do begrudge having my time wasted to check it out. I waste enough time all on my own.

Reply to
Bob La Londe

Yeah, I wouldn't mind seeing their specials and sales fliers. Their regular pricing is just ho hum.

Reply to
Bob La Londe

Greetings Bob, I have been finding more and more of the supplies I need for my shop from Amazon. Cutting tools included. Since I use Amazon Prime the shipping is great. Almost always free and I get stuff in two days. Since I'm on an island next day air means sometime after 5:00 pm the next day. UPS next day comes on different trucks thanthe regular stuff. So the next day for me really isn't useful. But Amazon usually uses the mail. And it comes earlier. And I get stuff on Sundays. In the mail. Sundays! And the MSC web site sucks. It is really slow. Since MSC gobbled up ENCO, J & L, and several other competitors their pricing and service have suffered. So I look for stuff I need soon on Amazon and for stuff I don't need in a hurry on eBay. The last straw for me was when I ordered some ER collets from MSC. Some German brand. They were supposed to be quite accurate. When they arrived the packaging looked an awful lot like some packaging a friend of mine recieved when he bought some Chinese ER collets on eBay. It turned out that the "German" ER collets were no longer being made in Germany but were being made in China. So I checked the runout of my ER collets to my friend's ER colets and they were showing the same amount. The quality was not as good as they used to be. So paying the high MSC prices was not OK. Paying the eBay prices was OK because they were a fifth of the price. MSC did not mention that the ER collets were from China, just that they were imported. But I expected a German company brand product to be imported. So I'm pretty much done with MSC. I get my way oil from a local supplier as well as my coolant. The way oil is NOT Vactra. I stopped using Vactra years ago when it clogged up the way lube system on my Bridgeport mill. I switched to some stuff called "Hydroclear". It is now called TCS Slideway Lubricant. Made be Phillips 66. Still the same stuff though. It doesn't slowly clog the filters in the way lube systems on my machines and resists washdown from coolant way better than Vactra. It doesn't pollute the coolant as bad either. Eric

Reply to
etpm

Making a quick check on AlliExpress is often worth while.

Dan

Reply to
dcaster

You can sign up for their mail list on the home page and view current fliers:

Current catalogs and fliers:

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Email Club sign up:

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I found it interesting that they quickly dropped me from their print mailing list even though I had ordered from them. However Enco use to send me their specials flier every month even though I had never ordered from them. Not all that special though, kinda like HF, basically the same stuff every month with different page layout...

I'll let you know next time they email me.

Reply to
Leon Fisk

Find the CFO's email at MSC and send him a copy of your post. He might be interested. You're likely not alone in feeling that way.

Also consider a ledger via OpenOfficeCalc/Excel spreadsheet, so it won't take you much time to track down any problems.

Reply to
Larry Jaques

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