After doing more research in my QP Distribution file of statements, invoices, agreement, and price sheets, I sent this Certified Mail and First Class Mail. The Certified Mail was ignored and unsigned. It was also my response to her weak attempt to settle with me. She is an Office Manager in title only. She acts like an inexperienced housewife with no business experience. Being nice had no effect whatsoever. You may want to refer to my First Certified Letter to Patty Wimmer of QP Distribution which was also ignored and unsigned.
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April 25, 2011
Patty Wimmer
c/o QP Distribution
PO Box 70
Mulvane, KS 67110
Ms. Wimmer:
I am writing this letter as a response to your email sent to me Thursday, April 22, 2011 AND to notify you in writing that I have discovered further irregularities in my preliminary audit of prior invoices and statements going back several years.
You should know I am not trying to “convince” you or otherwise “change your mind”. That is a pointless endeavor. However, for the purposes of documenting my grievances against you and QP Distribution, you are being notified in writing what I have discovered since my last Certified Letter.
Specifically, you underhandedly penalize customers that choose to bypass shipments through your UPS account. You want customers to ship through UPS because it is an account that you can mark up and treat as a profit center. Unfortunately, you imply through your written agreement and business practices that the handling fees you quote and charge are the only fees you receive for the service. That is simply NOT true. You conveniently “bury” the additional handling fees by quietly marking up the UPS shipment fees.
Further, your invoices make no distinctions or itemizations of related charges. As such, you do not like it when customers ask to have their shipments routed through their own shipping accounts. As a penalty, you conveniently call it a “third-party shipping fee”. I call it a “penalty shipment fee” because shipping to FedEx or a customer’s account is just as simple as your own. I know because I have shipped through both UPS and FedEx using my own accounts and other people’s accounts.
All of this only came out when last year when I asked you some very pointed questions about your UPS shipment service, compared my FedEx shipping fees with what you charged, and I found them dramatically different.
To further my claim, the invoices that I receive from you do NOT have proper itemization. You conveniently invoice lump sums with minimal descriptions. For any outsider looking at your invoices, it is nearly impossible to calculate how handling fees and shipping fees are charged.
For the last few years, I have been ignorant in that I did not audit your invoices and account more carefully. I have mostly paid without questioning when I should have been watching more closely. Quite frankly, I was way too trusting of you and QPD. However, you should know that my prior ignorance is not in any way, shape, or form, an agreement to any additional undisclosed fees you slipped in and I have paid in. In reality, any undocumented charges that I did not sign or agree to, you are potentially liable for.
I told you in my last letter that I was no longer begging or pleading for your cooperation for a peaceful resolution. I will no longer be extorted by your withholding of book inventory. You have by your own decisions and actions destroyed my trust in you and QPD and created this conflict.
It is clear to me you are in breach of your agreement by attempting to extort payment from charges that I never agreed to and certainly not notified in writing. More upsetting to me is that you got away with it for so long.
Hopes for a peaceful resolution were destroyed last week when you forced me to take a strong position over your extortion attempt to withhold my books, charge additional undocumented fees, and demand payment upfront. The easiest way to NOT be extorted anymore by you is to give up the book inventory, terminate storage services, and to dissolve the business relationship.
Regarding your last email to me, I found what you wrote both insulting and laughable at the same time. How petty are you to ask me to mail you FedEx labels and call FedEx to pick up the books? Never have I asked any of my customers for such a thing even when I shipped on their behalf on their accounts. Don’t do me any favors here. No book shipments are required from you anymore.
Regarding “crediting” the $6.50 late fee? How big of you considering that I never signed or agreed to and I was never informed of it in writing to begin with. It was YOUR wonderful management and customer relation skills to “teach me a lesson” and enforce that bogus $6.50 late fee which finally caused me to terminate this account to begin with.
Regarding the so-called agreement you emailed, I refuse to sign it. Anything I agreed to sign was done back in 2003 and will remain that way.
As I told you in my last letter, your withholding my books has little meaning to me anymore. Your wonderful business negotiation skills saw to that. You can do what you want with the book inventory. You have been ordered to stop storage services and the shipping of any books. So, this talk of a “final shipment” and the FedEx labels is now a moot point and one less thing you have to “worry” about.
As stated in the last Certified Letter, you already received my 30-day notice of account termination. That means storage services are no longer wanted. That also means if you choose to store them past April, you do so at your own choice. You do not have permission to store the books anymore. You can discard the book inventory in the dumpster or as you see fit as I do not agree to your outrageous and ridiculous “recycling fee”.
As far as I am concerned, my account is paid off, my balance at zero, your storage and shipping services terminated, and you have been granted written permission to discard the books into the dumpster. As far as I am concerned, this matter is now effectively closed.
Respectfully,
Matthew Chan
Ascend Beyond Publishing
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The follow-up to this Second Certified Letter continues on the blog post: My BBB Complaint Against QP Distribution.
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