Surfing the web, I stumbled upon a messenger bag designed and sold by a company in San Francisco called Timbuk2. They designed a messenger bag that they claimed the TSE approves. In other words, you can zip out the computer sleeve, lay the bag flat on the conveyor, and it passes the through the x-ray machine without you needing to remove the laptop.
I took a flyer, ordered the bag and when it arrived, I put it to work. It was comfortable on my shoulder and it seems bottomless, no matter how much I stuff into it. Best of all, yes, the TSA approved sleeve works in the three or four countries I've visited since April, including the stringent US of A.
Another feature is a waterproof protector on the bottom of the bag. It let's you put the bag down anywhere without fear of getting the cargo inside wet. Unfortunately, a few months after getting the bag, I noticed the waterproofing was worn away in spots. I figured it had to be a defect since I don't drag the bag along on the ground.
I loved this bag. I mean L-O-V-E-D the bag. I hated to think that the company would hype such a great bag, and then deliver an inferior product. I took a few pictures on the iPhone and sent an e-mail to the Timbuk2 Customer Service desk and asked if this might be an irregularity.
Timbuk2 got right back to me. They admitted to the defect and went ahead and told me why it happened. They would send out a new and improved replacement and told me that I did not have to send the defective bag back. I thought this was really neat, as it not only saved me the time and expense of sending the bag back, but it also saved a lot of environmental impact. Another added benefit was that I could continue to enjoy using the bag until the replacement arrived. Very cool.
On a very nice fall day here in Stockholm, the doorbell rang and there was a UPS driver with a package in his hand. It was my replacement bag. Before I could sign for the delivery, the driver politely informed me that there was a 328 SEK (about $50) delivery fee. The Timbuk2's warranty page is set up for domestic USA deliveries. The bag was not marked as replacement.
I live in a country that adds a duty fee on every product brought into the country. In this case, the bag had a fee that was about 50% of its retail value. Having already paid that fee once, I wouldn't have to pay on a warranty item. I refused the delivery and headed for the phone to solve the confusion. The UPS customer service lady was professional and helpful. She understood the situation and said she would fix the problem and send out the bag for delivery next day.
Which she did. The UPS delivery guy arrived once again with my bag... and the collection notice. So I go back to the phone with UPS, another helpful and professional customer service woman who understood the problem and would send out the bag again. In addition, I e-mailed the Timbuk2 customer service department and told them of the situation. In a few hours, a nice e-mail from Tim at Timbuk2 said that he would contact their UPS reps and would pick up the charge. Wow, that was unexpected and very nice. I sat back and looked forward to the arrival of my replacement messenger bag. Which arrived the next day with...you guessed it...a 328 SEK customs fee.
I won't go into the grisly details about the back and forth between myself, UPS and Timbuk2. But you knowing that every Monday, I would call UPS for a status update can sum it up. UPS would say that they see that the shipper agreed to pay the charge, but they have no record of payment. Timbuk2 became as frustrated as I. They contacted UPS again and, if that didn’t work, offered to resend another bag as a gift and forget about the stuck in customs bag. Timbuk2 even got to the point where Tim wrote, “It would be faster if I got on a plane and flew over and delivered the bag myself.”
What frustrated me was I couldn't understand how UPS called themselves a global company when a UPS in California couldn't communicate with a UPS in Sweden. I had no problem contacting San Francisco, why couldn't UPS? I had politely refused the offer of the second bag. It just seemed to be a huge waste of resources to send another bag from California, especially since the original bag was in a depot only 20 minutes away.
These Monday phone calls went on for more than a few weeks. Every time the polite people of UPS, some of them who remembered me from other phone calls, couldn't understand what the problem was. Somewhere the connection between customer service, bookkeeping and delivery was not firing on all its synapses. I talked to agents and supervisors and nothing would budge that bag out of its warehouse hiding area, and it seemed that no one would take the initiative to see the folly of the hang-up and authorize the hostage bag's release.
Finally, with a three-week trip out of the country looming, I went back to the 20th Century dynamic of writing a letter. But before I could, I had to do a little modern investigative work, I Googled to find the local chief of UPS and wrote him a letter telling my sad tale and added copies of every correspondence between UPS, Timbuk2 and myself. I also added up the cost of three deliveries, his customer service time, as well as Timbuk2's and mine, handling and storage and anything else I could think of to show that the cost of trying to deliver the bag and collect the fee had far exceeded the original charge.
Two days later, I received a phone call from a very nice woman who introduced herself as Anki Jahncke calling for Mr. Michael Düster, the Local Chief in charge of UPS in Stockholm. He was the man I had sent my letter to. She apologized for his not calling directly, but he had asked her to call in his stead.
Anki told me she had found my bag (was it lost?) and she would deliver it as soon as possible. Unfortunately, she admitted, she couldn't deliver in the next few days because she had located the bag in Germany (!!!), in the warehouse where unclaimed freight goes, to get auctioned, I guess.
That was fine, I replied. I had already waited 84 days for the bag. What would a few more days change? However, there was one drawback. Remember my three-week trip? I would be gone when the bag would be delivered. Anki said she would bring the bag back to Stockholm and when I got back home to call her.
Which I did and the next day, February 18, 2011, exactly 113 days after the initial delivery, I now have a new Timbuk2 messenger bag.
Both companies, Timbuk2 and UPS, provided the service they promote and in some ways exceeded expectations. Timbuk2, as you might expect from a company based in San Francisco, instantly took responsibility for the problem and was quick to react. They have earned a loyal customer and if you're looking for a good messenger bag, go to their website.
And hats off to UPS. They tried very hard to get my bag delivered. For a global company, that moves literally thousands of tons of packages all around the world each and every day, they always knew where my little black bag was. They could have told me numerous times that there was nothing they could do. They never said that. There was something they could do and they did it. They delivered my bag.
I guess the moral of this tale is perseverance will win the day. But I looked at it as an exercise in my learning that customer service is what you make it. If you don't press the issue, and ask for what your due, you're not going to get it.
What a great story! Sometimes, we're so quick to get angry when things don't go our way or when a mistake is made. Kudos to you and patience!! :)
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