As if business travel weren’t irritating enough, try staying in a hotel that levies additional fees for every small amenity – including such “luxuries” as clean sheets daily. And resort hotels, which seem to add new offerings for the sheer purpose of tacking on extra charges, are the most egregious in this practice.
Most attendees staying anywhere in Orlando for the National Center for Database Marketing conference this week will encounter these fees. At least down south the amenities will be available for folks to use. There are northern resorts that charge spa fees even when the pool has been drained for the winter.
Can you imagine if the direct mail industry were run like this?
I recently agreed to help a friend’s non-profit theater company with a fundraising mailing. It was a small job, involving printing, collating and sending a mail-merged customized letter.
For starters, I did what any consultant would do – I looked for other people to do the heavy lifting. After an exhaustive search (“exhaustive” takes on a different meaning when one is not getting paid) I settled on Trader Lester’s Good Tyme House of Mail Droppings. I chose Trader Lester’s because it had the right mix of low low prices and relatively few outstanding Better Business Bureau complaints.
I was also impressed by the company truck, which had “Proudly serving the direct mail community since late 2002” stenciled on its side. I like a company that takes pride in its work.
Shortly after the job went out, I walked into Trader Lester’s with my American Express card in hand, and was presented with an invoice nearly twice the agreed-upon price.
Trader Lester wasn’t in that day – nor had he been in any of the other times I’d visited the shop, despite a photograph on the wall with a caption reading “All jobs completed under Trader Lester’s watchful eyes.” But Vic, who at 38 had just earned his apprentice printer’s apron, was on hand to explain the bill’s nuances.
“What’s this envelope sealing fee?” I asked him. “This class of non-profit mailing wasn’t supposed to be sealed.”
“And it wasn’t,” Vic replied. “We did the job exactly to your specification. But you had the option of sealing, and sometimes options are mandatory.”
“I don’t recall discussing an insert oversight fee,” I said, citing what I thought was another unnecessary charge. “Your sign says that all jobs are overseen by Trader Lester himself. I thought that was included automatically in the price.” I said, pointing at the picture of the eponymous owner.
“All jobs are done in right under that photo, or one just like it in the back,” he replied. “But if you want a real live person to make sure people don’t receive empty envelopes, there’s an extra charge.”
“Can’t we just substitute the oversight fee for the sealing fee?” I asked.
“I thought this type of mail didn’t get sealed,” he said with a superior tone in his voice. “We went out of our way not to provide a service you didn’t want, for which you paid us. But we’re also pretty sure that you wanted oversight, and so we had to charge you for that. You can’t expect us not to get paid when we provide a service to you.”
“What about this small job fee?” I said, pointing to a charge that was, despite its name, rather large.
“Under 10,000 pieces, we have to charge a little extra to make sure we turn a profit.” He leaned toward me conspiratorially. “Count yourself lucky: The big job fees we charge are killer. We actually had to raise the small job fee recently to keep big job customers from breaking their big jobs into a series of small jobs.”
We argued back and forth for half an hour, but we resolved little. Or perhaps I shouldn’t say that. Shortly after I left Trader Lester’s, I received a revised invoice, with the notation “30 min. consultation time @ $75/hr. . . . . . $37.50.”
To respond to this column, please contact [email protected]
Network
