Friday, August 19, 2005

Helpful BIG business.

Last April I sent Paintings over to a Gallery in Memphis for an Exhibition coinciding with the 'Memphis in May' festival. Fed-ex quoted 262 euro , when I arrived with the paintings I was told 700 euro and they would have to go surface frieght, (and arrive 2 weeks too late for the show) I sent them by Airmail with the post office 270 euro. (They arrived 3 days late for the opening they got lost at JFK but thats another story already documented on abc news 24(US))
I needed the unsold paintings collected from the Gallery in Memphis, Tennessee, USA. the home of Fed-Ex so I asked for another quote over the phone. 262 euro. So I set up an account with Fed-ex and they went to collect the package, the same story, 700 euro, by freight. This is twice Fed-ex quoted 262 over the phone and tripled the price on arrival. I said NO! (as a poor Artist would). I am left wondering is it Fed-ex's Policy to under quote to get the customer? maybe if a fed-ex representative reads this they will give us an answer?.
I then rang around other courier companies to discover costs were going to be 700 -1500 euro to get my paintings back in good condition.

As a Full-time Artist I obviously couldn't afford that kind of money to bring them back. To cut a long (no pun intended) story short, I contacted Dhl customer services to see what assistance they could be. The upshot of this? they are collecting my babies (paintings) next week and delivering them back to me for 225 euro. So a very BIG thankyou to Caroline and all in DHL Couriers.

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