Leather seats query

[payaya]

so anyone have pictures of the extra material on the doors?

[pagan]

hmm.. well its not like people in manila are rolling in cash.

he doesnt know any of as from a can of spam so there is no loyalty factor there. i guess he is simply trying to make an extra buck... admitadly by stooging us.... still its hardly surprising. in the end we still get the seats cheap as chips, and nobody seemed to mind before we found this little factor out. $220 or $230 even $240 and $250, as long as we are certain the seats will get here in good nick, i say go for it... let HIM look out for KARMA the vengeful elephant

[Ther]

the only issue i see here is that if everything goes wrong...the contact get his cut but max will take sh*t from people here....

Hey max i think you should see if doing this thru the contact in the phills is going to be worth it in the end....
From what i can see he/she wasn't really open about this from the start, so check your options man....

One suggestion...since we already have a shipping cost and a shipping contact....we already also know from adriano that the supplier is trustworthy since he has dealt with them on 2 separate occasions, then......
deal directly with the supplier, advise them of the shipping arrangements and get the covers sent directly...maybe even they could work an even better price for all of us since:
a. they are in the phillipines and run a business
b. we can advise them of the shipping price quoted and let them haggle for a better price...
c. a prospect for them to supply covers directly here in the future.

We could be giving them a business opportunity for them as well thus stablishing a working relationship between us and them...

[Luca]

lol ... vengeful elephant. Gotta love the Coke ads

But seriously ... I am happy to take a chance with your contact mxysxy. But I am also happy to go with the original contact too ... if this is what the group wants, and it is even possible to organise.

Basically I'm easy going.

But as Ther eluded to, mxysxy is doing a great job and I'm sure this is not an easy thing to organise. If we were to loose our deposit ... thats bad kahma (hehe) ... but it wouldn't be mxysxy's fault, I think we can all agree on that.

But if people want a change of contacts, maybe they could PM mxysxy and offer a helping hand and some contact details. I'm sure that would help heaps.

Cheers,
Luca

[mxysxy]

Lets assume there is no contact involved;
- I don’t know how can I contact/communicate with supplier directly?
- I don’t know if the supplier kind enough to organise the shipment process of all these orders?
- We are ultimately ignoring the quality assurance process. How can supplier honestly recheck the quality of the final product?
- Going through directly with the supplier eventually doubles up my work, which is already fair bit of time consuming.
- And ultimately, if we don’t trust the contact I use during the transaction, then, I will dismiss her from the whole process. I disagree to work with anybody who we don’t all trust.

Pros for using a contact;
- Quality assurance
- Very Cheap shipping rates
- No involvement during shipment process.
- Resolved communication problems

Cons for using a contact
- Remote person is hard to trust. There is slight chance that contact might runaway with some money. In addition, if the group buy organizer use the contact only for shipment, then the contact still has a chance to runaway with shipment cost and contact cost.
- Added contact cost.

[Ther]

Lets assume there is no contact involved;
- I don’t know how can I contact/communicate with supplier directly?
- I don’t know if the supplier kind enough to organise the shipment process of all these orders?

What i was referring was if Adriano can and i know this is a big ask, deal with the supplier directly.

- We are ultimately ignoring the quality assurance process. How can supplier honestly recheck the quality of the final product?
- Going through directly with the supplier eventually doubles up my work, which is already fair bit of time consuming.
- And ultimately, if we don’t trust the contact I use during the transaction, then, I will dismiss her from the whole process. I disagree to work with anybody who we don’t all trust.

And ultimately thats my point, trust... i think we all trust your judgement on this and are very thankful for all your time and efforts Max.
If you're confident on your side then i guess this is as good as it can get.
My ultimate point is that you're the one in the middle and no matter what anyone might say now... if something goes wrong people will point fingers.
I guess i'm just looking out for a fellow FTO owner...

[Luca]

My ultimate point is that you're the one in the middle and no matter what anyone might say now... if something goes wrong people will point fingers.
I guess i'm just looking out for a fellow FTO owner...

Here here.

I agree whole heartedly Ther.

[dannyboyau]

you would be hard pressed to get a better shipping rate, the main thing is you need to know that you can trust each point of the transaction process.

We know the supplier does a good job and is reputable.

I don't think that there would to many in the group buy who would want to wait.

personally I would be inclined to mention to him about the double dipping and renegotiate his rate $15 up but lower the cost of the covers to the actual price paid. As he tried to cheat he should also take a cut on what he originally was going to make in the combined total. originally he was going to make $30 + $15 per set. total $45 i think he should lower that total.

And get him to put the true cost of the covers and material on the bill of lading so as to not have to pay extra duty and taxes when they arrive in Australia

what do you think Max?

Max you have done a wonderfull job and it is dissapointing the contact has lied to you about the cost of the product.

And her one lie about the cost has caused some anxiety for myself and possibly others. And if she can be trusted. If she had wanted more money for her part in this then she should have said what she wanted.

I agree you need some sort of quality control and a contact you trust.

At the end of the day even $300 for a full set you would have to say the price is still great

But you must consider which is cheaper

$300 for set that arrives

or

$200 for a set that dosen't

Max do you trust this person ?

[mxysxy]

Max do you trust this person ?

I just talked with the friend of mine from work about the credibility of this person.
He clearly doesn’t think that she will runaway with money. He thinks we should go through with the process.

On the other hand, here is another think I am confused at. If she was planning to runaway with money, why would she push it so hard to add another $30 per set. I mean she would score the total of seat cover cost, plus shipping cost, plus her cost. That’s a fair bit of money.
On top of that she will push it so hard to add few more $$s doesn’t seem right to me. Clearly she knows that we had done some business with supplier previously, and we can call supplier to check the process anytime.

[kazbah]

Personally, I'm still ok to go ahead with it, but if there is concern about the difference in what she quoted against what the shop quoted just a simple message to her that there seems to be some discrepancy might do the trick. It could be made out that the shop contact Max direct to confirm some detail or other and to reconfirm the price. That way you are not accusing her of being dishonest but it may prompt her to revise her quote or at least explain why there is a discrepancy...

Again I'm not overly concerned cos the price is still good, and I dont believe she will take off with the money, this is just my suggestion.

Well done Max and thanks for all the time and effort you have put into this so far....

Cheers

[dannyboyau]

tell her the truth

about how one of the club members who did the original group buy contacted the shop and asked the supplier and she said the price they quoted the lady who rang about this group buy is 5,000pesos per set.... which still works out around $120AUD... and extra material is 350pesos per sqm, which is $10... been getting PM's about the $150 price tag that i decided to ring the supplier...

Maybe she made a mistake converting pesos to AUD

honesty is the best policy

[dannyboyau]

max i am sure from her responce when you confront her with the truth even over the phone, you will be able to make a decission on if you can trust her or not.

Trust your instincts your gut feeling

when dealing with someone if you start getting a bad feeling about the deal quite often it will go sour or you are getting ripped off

[TimmyD]

well.. if she wanted to run off with the money she wouldnt be after an extra 30bux per person but she would be pushing to move the process along so the money ends up in her hands quicker.

so i dont think running off with the money was ever her objective.

at the end paying $230 + extra for extra material is far better than paying 1000$ here.
its pretty obvious shes not planning to run off with the money.
and the price where paying is almost the same as the other group buy.

so lets stop talking about a loss of 30bux and get some seat covers already

[mxysxy]

After a careful consideration, I decided to explain the situation to the contact, and see the outcome.

Due to the reason that I have a friend at work to communicate with the contact, and then have a contact to communicate to supplier, there is a big possibility of a misunderstanding along the line. And it seems that this is what happened.

Now, the cost of the seat cover is as we thought $120. And she is charging $30 to pay to her people to do the handling and quality check of the seat covers. As far as I understand, because she works for Import/export Company, she has some people working under her to do these types of jobs.(and she doesn’t want to handle 150kgs of material by herself) So, she will pay the additional amount to them.

And additional $15 that I mentioned before is going to her, I see as a Project Manager cost. So, this is the cost of her talking with the supplier, submitting the orders, organizing the people for quality check and transport, and making sure everybody doing their jobs on time, etc…

It seems that she explained most of the above to my friend at work, however, it was too much for him to understand. So, he gave me the numbers with a bit of explanation. And I wrote down what I thought I understood.

Now, I can understand this confusion happened simply because I cant talk Pilipino, as a result, there are to many people to get through to make the deal. It’s like playing that game of whistling to ears. After 3 people it’s hard to understand what has been said.

Supplier – Her – Him – Me

I am glad I have found an explanation for the confusion. It took me a whole day, yesterday to found out.

Now, I feel confident that group buy will be successful.

Please reread the term and conditions before accepting to go through. I am doing all I can to protect each of every individuals right and money (Including mine), however, just like every other group buy organized, there is still minor risks involves and I am not responsible of other parties dishonest actions.

Regards

[sunraider]

Can i remind everyone that I had that quote from the shipping company that can fly the goods here by about a week. If i remember clearly, it would cost about $50 inc taxes etc to ship from door to door, i.e. from the supplier to here.

PLUS, advantage is that they are an australian company (my good friend works there) and i guess that makes it all the more trustworthy. They can check whether all the goods are there in Manila.

And.. if we get the seat covers at about $120, then we can get it frieghted by air for only $170. I think that beats paying out some contact who isnt trustworthy. We have the same level of risk without the contact even being there.

Thats all.

[sunraider]

now that i read the whole group buy thread, stuff what i said before.

[TimmyD]

After a careful consideration, I decided to explain the situation to the contact, and see the outcome.

Due to the reason that I have a friend at work to communicate with the contact, and then have a contact to communicate to supplier, there is a big possibility of a misunderstanding along the line. And it seems that this is what happened.

Now, the cost of the seat cover is as we thought $120. And she is charging $30 to pay to her people to do the handling and quality check of the seat covers. As far as I understand, because she works for Import/export Company, she has some people working under her to do these types of jobs.(and she doesn’t want to handle 150kgs of material by herself) So, she will pay the additional amount to them.

And additional $15 that I mentioned before is going to her, I see as a Project Manager cost. So, this is the cost of her talking with the supplier, submitting the orders, organizing the people for quality check and transport, and making sure everybody doing their jobs on time, etc…

It seems that she explained most of the above to my friend at work, however, it was too much for him to understand. So, he gave me the numbers with a bit of explanation. And I wrote down what I thought I understood.

Now, I can understand this confusion happened simply because I cant talk Pilipino, as a result, there are to many people to get through to make the deal. It’s like playing that game of whistling to ears. After 3 people it’s hard to understand what has been said.

Supplier – Her – Him – Me

I am glad I have found an explanation for the confusion. It took me a whole day, yesterday to found out.

Now, I feel confident that group buy will be successful.

Please reread the term and conditions before accepting to go through. I am doing all I can to protect each of every individuals right and money (Including mine), however, just like every other group buy organized, there is still minor risks involves and I am not responsible of other parties dishonest actions.

Regards

heheh
its acually chinese whispers.. but anyway.
So is everyone happy with the explaination now?. and is everyone who opted for the seat covers still in?

[TW]

I am still willing and can't wait as i am repainting the car soon and with an engine change and new colour interior it will be like a new car

[kazbah]

definately still interested - cant wait

[mxysxy]

Is there anybody left in doubt still?
If yes, please post a comment.
I got 8 weeks to finalise this group buy before going for a holiday.
So, if everybody satisfied then I wanna start collecting the money immediately.