Marshall Talbott on mon 24 jul 00
A local pottery supply company gave us less than 130 grams of cobalt oxide
after having ordered and paid for 1/2 pounds of the stuff (1 lb = 454
grams). I discovered the discrepany after we got home with our order.. The
cobalt oxide costs about $48 per lb... I am very upset especially since a
similar incident with cobalt carbonate occured before. I hate to have to
check behind a company that I deal with but I guess that's how it has to be.
The last time this happened the excuse was that his new inexperienced
employee must have made a mistake! DAMN this makes me MAD! My advice is
that if you buy the expensive stuff then you need to make dang sure that you
are getting what you have paid for. I'll let you know what the excuse is
when he calls me tomorrow......
Marshall
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Gayle Bair on tue 25 jul 00
Marshal,
You could really make your point
by bringing your scale with you next time you
go there.
You can stand at the counter and weigh each
item. The line of people behind you will get
the message real fast and so will your local
pottery company.
I spent 2 hours in Denver trying to get a
relatively easy order. Someone came in
and wanted to buy a kiln, vent, and wheel.
After milling about for over a half
hour I suggested she call Bennett...
Better service...
Better prices.
Some pottery supply places seem to have an
arrogance. Perhaps because they
know they have you over the barrel.
You need something and need it now.
They don't care if the store is
understaffed, or unknowledgeable
or on an antiquated or no computer
system at all.
On the other hand I understand there
are wonderful supply places that have
experienced potters willing
to share their wealth of knowledge.
We should pass some kudos to the
great places (make a list and count it twice)
and give them our business.
Perhaps the poorly run supply houses will
get the picture and reform.
Gayle Bair- who tried to drive her
father-in-law over Seattle's November
Marathon course so he could get
familiar with it. I was tired just driving
the course. He's going to run it and he is
67 years old!!!!
Snip
A local pottery supply company gave us less than 130 grams of cobalt oxide
after having ordered and paid for 1/2 pounds of the stuff (1 lb = 454
grams). I discovered the discrepany after we got home with our order..
Steve Mills on wed 26 jul 00
Get in there Marshall, this sort of thing gets us suppliers a bad name.
In the UK we have the local weights and measures inspectors whose job it
is to watch for short changing, and if a vendor persists in it they get
reported to them. Food for thought?
Steve
BPS
Bath
UK
In message , Marshall Talbott writes
>A local pottery supply company gave us less than 130 grams of cobalt oxid=
>e
>after having ordered and paid for 1/2 pounds of the stuff (1 lb =3D 454
>grams). I discovered the discrepany after we got home with our order.. T=
>he
>cobalt oxide costs about $48 per lb... I am very upset especially since a
>similar incident with cobalt carbonate occured before. I hate to have to
>check behind a company that I deal with but I guess that's how it has to =
>be.
> The last time this happened the excuse was that his new inexperienced
>employee must have made a mistake! DAMN this makes me MAD! My advice is
>that if you buy the expensive stuff then you need to make dang sure that =
>you
>are getting what you have paid for. I'll let you know what the excuse is
>when he calls me tomorrow......
>
>Marshall
>
>________________________________________________________________________
>Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com
>
--
Steve Mills
Bath
UK
Andie on wed 26 jul 00
I think the best thing you can do is post the name of the company on
Clayart. I know that the two suppliers I deal with have someone on staff who
reads Clayart daily as part of their job, and they flip if they think the
thousands of people on the list are hearing bad things about them. Plus, you
could keep other potters from being shortchanged and also remind the honest
suppliers why they're honest. (and it sounds as though you have a real beef,
and proof to back it up).
Andie
EMAIL: andie@princessco.com
OFFICIAL HOMEPAGE: www.andie.net
John Baymore on thu 27 jul 00
A local pottery supply company gave us less than 130 grams of cobalt oxid=
e
after having ordered and paid for 1/2 pounds of the stuff (1 lb =3D3D 454=
grams). I discovered the discrepany after we got home with our order.. T=
he
cobalt oxide costs about $48 per lb... I am very upset especially since a=
similar incident with cobalt carbonate occured before. .............. Th=
e
last time this happened the excuse was that his new inexperienced employe=
e
must have made a mistake! DAMN this makes me MAD! My advice is that if
you buy the expensive stuff then you need to make dang sure that you are
getting what you have paid for.
I'd also say that if you are buying INEXPENSIVE stuff that you are entitl=
ed
to what you paid for too. When you pay for 454 grams.... you should get
454 grams...... whether it is $48.00 a pound or $0.25 a pound.
The trick of "shorting" just a little is a great way to increase profit
margins over the long haul. Certain phone companies and internet provide=
rs
made great profits by "rounding up" to the next even minute on charges. =
A
minute here and a minute there...... no big deal. Until you deal with
thousands, hundred thousands, MILLIONS, GAZILLIONS of minutes!
The skill of the deception comes in shorting just enough to have a long
term profit impact....but not so much that the customert is looking and
will notice . Or that the "tiny shortage" is percieved by the custom=
er
to be "close enough"....and they don't really think about what is happeni=
ng
to them. Overcharge 1,000,000 people by a penny and it is no big deal to=
any one of them individually..... but that cumulative overcharge results =
in
$1,000.00 of pure profit.
Shorting on weight measure is THEFT.
When is the last time most of us have weighed the clay in a 50 lb. box (=
on
a trade legal scale)? But we are CHARGED as if the box was automatically =
50
lbs. If it is a clay box....it weighs 50 lbs....... simple. But DOES it?=
=
If you buy a ton of wet clay, does anyone actually WEIGH the pile of fort=
y
50 lb. boxes and take off for the weight of the boxes and plastic bags? =
My
guess is........ no. A pile of forty "50 lb. boxes" is assumed to be a
ton.
We just ASSUME that the so called 50 lb box IS actually 50 lbs in weight
(not counting the packaging materials). So if a box is actually only 49
pounds of clay ....... seems like no big deal. Right? =
If a supplier sells a lot of clay a year..... all those "missing" one pou=
nd
bits add up fast at something like $0.25 a pound. Four "shorted" pounds =
is
a dollar. If a ton of clay is "short" one pound per box on each box, the=
n
a ton of clay (minus the phantom 40 pounds) at $0.25 per pound gained the=
supplier $10.00 in PURE profit. So your $0.25 a pound clay actually cost=
you almost $0.26 per pound.
Now...if you are having your materials shipped by truck...... and you pa=
y
for THAT to the supplier by the pound too ......... you paid to have thos=
e
40 "missing" wet clay pounds shipped also. So there is another few cents=
a
pound of pure profit.
Ditto for all those plastic bags of raw materials that are repackaged. H=
ow
many of us weigh them as we inventory them in? I'd bet very few.
I know that I only spot check. nd like Marshall.... I tend to pay closer=
attantion to the "expensive" materials. And I do catch occasional
problems. But in general my suppliers seem to be pretty good about this
stuff. My guess is that many suppliers are. I would also guess that hum=
an
nature tending to be what it is.... that thre are some suppliers that do
"short" on weights when they can. =
I have stopped doing business with suppliers that DON'T provide good
product and good customer service. =
If all of us started a year long "campaign" to check on weights more
carefully and "call" on any shortages, my guess is that it would have a
great impact on assuring we are getting "fair measure" all the time from
ALL suppliers.
BTW......... Another LEGAL "trick" on the wet clay end of things is to
"creep in" a little extra water in the mix. We pay by the pound for wet
clay...so we are buying WATER in the wet clay at the "wet clay" rate of
about $0.25 a pound. So if the supplier can mix the clay just a little
softer than "usual", the water weight is again almost pure profit. This =
is
a small one.... but over a LOT of wet clay a year....it can positively
affect the bottom line for a supplier.
In the UK we have the local weights and measures inspectors whose job it
is to watch for short changing, and if a vendor persists in it they get
reported to them. Food for thought?
This is a GREAT idea. I wonder how the law applies to such things as
ceramic raw materials? I would assume (that is a bad choice ) that it=
should universally apply. A pound is a pound. A kilo is a kilo. Does =
it
matter WHAT you are selling by the unit for the laws to apply?
Any lawyers out there? Is this a state by state thing? If you live in o=
ne
state and buy (via phone or mail) from a supplier in another state, which=
state's laws would apply here?
Best,
.........................john
John Baymore
River Bend Pottery
22 Riverbend Way
Wilton, NH 03086 USA
603-654-2752 (s)
800-900-1110 (s)
JBaymore@compuserve.com
John.Baymore@GSD-CO.com
"Earth, Water, and Fire Noborigama Woodfiring Workshop August 18-27,
2000"
Vivian Mills on fri 28 jul 00
While you are checking up on your cobalt oxide, don't forget to count the
pills you get from your nearby friendly druggist, also. Pills are really
expensive these days, and the loss of even one may cost you 3 or 4 dollars,
and it has happened to me. More money to buy ceramic stuff!
Milton Markey on fri 28 jul 00
In a message dated 7/28/00 , Vivian writes:
> While you are checking up on your cobalt oxide, don't forget to count the
> pills you get from your nearby friendly druggist, also. Pills are really
> expensive these days, and the loss of even one may cost you 3 or 4 dollars,
> and it has happened to me. More money to buy ceramic stuff!
===========================
This is also true for hardware, such as screws, nuts, and other small
fasteners bought individually, or in bulk, by the pound (or kilogram).
When counting the pills, make sure that the pill bottle is properly labelled.
I once got an anti-depressant label for the Zyrtec anti-histimine I take. The
newer drugs all seem to have weird names beginning with "z," "q," or "t."
Caveat emptor.
Milton NakedClay@AOL.COM
Louis Katz on mon 31 jul 00
I used to weigh out chemicals for a pottery supply company. Expensive materials
like cobalt carbonate and some stains were hard until we went to a gram scale. I
worked very carefully to ensure a few grams over. Over the course of my work I did
have a bag turn up light. Got me how it happened, nothing I could do but
apologize, make it right and go in the back room and check other bags.
There is no way to weigh out two twenty five pound bags of material from one fifty
pound bag, unless the fifty pound bag is overweight. If the fifty pound bag was
shipped from a wet location to a dry one it probably will end up underweight after
a few months.
Dear Ball Clay Company,
All of our truckload of 40,000 pounds of ball clay has come in short bags.
Sincerely
Customer
Dear Customer,
They were full when we shipped them
Ball Clay Company
Often times we were busy enough that I was not doing the bagging. You don't get
much intelligence from some being paid a bit more than minimum wage unless you are
lucky.
In my opinion, do not supect malice or greed at the scales, until the evidence is
so profound as to be unavoidable. But do give feedback, such as "when was the last
time your scale that you use for weighing chemicals tested? My bags have been
coming light.
Louis
kelty-huber on mon 31 jul 00
Marshall, I am also a maine potter and a couple of years ago after coming
home with fresh supplies from a local supplier I started to mix a glaze and
found that I was substantially shorted of one of the ingredients for this
glaze. needless to say I was p o'd . since I had other bags that I had just
purchased I put them on the scale . every item that I had puchased was
short.these were mostly 5 or 10 pound bags and they all were short a
strong 1/4 lb. I checked them on me electronic scale to be certain. I then
checked the bags that I got from other suppliers; these too were mostly
from 5 to 25 lbs all of these bags showed slightly more, approx. a 1/4 lb.
two of these suppliers were Westerwald chemicals and U S pigment . since
that time I get my smaller amounts from suppliers like these and only the
items that I buy in whole bags from the local supplier
tom huber
At 10:15 PM 7/24/00 EDT, you wrote:
>A local pottery supply company gave us less than 130 grams of cobalt oxide
>after having ordered and paid for 1/2 pounds of the stuff (1 lb = 454
>grams). I discovered the discrepany after we got home with our order.. The
>cobalt oxide costs about $48 per lb... I am very upset especially since a
>similar incident with cobalt carbonate occured before. I hate to have to
>check behind a company that I deal with but I guess that's how it has to be.
> The last time this happened the excuse was that his new inexperienced
>employee must have made a mistake! DAMN this makes me MAD! My advice is
>that if you buy the expensive stuff then you need to make dang sure that you
>are getting what you have paid for. I'll let you know what the excuse is
>when he calls me tomorrow......
>
>Marshall
>
>________________________________________________________________________
>Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com
>
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