Mario/Ewasted at Cashforcomputerscrap.

On the 21st of september 2017, I sent a shipment of over 7000 lbs of electronic scrap to Cashforcomputerscrap. I was given a control number for the lot and it was delivered two days later.
The following was included:

Shipping ID 1506008639

CD rom Boards...130 lbs
17' LCD 500
50 Laptops + 10 desktop.
45 Dell Optiplex without HD.
350 lbs connectors.
300 lbs relays
200 lbs back boards
150 lbs blank boards with gold trace
150 lbs wire
200 lbs misc units
800 lbs motorola units with capacitor
2000 lbs lithium batteries
200 lbs motorola units
40 lbs socket CPU
100 lbs modem
100 lbs remotes
100 lbs hubs
150 lbs heat sinks

Approximately one month after, I logged into the site and I enquired as to what was the situation with my lot. I was informed that the lot was being processed and it was over 2/3 finished and everything should be wrapped up the following week.
I did not hear from them the following week.

On November 29th, I received the following email:

Hi Mark,
Sorry for the delay on this lot…
We are winding it down.
Our biggest challenge on this lot was quite a lack of prepackaging as well as a significant amount of mixed, odd type cell batteries.

The box you have mentioned below of lithium was not lithium batteries. Everything we have seen at the top and the little bit we have dug in is NiCd and very little NiMH. All of this is untaped.

Should have a settlement some time next week on this one… not exactly sure how high of an expectation you set for it, I just hope we are on the same page.
Thanks

Best,
Mario

Nothing after...

On Dec 11th 2017, I sent the following email.
Hello Mario,

Please give me heads up when you are finished. The shipper has been calling...

Mark.
Mario Responded on Dec 17th:

Hi Mark!
Will get an update for you on Monday…
What shipper has been calling?

Thanks!
And Dec 18th:

It has been down to a few pallets of batteries that are unsorted, untapped and mixed. This is the most time consuming part of this project. We can make a separate lot id for those items or wait until we get them settled… likely late next week as we have our R2/RIOS audits coming up.

No further correspondence until I wrote an email on Jan 9th 2018.
This lot was pre-sorted into the categories above.

"Wow.
This is seriously unacceptable. "

I promptly got this reply:

Hi Mark,
"Just tried to call you.

I am trying to reach out to you to go over this with you. The majority of the load was a trainwreck, un sorted as well as poorly loaded. Batteries were not taped, against DOT regs and not properly packaged. Extremely dangerous during transport, lots of truck depot fires because of this.

I am not sure how or why it was packed like that, other than to save time, but it makes it very difficult to sort time efficiently. Additionally it is very dangerous.

Your batteries are actually coming up since we hired another person to handle batteries full time so we will be able to get through all of it this week finally.

Can you verify your contact details including payment address so when the settlement comes through we can close this out fast.

Thanks.

Mario"

I responded:

Thanks for the update Mario. This lot was shipped by a third party company so I couldn't verify the loading. I have passed the information from your earlier emails to them and the deadlines have passed, hence they are finding me unreliable. Please give me a firm date if possible..
I will send wire transfer information as soon as you are ready for remittance.

Regards

Mark.

Note: I confirmed with the shipper that items were properly packaged for shipping as the carrier would not accept it otherwise.

On Jan 23 2018 I sent an email after hearing nothing.


Hello Mario,

It's been two weeks since you said you will finish week of January 9th and over 4 months since the material was shipped and received by you. You have been giving me one date after another since November last year.
What's going on???

Regards

Mark.


I received the following response:

"Checking, we were taping batteries together last Friday from the mixed NiCd box. Just asked my guys for an update."

Then silence.....

Today Feb 1st 2018 I wrote:

Are you going to pay me or not??


And silence from mario.

From an internet search< I found this person Mario uses this forum. Any suggestions?

I've had good relations with them over the last six months, with multiple transactions. In that, there have been mistakes, and they have been rectified in a timely manor.

I hope you can get everything rectified shortly.

Mark, now that you've told your story, I'd like to hear Mario's response. Let's all be patient and wait for his next visit.

Dave

None the less, if the batteries were the problem, they surely could have made payment on all the other scrap that was delivered. This is the second time we have had a complaint about Cashforcomputerscrap. I will say this again. You need to be on location with your scrap when it arrives at the buyer's location. If you have to have someone truck it, that's fine, but make sure they do not deliver it until you are there to meet it. Not saying cashforscrapm is a ripoff, but I will not sell any scrap unless I'm face to face with my buyer. I'm sure they will make it right with you, but the delay seems to be unacceptable.

I had problems with logging in and I couldn't recover password so I used a new log in.
Thanks for the responses and support.
After making a few phone calls to cashforcomputerscrap and enquiring about the status of my shipment,
I finally received a call from Mario two days ago whereby he said payment was forthcoming the next day and it did.
He apologized for the emails he sent and he referred to them as "dog sh*t" emails. Please excuse me.
Besides the apologies, there was no reasonable explanation as to why a small load of scrap took almost 5 months to process. I am aware that the material was sorted to some extent prior, so even if is was completely unsorted, it should never take such a long time.
I am glad this little saga is over. I have presented the sequence of events accurately and I hope my experience will be beneficial to all readers ..
Thanks for giving me a chance to express myself on this wonderful forum.
Mark.

Mark, I'm glad things finally worked out for you.

I also appreciate you bringing your problem to the forum. Many members have recommended Mario's company as they've had good experiences, so it's important to hear when things don't go as expected. I'd still like Mario to respond on this thread so our members can have all sides of the story.

Dave

I think it would be in Mario's interest to respond to this post. Even though I may never do business with him, there is always a chance I will, so I would like any reasonable doubt erased just incase we do work together on a purchase.

If the timeline and e-mails presented by theOP are correct, there seems to be some serious issues with his company's inbound sorting and payout programs. 5 months? Not in my world.

As Silversaddle said. 5 months? No way. 5 days for presorted scrap is pushing it. Unless of course you have a backlog which you would then inform the client about promptly.

MarkD1 said:

I had problems with logging in and I couldn't recover password so I used a new log in.
Thanks for the responses and support.
After making a few phone calls to cashforcomputerscrap and enquiring about the status of my shipment,
I finally received a call from Mario two days ago whereby he said payment was forthcoming the next day and it did.
He apologized for the emails he sent and he referred to them as "dog sh*t" emails. Please excuse me.
Besides the apologies, there was no reasonable explanation as to why a small load of scrap took almost 5 months to process. I am aware that the material was sorted to some extent prior, so even if is was completely unsorted, it should never take such a long time.
I am glad this little saga is over. I have presented the sequence of events accurately and I hope my experience will be beneficial to all readers ..
Thanks for giving me a chance to express myself on this wonderful forum.
Mark.

Click to expand...

Just curious was the payout you received correct or was it not correct for some reason

Hello! Sorry for my delay here!

I do owe an apology in a delayed response to this forum on this... also to Mark in that I moved in an out of communication.

Some very important details were left out.
This was hands down, the worst, unsorted load we received the entire year.

So many things were wrong that the list of right is much shorter.

This load was BROKERED from him, not his own stock.

Batteries came in with BURNT ends, un taped, loosely loaded into gaylords!!!!!! We turned over 3 employees during this time period to handle mixed batteries... yikes!
Battery chemistries were mixed...

Further more his mixed wire was mixed with ac adapters, wire wrapped on wood spools...

In an effort to maintain other clients, we had to make this filler work. The material was received NOT nearly to any conforming level of pre sorting.

We DID NOT charge sorting fee... anyone would've rejected or crushed the load with fees... we didn't but it required patience.

CFCS has a solid reputation, I built my business on integrity. When I am at fault, I am happy to admit it and own it... this lot, was just a travesty from the start. It never should've been shipped in the manner it was period... very, VERY dangerous for everyone.

For the record the lot was paid and transaction completed.

Mark, I am saddened that you would say you were left in the dark.

This lot was literally received NOT prepared and completed mixed.

You were paid a premium price for an inferior product.

If it were a "small" lot it should've been atleast prepared with SOME attempt... your lot was the only lot in 6 years we receive wooden spools with wire wrapped... zero effort, period.

anachronism said:

As Silversaddle said. 5 months? No way. 5 days for presorted scrap is pushing it. Unless of course you have a backlog which you would then inform the client about promptly.

Click to expand...

At any recycling center, this material would've been purchased as the lowest common denominator, not sorted at no cost.

Again, via the phone he mentioned this was NOT his material and he had brokered it.

silversaddle1 said:

I think it would be in Mario's interest to respond to this post. Even though I may never do business with him, there is always a chance I will, so I would like any reasonable doubt erased just incase we do work together on a purchase.

If the timeline and e-mails presented by theOP are correct, there seems to be some serious issues with his company's inbound sorting and payout programs. 5 months? Not in my world.

Click to expand...

Please wait for the details to come out before you crucify us on this... if people get impatient and dont' read this long thread, responses like yours don't give us any legs to stand on.

Attached are two sample photos.. one is of mixed batteries, not properly packaged. The other is "mixed computer wire"


Year end is tough especially with our Audit schedule... we then hit the new year off with stride and unimaginable volumes everyone seemed to be hoarding... now we were understaffed... hired more people and of course they make mistakes, mistakes take time time repair... this cycle is unforgiving. Throw in a job received from someone that could potentially HURT them significantly e.g. FIRE.


Should it have taken 5 months? No... did it, yes.. has that happened before, No. Would it happen again, No.
As I have said, this is the worst lot we had received in years, if not ever.

We have a robust sorting process, to allege we have issues with those or our payout system is unreasonable.
The kink in the chain is not a strong enough back bone on my part to reject a load that we are not equipped to handle... or perhaps to communicate, "look there is going to be a charge to handle this mess".

silversaddle1 said:

None the less, if the batteries were the problem, they surely could have made payment on all the other scrap that was delivered. This is the second time we have had a complaint about Cashforcomputerscrap. I will say this again. You need to be on location with your scrap when it arrives at the buyer's location. If you have to have someone truck it, that's fine, but make sure they do not deliver it until you are there to meet it. Not saying cashforscrapm is a ripoff, but I will not sell any scrap unless I'm face to face with my buyer. I'm sure they will make it right with you, but the delay seems to be unacceptable.

Click to expand...

This is an unreasonable comment. Two complaints sounds like a lot, but when you frame it around the fact that it is 2 out of several thousands of transactions a year, it pales in comparison to the work we do for people all over this country.

It is of your opinion, and yours only, to be there in person to deliver. I would RECOMMEND people to come by with the first load at least to establish the relationship, but it isn't always feasible. To say, "this is the second complaint about these guys" isn't fair to the prospective supplier or us to get things rolling. Our mail in program is independent of our freight program. With the hundreds of boxes received a week, I would expect to hear a complaint or two every now and then.

Mario,
I see nothing wrong with my comments. 5 months to make payment to any customer is unreasonable. If this lot was as bad as you claim, then you should have been on the phone with your customer when it arrived to discuss options. In fact, the load should have been rejected as you said. Your failure to talk to your customer caused a bad situation to progress into a much worse situation. If the batteries and wire were the cause of the delay, then why would it take 5 months to sort two gaylords of material. I know we could sort those in one afternoon around here. We have sorted some pretty crappy boxes from tech centers in the past. I can understand that it may have taken time to sort, but 5 months is a long time when you are waiting for a check.

Now, as far as the OP's side. Your broker or whoever sent a load of crap to Mario. If the rest of the load looked as bad as the two photos posted, then you are just as much to blame as Mario. I would have rejected the whole shipment, not even taken it off the truck. If you say you are sending a presorted load, then that's what should have shown up at Mario's dock. If you did indeed broker this load and sent it sight unseen, then you should have said that in your OP.

To conclude, this is a prime example of why clear communication between buyer and seller is important. Harold was very clear on how important it was and this post is a great example of that.

EwasteD said:

anachronism said:

As Silversaddle said. 5 months? No way. 5 days for presorted scrap is pushing it. Unless of course you have a backlog which you would then inform the client about promptly.

Click to expand...

At any recycling center, this material would've been purchased as the lowest common denominator, not sorted at no cost.

Again, via the phone he mentioned this was NOT his material and he had brokered it.

Click to expand...

You could have gone straight back and either outright refused the batch or had the communication about it being rubbish. You didn't. You messed around for 5 months instead.

Look - I do this too so I know the drill. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. I wish people could just admit they screwed up because they get a much better response when they do.

Jon

anachronism said:

EwasteD said:

anachronism said:

As Silversaddle said. 5 months? No way. 5 days for presorted scrap is pushing it. Unless of course you have a backlog which you would then inform the client about promptly.

Click to expand...

At any recycling center, this material would've been purchased as the lowest common denominator, not sorted at no cost.

Again, via the phone he mentioned this was NOT his material and he had brokered it.

Click to expand...

You could have gone straight back and either outright refused the batch or had the communication about it being rubbish. You didn't. You messed around for 5 months instead.

Look - I do this too so I know the drill. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. I wish people could just admit they screwed up because they get a much better response when they do.

Jon

Click to expand...

Hi Jon!
Thanks for chiming in on this!!

Looks like this thread is already too drawn out... I owned and have accepted responsibility of this.

I am actually more pissed off at the end result than the customer.

We have modified several procedures internally to avoid this type of fall out.

Regarding us rejecting loads, I HATE doing that... unfortunately I have too much pride and it gets in the way... we didn't know how bad this was until we got going too. The tops of boxes looked a little messy, once my project leader dug in, he grabbed me right away.

I dropped the ball on the communication... we kept communicating but the intervals were too far apart... I get it... I am on it...

For the record, I have no hard feelings with Mark on this.

silversaddle1 said:

Mario,
I see nothing wrong with my comments. 5 months to make payment to any customer is unreasonable. If this lot was as bad as you claim, then you should have been on the phone with your customer when it arrived to discuss options. In fact, the load should have been rejected as you said. Your failure to talk to your customer caused a bad situation to progress into a much worse situation. If the batteries and wire were the cause of the delay, then why would it take 5 months to sort two gaylords of material. I know we could sort those in one afternoon around here. We have sorted some pretty crappy boxes from tech centers in the past. I can understand that it may have taken time to sort, but 5 months is a long time when you are waiting for a check.

Now, as far as the OP's side. Your broker or whoever sent a load of crap to Mario. If the rest of the load looked as bad as the two photos posted, then you are just as much to blame as Mario. I would have rejected the whole shipment, not even taken it off the truck. If you say you are sending a presorted load, then that's what should have shown up at Mario's dock. If you did indeed broker this load and sent it sight unseen, then you should have said that in your OP.

To conclude, this is a prime example of why clear communication between buyer and seller is important. Harold was very clear on how important it was and this post is a great example of that.

Click to expand...

I have read enough of the forum posts to know you won't admit to being wrong or even look at another perspective. You came out and called us guilty without me presenting our case. That was my point.


Then to allege your guys can knock it out in an afternoon, I would call BS. It wasn't that simple. It was a few thousand lbs of mixed, untaped batteries... many of which had no chemistry indication. We had to research part numbers. We did NOT charge for that service, we ate it. Literally, this was Mark's best cased scenario. Our best cased scenario was charging or establishing a very CLEARLY that it was filler work .I missed the mark.

The phrase, "clear communication" is subjective. We have ironed out what it means to us as an organization. We are growing and with that comes growing pains. Our track record is nearly spotless... its incredible to be honest.


There wasn't a failure to talk to the customer, there was an interval in which we were communicating that was unacceptable. Per my other post, as an organization we assessed this and modified some procedures so it doesn't happen again.



I neglected to mention earlier, we were advised the load would be about 8500 lbs, we received 13,550 lbs. The cost Mark would've incurred on sorting and/or shipping back would've killed this whole deal all together... he would've ended back on this forum and made a thread anyway.

Mario,

You are right, I won't admit when I'm wrong. And I'm not wrong here. 5 months to pay out is unheard of. I understand he sent you a bunch of crap, we get that, and he was in the wrong for doing that. I admit that. Maybe since he brokered the load he had no idea either. And I thought I was quite fair in waiting for a response from you. Let me ask you this then. What about all the other scrap? Was it all a mess too or did you have to sort every item he sent? We don't know.

The only issue I brought up is the 5 months to pay out. That indicates to me there's an internal problem on your end that needs addressed. Now that we kinda know what the deal was, and how you recieved the scrap, it's somewhat understandable. You have stated that you own the problem and steps have been made to correct it. That's good enough for me and I would not hesitate to do business with you in the future.

silversaddle1 said:

Mario,

You have stated that you own the problem and steps have been made to correct it. That's good enough for me and I would not hesitate to do business with you in the future.

Click to expand...

Hi Mario

I agree with Silversaddle here. My issue was the length of time and lack of communication. I guess the batch became the elephant in the room, and we all know that happens.

For what it's worth the ability to own a problem and declare that you'll fix the issues that made the problem happen is something that holds a lot of water for me.

Regards

Jon

Oh as an aside, unlike Silversaddle I DO admit when I'm wrong, but I guess that's just one of his foibles that makes him so lovable. :lol: