CHOOSING AN INTERNATIONAL SHIPPING COMPANY - PART 2

Having chosen NY International Shipping as the company that we will use to ship such modest belongings as we will take with us from The States to southern France, the pace of communication has picked up a bit. Forms must be completed, a deposit paid. It’s always something, to quote Roseanne Roseannadanna. And it’s not always something pleasant.

On accepting NY International’s quote by email, I was directed the section of the company website that contained the booking form, password protected, and I was given the password. It didn't work. I called and was told to use small caps. It worked.

I filled out the booking form. At the end, a chart told me how much I would have to put down as a deposit. For the amount of my quote, NY International required a deposit of $1,500. I used the PayPal button right there on the page.

The logistics office contacted me. Forms. According to a footnote, Americans going to France are not required to fill out a customs form. I emailed and asked the question. I'm an American. I'm going to France. Do I fill out the form? The answer? Fill out the form.

I emailed the customs form. I emailed a scan of my passport. PayPal indicated that the transfer of the deposit was completed. I called to conform. There was a problem. PayPal charges a percentage. That percentage would be deducted from the $1,500.

???

I had two choices.

1. What the hell! You put the PayPal button on your site. The site didn't say anything about deducting the fee. I want to be credited for the full amount that I sent to you.
   
2. OK.
   

I took a beat and thought about it. I chose the latter. I wasn't happy about it. It was cheesy. If you're going to accept credit cards or PayPal, you should accept the fees. But here's my thinking. I'm looking at 1% of the total bill. Is it worth the fight, probably a losing fight, and the loss of the company's good will, such as it may be? I decided to consider the extra payment it a gratuity to the company for being the low bidder.

So, the bid led the field. Communication has been excellent. But I wish there hadn't been these little blimps and bumps.

I'll write again as the process proceeds.

EDIT: To skip to my review of New York International Shipping after our move was completed, click HERE.

CHOOSING AN INTERNATIONAL SHIPPING COMPANY

As I've explained in previous posts, I have no desire to write handbooks. Nor do I wish to cause anyone to choose one product or service over another simply because my wife Cathey and I have made our choices. I'm simply telling the story of our experiences as we prepare to move from our home in the USofA to our home in France. Do your own due diligence. Don't depend on mine.

There are bunches of international shippers. You can find ads and links on expat message boards. There are portal sites that will submit your request for a quote to an array of shippers. If you know someone working in a major international corporation in your area, see if you can find out if the company has a go-to shipper.

Once we had the names of several shipping companies, even before I went to their websites, I began looking at sites that aggregate reviews of them. Let's talk about reviews for a minute.

I operate under the assumption that folks are more likely to write detailed reviews on company or aggregating websites if their experience has been unsatisfactory. You can find the same negative review on different sites if the reviewer is sufficiently pissed off. Cut and Paste facilitates shouting at the wind. Furthermore, if only 1% of the cargo that goes through the Port of New York every year is lost, damaged or delayed, that's nearly 1,000,000 tons of cargo. You're dealing with multiple complex international  systems. It's a crap shoot. Sometimes you lose.

In other words, I read as many reviews of as many companies as I can. Then I go by my gut

I decided to ask four companies for quotes. We exchanged emails. I sent lists. I got quotes. I asked questions. Three of the quotes were so close as to make no difference. Nearly identical. The fourth quote was 15% less than the others. NY International Shipping.

NY International's salesman was the most persistent, thorough communicator. He answered every email promptly and he followed up to make certain that I understood the information that he had sent. Yes. I know. A good salesman can convince you to buy a bad product. But one telephone exchange convinced me.

I asked the NY International salesman why I should trust a quote that was so obviously low. First, he asked me to hold for a few minutes to review the quote to make certain that there was no mistake. I liked that. He didn't pretend to have my quote in his head. It was a serious question and he seemed to be attempting to make certain that his answer was equally serious.  When he came back to the phone, he confirmed the number and added, among one or two other things, that they had a really good, efficient and effective agent in France who saves them money. That connected with one of the reviews of NY International that I'd read lauding their agent on the French side - good communication, solved problems...

So, at the end I settled on NY International Shipping. I'll post on this topic again as events warrant and  once the move has been accomplished.

EDIT: To skip to my review of New York International Shipping after our move was complete, click HERE.

SHAKESPEARE NOT REQUIRED, CHOMSKY AND MORE

SHAKESPEARE

Having been force fed Modern Math in my elementary school years, I have long had an interest in the trend of modern educators eschewing the academic philosophies of the past. I long ago suspected that academic trend setters in this country were idiots. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal only served to confirm that suspicion. (Disclaimer: I subscribe to the WSJ because it's the only national newspaper that I can have delivered to my door before my morning coffee without having to take out a home equity loan to pay for it.)

Author Heather Mac Donald tells a relatively straightforward story. If Ms. Mac Donald is to be believed, and if you will permit me to summarize, junior faculty at UCLA successfully lobbied for replacing the required study of Milton, Chaucer, and Shakespeare with courses studying gender, sexuality, and colonialism. That's a bit simplistic but you get the picture. Today at UCLA, an English major can earn his/her degree having avoided studying the men generally considered to be the inventors of modern language and story telling.

The problem is obvious if you follow the thinking. Shakespeare was an English man. Two strikes. England was a male dominated, colonial society. Anything that Shakespeare had to say was doubly tainted. Music departments take heed, Ms. Mac Donald says. Beethoven and Mozart may be the next to be consigned to the ash heap of academic rejection.

Phooey!

I am no great Shakespeare aficionado. I approach his plays as I do opera. I endure long periods of boredom in order to enjoy occasional bursts of pure fireworks. The man practically invented the modern English language. And if you can't learn about race, class, gender and such from his plays, you aren't being taught properly. It's all there. So I have no hesitation in saying that an English major who has not studied Shakespeare ain't much of an English major.

CHOMSKY

I  watched - on my computer - an interview with Noam Chomsky, with Salon I believe, concerning the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the trade pact with a bunch of Pacific Rim nations from North and South America to Australia and Japan. In the clip that I watched, Chomsky excoriated the TPP, primarily focused on the great benefit of patent protection - intellectual property rights - to the pharmaceutical industry.

So I went to Amazon.com, found a book written by Chomsky and looked to see if Chomsky had copyrighted the book. He had.

Not much of a socialist...

MORE

I hope that my readers - all three of you - don't mind these short diversions. There are times that the weight of Silly just gets too heavy to bear.