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Emotionally Bob Ross

I haven't ordered anything in over 10 years when it was a novelty and I was at university (we once ordered 15 crates, that was funny), exactly because of this nonsense.

I'm mostly on the mend already so it's annoying that I had to do a delivery or starve. I mean I could have asked friends but that seems like a hassle and not my Dad because he has no money.
 
Kris said:
The beer that I ordered was on a deal, what arrived were "substitutions" of the same beer but in different packaging varieties which means that although the price was roughly the same the actual quantity of beer is 1/3 less.

This feels like something I should be able to complain about.
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100%. Substitutions are meant to be for an item/items of a similar or greater value, without you getting less volume of anything.

Get firing off that email!
 
At least they didn't replace the beer you ordered with a worse beer?
 
Prime3k said:
100%. Substitutions are meant to be for an item/items of a similar or greater value, without you getting less volume of anything.

Get firing off that email!
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Yeah, to be fair it's always worth complaining. The absolute worst case scenario is probably a £5 voucher.
 
Kris said:
The beer that I ordered was on a deal, what arrived were "substitutions" of the same beer but in different packaging varieties which means that although the price was roughly the same the actual quantity of beer is 1/3 less.

This feels like something I should be able to complain about.
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AFAIK, you're supposed to reject the substitutions at the moment of delivery, but absolutely that's not on. You should definitely complain.
 
Not being able to drive any more, we get deliveries for basically all of our groceries now. My regular irritation is getting packs of N vegetables substituted for packs of M vegetables. (No, one loose baking potato is not a substitute for a four pack. No, an appropriate substitution for three loose parsnips is not three 750g packs of parsnips. Parsnip soup, anyone?) The all time winner was ordering frozen raspberries and receiving frozen prawns, but I think that was a mistake rather than an official substitution.
 
Flippy said:
Haha yes, if they were aware of my current situation, but that's where the fun part of mental illness comes to play, where I rationally know I should let them know but I don't want to appear as a burden, which I rationally know they won't think of me. Brains are fun.

I've literally written like 4 texts but was physically unable to send them :smile:
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If they are your friends, and by that I mean proper friends not just "friends" then there would be not situation that I could fathom that they would think of you as a burden.
When I had my catastrophic anti gravity belt malfunction 6+ years back my main group of friends visited me in hospital on several occasions and have touched base with me on a ( at least ) monthly basis to see how I am going, any improvements etc.
The hardest thing when you are trying to make contact is just hitting that send button. BUT the act of writing the emails/texts/letter are usually cathartic enough but sometimes you need to do say Fuck it and hit send.
 
I used to work around people who gathered groceries for pickup orders. Given the incompetence most of them displayed, the issues mentioned by Kris and Sentynel don't surprise me in the least :/
 
There are times after a blood donation where I feel more exhausted than I usually would, and just want to curl into a ball and remain still for the rest of the day.

This time is one of those times, however I have things to do so curling into a ball isn't an option yet.
Sentynel said:
Not being able to drive any more, we get deliveries for basically all of our groceries now. My regular irritation is getting packs of N vegetables substituted for packs of M vegetables. (No, one loose baking potato is not a substitute for a four pack. No, an appropriate substitution for three loose parsnips is not three 750g packs of parsnips. Parsnip soup, anyone?) The all time winner was ordering frozen raspberries and receiving frozen prawns, but I think that was a mistake rather than an official substitution.
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I think one of the best I've heard was when my Nana had toilet paper substituted for men's underwear.

On the topic, my partner (who works at a supermarket) hates going there and will just do an online shop and pick up if she ever needs to do shopping. On the other hand, I hate doing online shopping because substitutions are never suitable and if they can't substitute they just flat out don't complete that part of your order, so you end up having to get it yourself anyway.

The happy middle is my partner goes to the shops to work, and I go to the shops to shop.
 
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"Here's a voucher for a service which you don't want to use and has already fucked you over".
 
Kris said:
Given all the nightmare stories I have heard around US postal deliveries and the fact that they just leave shit outside for everyone to see, I would literally never order anything to be delivered to my house.
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You say this, but when deliveries are always during the time you work, and when you have to drive (often) out of your way to pick it up and guess what, they close at 5-5:30 so you can't even pick it up. The worst was Fedex at my apartment which had fobs, but it was large / heavy package so it's not like I could fit it in my car. It took them a few tries but they got it. UPS had no problem delivering to my apartment door. I dunno why Fedex did.
USPS / UPS are fine here, Fedex is pretty much trash.

Post office is fortunately next to work, so if I have to stand in 4-person line for an hour to pick up a package that's at least doable >.>
International order and I think they required signature or verification so that's why

I live in a decent area, so I am not too worried.
 
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Okay so I've learned to work around this, when I was at the train station I would get things delivered there so that I would receive them. Since leaving that job and leaving the pandemic it's not been an issue however on the chance that I am out or miss the delivery it goes to the depot, where I go and pick it up.

No chance for theft.
 
Kris said:
Okay so I've learned to work around this, when I was at the train station I would get things delivered there so that I would receive them. Since leaving that job and leaving the pandemic it's not been an issue however on the chance that I am out or miss the delivery it goes to the depot, where I go and pick it up.

No chance for theft.
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Fair enough about the work address. Too bad my work address would cause me to pay 2x as much in taxes. >.>
And guess what would I want delivered safely -- the expensive items.
 
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...you pay more in taxes for the delivery location? This is more dystopian than I realised.
 
Kris said:
...you pay more in taxes for the delivery location? This is more dystopian than I realised.
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Sales tax is based on what state you live in, each one has a different rate. I believe some cities have a higher sales tax rate than even their state rate.

If you live in one state but work in another because you live close to the state borders, you could easily end up paying more if you ship to one address over another. I don't know if this is Presea's situation, but it's the most common way it could happen.
 
Tarnagh said:
Sales tax is based on what state you live in, each one has a different rate. I believe some cities have a higher sales tax rate than even their state rate.

If you live in one state but work in another because you live close to the state borders, you could easily end up paying more if you ship to one address over another. I don't know if this is Presea's situation, but it's the most common way it could happen.
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This.
I actually live outside the city, by about 160 feet, so I pay the county sales tax rate. The city has their taxes, so obviously a city address would use their tax rate. Of course, not all websites account for this which is dumb, but whatever.

County: State 2.9% + County 0.80%.
City: Above + 3.85%

It gets really absurd at times. So I wanted to buy a fridge, I could pick it up in store for a sales tax of 110 or have it sent to my house from that very same store for a sales tax of 50.

Now when you start talking buying a 30,000 dollar vehicle, that 50-60 dollar difference suddenly becomes a difference of about 1,100
 
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Presea said:
This.
I actually live outside the city, so I pay the county sales tax rate. The city has their taxes, so obviously a city address would use their tax rate. Of course, not all websites account for this which is dumb, but whatever.

County: State 2.9% + County 0.80%.
City: Above + 3.85%

It gets really absurd at times. So I wanted to buy a fridge, I could pick it up in store for a sales tax of 110 or have it sent to my house from that very same store for a sales tax of 50.

Now when you start talking buying a 30,000 dollar vehicle, that 50-60 dollar difference suddenly becomes a difference of about 1,100
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Yep. We run into this here in Maine because of people who live close to the border with New Hampshire. Maine's sales tax rate is 5.5% and New Hampshire's sales tax rate is ... zero. They don't have a sales tax. There's a special section of the Maine State Tax Return that deals specifically with out of state purchases because Maine *HATES* that it loses revenue from people buying stuff in New Hampshire.
Flippy said:
Man that sounds wrong and stupid.
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Yup. It is.
 
Flippy said:
Man that sounds wrong and stupid.
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I dunno. Yeah it's ridiculous in fringe cases, but the city has their own government that I cannot vote in, etc. They have their taxes to pay for things the city wants.
So does the county, but city and county residents vote for said stuff.

Since I am generally a proponent of local > federal, then yes, you get a funny taxation where each municipality raises money for things they want instead of the cesspool of the federal government where none of it actually goes anywhere.
 
Tarnagh said:
Yep. We run into this here in Maine because of people who live close to the border with New Hampshire. Maine's sales tax rate is 5.5% and New Hampshire's sales tax rate is ... zero. They don't have a sales tax. There's a special section of the Maine State Tax Return that deals specifically with out of state purchases because Maine *HATES* that it loses revenue from people buying stuff in New Hampshire.

Yup. It is.
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Colorado does have that same thing, but since all of the online retailers do sales tax now, it's moot.
I was honest the one time I did it, cause the website started taxing online purchases so WY (my parents) are 7% i think, and it's obviously less here. But prior to said online sales tax changes, I shipped stuff there and paid none.
Again, large purchases of like 2k+ (speakers, AV receiver)
 
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Anyone curious about this, here's a breakdown of each state and their sales taxes:

ETA: And if you want an even bigger eye opener - read through the comments.

www.aarp.org

States With Highest and Lowest Sales Tax Rates

These rates are all over the map, and cities and towns can add to them too
www.aarp.org www.aarp.org
 
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But that's an average, so it hides the nuances in each state.

Like here in CO: 2.9 state + County (maybe some are zero) + city can vary from as little as 2.9% to as much as over 10% if you are in Denver.
Then each city may have special tax districts that pay for improvements within certain areas, or in some cases sales taxes to pay off loans or other things that the city might have provided as incentives to fund the development.

Here is a really, really funny story. I went to one gamestop to buy a used game, the game didn't work, so I returned it at a different gamestop (it was closer). I got like 10 cents more refunded back to me cause the tax rate was different intra-city.
 
Presea said:
But that's an average, so it hides the nuances in each state.
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Yeah, I did an edit on my post because the comments on that article are pretty much saying that same thing. Some of those comments are more of an eye-opener than the article is.
 
I've always been told that's why American prices don't include tax on their prices - so they can run an advert across multiple counties/states/whatever, and have it be true everywhere even despite the different taxes.

Which is just such a beautifully awful capitalist solution to a beautifully awful administrative problem that the whole thing is just so beautifully stereotypically American.
 
Readout said:
I've always been told that's why American prices don't include tax on their prices - so they can run an advert across multiple counties/states/whatever, and have it be true everywhere even despite the different taxes.

Which is just such a beautifully awful capitalist solution to a beautifully awful administrative problem that the whole thing is just so beautifully stereotypically American.
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I don't know. I think it's (mostly) fine. If city X wants to pay taxes to buy open space, then let them. New rec center? Sales taxes to pay the bonds. Those are limited to city residents generally anyway, so why make other people pay for something they cannot use, or even voted on? If another city wants to establish an affordable housing fund via sales taxes, then let them. It impacts their own communities and someone living elsewhere shouldn't have to pay for those things. You naturally pay for them in some form if you buy stuff in those places anyway. Eating out is a big one. It's not like you can avoid 100% of the use cases I am describing. But it does make for some amusing fringe cases.

In Tarnagh's case where the states are a whole lot smaller and much more dense and travel distances aren't multiple hours between major cities, then sure, hopping across the border to save money is likely far more common and a valid problem.

But yes, we don't have a VAT or anything, so prices are pre-taxes online. This is something I find many people forget when complaining about US - EUR pricing differences (exchange rates notwithstanding). Gotta add your 20% (or whatever) VAT on that to at least have it be equivalent.

www.coloradoan.com

Windsor to reduce its sales tax by paying off rec center debt 12 years early

The town will reduce its sales tax from 3.95% to 3.4% by paying off the bond that funded its $16.1 million recreation center expansion 12 years early.
www.coloradoan.com www.coloradoan.com
Just an interesting story -- online sales taxes being the big thing since it was established before the proliferation of online purchases. Likely politically motivated to reduce taxes prior to them raising taxes again (and easily passed at the ballot box) for open space purchases.

"When we issued bonds for the expansion, we originally thought we were going to pay it off in December 2034," Windsor Finance Director Dean Moyer said. The early payoff was possible because of Windsor's growth, inflation and a 2018 Supreme Court decision known as South Dakota vs. Wayfair that ruled South Dakota had the right to tax online retailers operating in the state. Previously, online retailers had to collect and remit sales taxes only if they had a physical presence in the state.

Following the 2018 Supreme Court decision, a directive from the Colorado Department of Revenue required out-of-state retailers who sell in Colorado to obtain a state sales tax license. That means online companies like Amazon, Wayfair, Chewy and others now pay sales taxes each time Windsor residents click on the "buy now" button to have something delivered to their door.

"That was an increase to our sales tax that we hadn't counted on when we issued the bonds," Moyer said. "Before that, our main sources (of sales tax revenue) were brick-and-mortar stores in town, grocery stores. Since that ruling, online sales tax collections ... has become our biggest sales tax collection source."
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