nicd01

I hope this is usefull to other members that might be in the same situation.
January my e61 gets rear ended by a Tercel, and my rear bumper gets destroyed.
I get insurance to do the repair, I shop rear M bumpers and this add showed up from Umnitza:
the add in question

For BMW E60 E61 5-series MTech or M Sport Rear Wagon Touring PolyPropylene Bumper

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$529.99

• Shipping Weight: 70.00lbs
• Availability: In stock

For BMW E60 E61 5-series MTech or M Sport Rear Wagon Touring PolyPropylene Bumper is available for purchase in Order Available Increments(1)

Anyway its also plus shipping 159.99 for a grand total of $689.98 (USD) so late February I make the purchase online at the time it said they had stock!
I get a transaction reciept from them confirming the billing March 11. Fast forward end of March still no news about this shipping. I contact the sales office and here we go.

They were not really aware of the order but they say let us check if we have one left.........sorry we do not have any in stock ( but you say on the website its in stock!)
We will be getting them end of May ok I will wait until then because the price is going to go up!
End of May (27) recontact Umnitza whats the status for the bumpers?
O we are consolidating the container ....end of July at best...what thats much further out?
Speak to the bodyshop and insurance adjuster.....they can not wait that long to do this.
Recontact Umnitza June 9th I would like to cancel the order its too long for the insurance cie and bodyshop.
Umnitza well we can reimburse you but since its special order we will hold a 10% penalty fee!!! WTF I never special ordered this it was supposed to be in stock!
Umnitza: well we will see with sales and accounting.
June 15th after more email exchange with me confirming I want a refund but no 10% penalty I get a refund for 639.89 so a 50$ penalty!

So buyer be ware......Draw your own conclusions but this was not a happy transaction with

twh

If you paid with CC dispute the $50.

donpb

I take it, you were not made aware of the following:

** Cancellation fees are charged entirely because of "opportunity" costs. When we order a product for you and it's taken out of inventory, that means other customer are told that product is no longer available and they cannot purchase it. Additionally, if an item is custom order AND requires custom build-out or extra processing time, the fee will include labor/action time associated with the item.

nicd01

No I was not made aware, however the debate is that the product was not special ordered, it was supposed to be in stock. Had I special ordered the item I would totally understand the "opportunity cost".

umnitza

Every customer has access to the terms and conditions when they check out. Every customer receives 2 emails linking them to the terms and conditions.
----
"Opportunity" cost basically boils down to a variety of factors. Having done some research into the transaction, we actually only charged 10% cancellation fee, normally 15%
This customer's order was not an automatic order, it had to be manually processed because it was flagged by our system as fraud.On low volume items, such as this, there is an opportunity cost that is listed in our terms and conditions regarding taking something out of inventory for the next customer to potentially purchase. If you buy it, and then we cancel, we have spent time on the order, processing it, telling other customers that item is sold and potentially missing out on the sale of that item to another buyer. That is why the $52.99 was deducted from the transaction. I’m sorry you feel that this is unfair but it’s been implemented precisely for the reason that it’s a lot of work for our agents on the back end to manage an order, and it’s often very simple for a customer to not see that side and just ‘cancel’ something without a second thought. It’s a little like making an appointment for an install and then not showing, it makes other customers miss out on the opportunity. It's not that easy to find an E61 Wagon bumper, let alone an aftermarket one for a reasonable price.

Special order is only 1 aspect of a cancelation, the other as listed is essentially an opportunity cost. When people call in and ask for a bumper availability, if we’ve sold that allotment, we lose that purchaser’s order. That purchaser may be someone that is buying a complete bumper package, with paint, and other services, which could be a $3500 order, and we’ll miss out on that order simply because someone has ordered what they want previously. It’s possible we may be able to get that person back but that assumes we have their contact and that they haven’t purchased something else already.

We also offer our customers 12 months to use the same cancellation fee towards another purchase.