Friday, November 27, 2020

Friesens Fraud?


Friesens, the once reputable printing company from Canada has fallen in my eyes.  

After printing and shipping a small print run of Cha'alt: Fuchsia Malaise, I noticed a few unexpected charges on the invoice.

I asked about them and was told the charges were incurred when I fixed a few problems with the files.  Problems that the printer had alerted me to and I corrected in a timely manner, within 24 hours.  

In one case, Friesens had the appropriate file weeks before the proofs were sent, a file which they deleted and asked me to re-upload to make it easier for them.  The wrong file was uploaded (quite a bit of trial and error up to that point led to multiple files) and as soon as the error was noticed, I re-re-uploaded the correct file.

I talked to three people at Friesens and no one could satisfy my curiosity - why should I pay for additional fees when close-to-the-deadline mistakes were directly attributable to the printer?  They made other mistakes, too, such as losing the file for the cover's gold-embossed title.  Everything they asked of me, I did.  I busted my ass to make sure they had everything they needed ASAP.

And then, without warning, they included those (alleged by me) fraudulent charges in the invoice.

I even suggested a compromise where I'd pay roughly half these bogus fees in the name of good business, so we could all move forward.  I was told by Friesens' customer service manager that I should look for another printer in future.  

Today, I paid for the legit costs of the print overrun (32 books) and nothing else.  As many of you know, I'm not the sort of person to just lay down and take it.  You invade Poland?  I mobilize the troops.  Appeasement is not in my nature.

I'll post more information as it becomes available.

VS

p.s. If you don't already have the Cha'alt: Fuchsia Malaise PDF, it's on sale! 


10 comments:

  1. It's probably just incompetence, TBH.

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  2. If they can't come up with a valid explanation then something fishy is going on. Probably someone covering up their own mistakes.

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  3. I agree with FritsK. Probably someone covering up. I would suggest sending a letter to the Office of the President of Friesens explaining what happened, including the time(s) you called, who you spoke with, a copy of the invoice (with erroneous charges clearly marked, as the letter may get separated from the invoice copy), and a copy of your proof of payment for the valid charges. My wife used to handle this type of correspondence for a major telecom company, and the people who handle the correspondence for the President of the company are usually more level-headed about these things and can cut through bureaucracies and red tape, or at the very least are able to give a more thorough & complete explanation about what happened.

    Politeness and a well-written letter/argument sent to the top does wonders when dealing with people bent on protecting their tiny kingdoms.

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  4. I just got the email below. If you didn't send it you might want to talk to DriveThru:

    A message from Kort'thalis Publishing via DriveThruRPG.com. (stop receiving Kort'thalis Publishing messages.) Why did I get this email?

    What up, yo? Just wanted to let y'all know that I'm totally baked.

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  5. I was glad, because I too was baked. I had a small moment of Introspection where I felt like Venger and I were both within the same space- touching without touching.

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    Replies
    1. Overlapping realities. The Gods are watching us just as we are watching what's on TV. Make it entertaining!

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