THE BILLION DOLLAR WORD

To the Editor,

“Handling.” Remember when you ordered something and you were told the shipping charge, and you had a sense of whether or not it was reasonable? Well, some weasel got the idea to add “handling”–the billion dollar word–that increased the bottom line profits by at least 15-20 percent. Now we all know the product does not fly through the warehouse tied to a carrier pigeon nor does it float over from China hooked to a balloon, but once you add the word “handling,” the customer is clearly being ripped off! Who knows what “handling” amounts to and they won’t tell!

I wanted to buy a pressure cooker seen on TV. I was told they would take off one full payment: approximately $30. Sounded pretty good, I almost said send it out, but was then told the cost for “shipping and handling” would be approximately the same as the $30 they knocked off. Got it? I told them to stuff it and send the product back to China where they could plug the thing into a tree, since half of China still cooks over an open fire.

So if the company will not break out the “handling” charge for you to see if it is fair, buy some place else. The new one I hear they are working on is “shipping, handling and ‘touching.'” Wake up America, you are being taken advantage of!

Sincerely,

Martin Bagrosky
WWII Vet
Thiells