Mont Blanc service charges

[Emver]

I recently took my MB fountain pen to my nearest MB agent (in Coventry) for a service / repair.  Because I knew that this would be quite expensive I spent some time searching the MB website and telephoning MB agents in order to get a firm idea of the likely cost, and I concluded that it would be £68 including postage charges, provided that there was no unforeseen work involved.  That price was close to the point at which I would have simply cut my losses and sold the pen for spares, but I do like the pen so I decided to go ahead.

 

Today I received a call from the Coventry agent telling me that the service would cost £68 as expected, but that they want an extra £15 postage/handling fee.  This fee was not mentioned when I originally telephoned the agent or when I took it to their shop, and it wasn't mentioned when I emailed MB in Germany, and I can't find any reference to it on their website.  If I refuse to pay the extra charge I will still have to pay a fee to have the pen returned.

 

I'm not complaining about the level of service charges levied by MB, although I do take issue with the fact that they refuse to sell spare parts thereby creating a monopoly in which only MB can service or repair their pens (I had thought this was forbidden by EU Law).  But I do object to an additional charge which I was not told about before I committed to having the pen serviced by MB. It may be only a £15 additional charge, but surely that should have been made clear at the time?

 

 

[meiers]

I would dispute that charge. In my frequent dealings with Montblanc service — one last week — I have NEVER been subjected to such surprises. 

[meiers]

I feel very strongly that unannounced charges / demands for money are unacceptable within the Montblanc corporate culture. I am sure they will wave it, if you point this mistake out to the Coventry agent. 
 

Return postage is included in the service fee, I am confident in making this assertion. 

[Gloucesterman]

1 hour ago, meiers said:

I feel very strongly that unannounced charges / demands for money are unacceptable within the Montblanc corporate culture. I am sure they will wave it, if you point this mistake out to the Coventry agent. 
 

Return postage is included in the service fee, I am confident in making this assertion. 

I agree with the above comment. One caveat though...

 

When you contact them, I recommend via phone, be sure to speak with a supervisor or manager. Often times a clerical person may not want to or may not be authorized to waive fees. Also, be sure you can quote/reference your conversation - ideally include, when, with whom you spoke and as exact a restatement as possible of what you were told. I suggest writing it down in advance so you are able to reference the information.

 

You can even say that, "I have it here, in front of me, in my notes about my conversation with your representative." 

 

Wishing you success and please let us know how it works out.

[NoType]

5 hours ago, Emver said:

I recently took my MB fountain pen to my nearest MB agent (in Coventry) for a service / repair.  Because I knew that this would be quite expensive I spent some time searching the MB website and telephoning MB agents in order to get a firm idea of the likely cost, and I concluded that it would be £68 including postage charges, provided that there was no unforeseen work involved.  That price was close to the point at which I would have simply cut my losses and sold the pen for spares, but I do like the pen so I decided to go ahead.

 

Today I received a call from the Coventry agent telling me that the service would cost £68 as expected, but that they want an extra £15 postage/handling fee.  This fee was not mentioned when I originally telephoned the agent or when I took it to their shop, and it wasn't mentioned when I emailed MB in Germany, and I can't find any reference to it on their website.  If I refuse to pay the extra charge I will still have to pay a fee to have the pen returned.

 

I'm not complaining about the level of service charges levied by MB, although I do take issue with the fact that they refuse to sell spare parts thereby creating a monopoly in which only MB can service or repair their pens (I had thought this was forbidden by EU Law).  But I do object to an additional charge which I was not told about before I committed to having the pen serviced by MB. It may be only a £15 additional charge, but surely that should have been made clear at the time?

 

 

Emver, may I ask just one small point of clarification?  When you state “MB agent,” do you mean an Montblanc authorised dealer?  I ask because from my personal experience with Montblanc Boutiques in the States, “shipping and handling” fees are included in the service fee, as meiers has said.  I do not know if Montblanc authorised dealers in brick-and-mortar shops also include “shipping and handling” fees in the service fee, although meiers seems to imply this in their first reply.

[meiers]

This is my experience with Montblanc service. They prepare a written estimate or quote for service where the expenses including return shipping are explicitly stated in writing. When you pay for it the pen is repaired and shipped back to you. 

[Uncial]

Can duty be charged on servicing or a repair?

[NoType]

1 hour ago, meiers said:

This is my experience with Montblanc service. They prepare a written estimate or quote for service where the expenses including return shipping are explicitly stated in writing. When you pay for it the pen is repaired and shipped back to you. 

meiers, this is interesting to me, for in my service receipts from Montblanc boutiques, there is no mention of return shipping at all; only the charges for services and tax are specified.  I seem to recall a boutique manager explaining that the boutique absorbs shipping and handling costs, and the only instance of the customer paying these is if said customer declines to have the pen serviced, at which point the customer pays 40 usd to have the pen shipped back to the boutique with “no interventions performed.”  Is your experience with an Montblanc boutique, or an Montblanc authorised dealer in a brick-and-mortar shop?

[NoType]

1 hour ago, Uncial said:

Can duty be charged on servicing or a repair?

That is an interesting question to whose answer I look forward.

[meiers]

This happened to me only once when I mailed a fountain pen directly to Montblanc in Hamburg.

When I use the Canadian Service Centre all the transactions are handled by them even when they end up forwarding it to Hamburg on my behalf.

 

[Dione]

16 hours ago, Uncial said:

Can duty be charged on servicing or a repair?

Not sure about duty but UK VAT is chargeable if a non-commercial item is repaired at a cost. The charge would have been automatically included in the original service quote. Duty seems like more of a grey area and if I read correctly Outward Processing Relief should apply. In any case duty isn't charged on a service or repair worth less than £137.

23 hours ago, Emver said:

It may be only a £15 additional charge, but surely that should have been made clear at the time?

It's unclear exactly what type of place your "agent" is. AFAIK (and this was pre-Brexit) Montblanc boutiques and AD's within the UK have or had items for service/repair collected from them. These items are or were then securely sent to Hamburg. No postal charges were added. Post Brexit all of this may have changed but the price you were quoted should have been an inclusive one. I would speak to the person in charge at your "agent" and tell them that you were quoted an inclusive price and that you should not be asked for any additional postal charges. Think yourself really fortunate that you are in the UK because in the US it's now all done very differently and more expensively by a jewelry repair store.

[Emver]

Here's an update on the situation with my MB146 which I'm trying to have repaired.

 

As explained earlier, I took my pen to my nearest MB agent listed on the MB website, this being Francis and Gaye in Coventry, in order to have it sent to MB for service/repair.  Having previously studied the MB website and spoken to some MB agents by telephone, I understood that the cost was likely to be £68 inclusive of the cost of sending it back and forth to Germany (barring any unforeseen work, obviously).

 

Some time later Francis and Gaye called me to say that MB had received the pen and confirmed the £68 repair cost, but that the total bill would be £83 including the Francis and Gaye handling charge.  I objected strongly to this because Francis and Gaye had made no mention of a £15 handling fee. Had they mentioned the charge I would not have left the pen with them, and instead would have taken it directly to a MB Service Centre in London or Birmingham.

 

I must make it clear that I don't object to Francis and Gaye imposing a handling fee, but if they do so they must make it absolutely clear to the customer before accepting the pen.  In this case they certainly did not.

 

I have emailed MB Customer Services about this but they explained that they have no control over charges made by their agents. They forwarded my emails to Francis and Gaye and I then spoke to one of the managers at the shop. He explained that they impose a handling charge because their payment they receive from MB for handling services and repairs is very low.  He refused to drop the handling charge despite my insistence that I was not told about any such charge before leaving the pen with them.  He did eventually offer to have the pen returned unrepaired to their shop for my collection without imposing a charge to myself.

 

I was tempted to pay the extra £15 simply to get my pen back again in perfect condition without further hassle, but as a matter of principle I decided to make a stand against what I see as unfair treatment by Francis and Gaye.  As a result the pen will now be sent back to the shop from Germany (possibly via London), and I will make another journey to Coventry to collect it.  I will then have to take it to an MB Service Centre in London or Birmingham who will send it back again to MB in Germany for repair at the agreed price of £68.  It will then be returned to the UK again and presumably I will have to collect it from the service centre.  At the end of this long process I will hopefully have a perfect pen again, but what an absurd waste of time and effort for all concerned!

[Karmachanic]

All that running around, time, effort and travel expense will come to multiples of £15.  I'd just give them the money and tell them they've lost a customer.

[Fermata]

This is a chart of MB UK service charges

 

https://www.montblanc.com/content/dam/mtb/assets/customer-service/pdf/New/Preislisten-Online-Chart-WI-UK-3.pdf

 

You will see that there is no mention of handling postage charges.

 

But, Francis and Gaye will be involved with costs in handling your pen, they have not been perfect from what you have said but, at the end of the day, you are going to be involved in too much hassle in standing by your principles and it is only £15.

[CS388]

1 hour ago, Emver said:

 As a result the pen will now be sent back to the shop from Germany (possibly via London), and I will make another journey to Coventry to collect it.  I will then have to take it to an MB Service Centre in London or Birmingham who will send it back again to MB in Germany for repair at the agreed price of £85. 

 

Where does the £85 figure come from? I thought they'd agreed to a service charge of £68?

My previous experience of servicing has involved taking the pens to a Montblanc boutique and they have sent them to Hamburg - all I ever paid was the actual service fee?

 

Poor work from Francis and Gaye. They should have mentioned their own charges, at the outset. I'm surprised they could find no movement/discount, when challenged. Well done for standing up for your principles - but what a chore it has turned out to be!

 

Good luck with the next attempt.

 

[Emver]

Sorry CS388, I meant an agreed price of £68. The £85 figure was a typo and I have now corrected it.

 

Thank you for your support, CS388 and others.  I know that some people will read this thread and wonder why I'm going to all this trouble for the sake of £15.  My answer is that the figure of £15 is not relevant. It is more important to me to make a stand against the practice of charging customers additional fees without making those fees absolutely clear to the customer in advance of accepting the work.

 

It has at least taught me a useful lesson.  Next time I will ask for a written estimate detailing all charges. And of course I will avoid Francis and Gaye in future.

[NoType]

45 minutes ago, Emver said:

Sorry CS388, I meant an agreed price of £68. The £85 figure was a typo and I have now corrected it.

 

Thank you for your support, CS388 and others.  I know that some people will read this thread and wonder why I'm going to all this trouble for the sake of £15.  My answer is that the figure of £15 is not relevant. It is more important to me to make a stand against the practice of charging customers additional fees without making those fees absolutely clear to the customer in advance of accepting the work.

 

It has at least taught me a useful lesson.  Next time I will ask for a written estimate detailing all charges. And of course I will avoid Francis and Gaye in future.

Emver, thank you for taking this stand, and for taking the time to fully explain to us what transpired.  Sometimes the right thing is neither easy nor convenient, but is always necessary.  It is unconscionable that Francis and Gaye has adopted this obstinate posture; one can only hope someone at Montblanc has read your post and has begun a process of pressuring their dealers behind the scenes (e.g., a now-read-this memo) to refrain from surprising customers with last minute, previously undisclosed fees.  Your tale is a cautionary one for future Francis and Gaye customers, who will benefit by following your strategem for requesting a written estimate — actually, it is of benefit to all.

[agentdaffy007]

I used to be exactly this way. Take a stand, not paying extra charges.

 

At the end of the day, doing all this, typing all that. Calling, emailing, etc. Just wasted 10 hours for 15£. I have learned that time is valuable and that if they want to charge me $50 extra, so be it. I see life differently now.

 

I deal with clients who do not want to pay a few thousands more to get a property. No problem, your choice. I only give you advice of what to do, you don't want to do it, I am ok with that. Soon they realized they lost a house for $5000. And the property value goes up 30% per year. Suddenly, they just remember how dumb it is to lose a home for $5000 when the house they lost went up $150000.

 

I hope you will see life differently like I did!!

[Emver]

Thank you for your kind support, NoType, I appreciate it. Sadly there are a few on here who haven't managed to grasp the fact that this is about principle, not about money.

 

I've just received another email from MB Customer Services, confirming that the pen has has been shipped back to the UK unrepaired, as expected. But the really confusing thing is that they wrote the following:-

 

"Please feel free to take your fountain pen to one of our own Boutiques as they do not charge you for the shipping. 
We look forward to welcoming you to one of our Boutiques or authorised retailers. Please find all our locations on our website. https://www.montblanc.com/en-gb/store-loc

 

So I followed the link they sent me and scrolled down the list looking for MB Boutiques close to me, and sure enough, Francis & Gaye, Coventry, appear on that list!.  That's why I took it to them in the first place (I found them from the official MB website).

 

I'm now totally confused. If Francis & Gaye are a MB Boutique, then why are they trying to charge me extra for shipping?  And if they're not a MB Boutique, then why do they appear in Montblanc's own list of Montblanc Boutiques?

 

 

[Karmachanic]

6 minutes ago, Emver said:

 If Francis & Gaye are a MB Boutique

 

They are an authorised dealer, not a Boutique. Nowhere in the quote you provided does it state that authorised dealers do not charge for shipping.