FAQ : Frequently Asked Questions

RoadTrucker's FAQ, Frequently Asked Questions are here to help answer some of the common or Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) that come up over and over.  Frequently Asked Questions are not meant to be static, so any time you think we need to add a question, just Email and tell us you would like to see FAQ added.

• Can I shop Safely online?
  Yes, as safe as you can anywhere else, but like everywhere else, you do need to use a little good judgment. See our Pointers for Shopping Safely online.
   
• How Does RoadTrucker use my information?
  Our customer's information is only used as needed to fulfill their order in a timely way.  We DO NOT SHARE any information with anyone.  Period! See our Privacy Policy.

 
• Will You Ship to a P.O. Box?
  No. We are only set-up to ship RoadPro products via UPS, although Roadpro is looking into shipping by way of other alternatives.  Note: Our Koolatron Coolers are Shipped via FedEx directly from their US warehouse in New York, although if it's important and New York is out of stock, they will ship for us from Canada.  Either way, we need a Real Physical Address to confirm delivery.

 
• Will You Ship Free to Alaska or Hawaii?
  No. As you already know, shipping from the mainland to Alaska or Hawaii is much more expensive than the cost of shipping to the mainland. Consequently our Free Shipping Promotions Do NOT apply to Alaska nor Hawaii.
   
• Will You Take Orders by Phone or Mail?
  Yes, but there is a Phone/Mail Service Charge as our pricing is based on Internet ordering.
Both Phone orders and mail-in orders are more costly to process. Since all of our promotions are based on you entering your own order, you will also loose any promotions, including Free shipping offers. There is a nominal $15 Shipping charge. Go to our Product Catalog Page and at the bottom, add the Phone/Mail Service Charge to the Shopping Cart. Add the $15 Shipping Charge if your ordering an item with Free Shipping.
 
• What is the Best Way to Contact RoadTrucker?
  Email of Course. You are always welcome to call, but using Email is the Preferred Method because it leaves a Written Audit Trail and Nothing Gets Dropped because it stays in the inbox until it is handled. Always Make Sure Your Order Number is in the Subject Line and keep a copy for your own records.
You can email us here.
 
• How Long Will My Delivery Take?
  It is important to understand that there are 2 times that make up the total time for the delivery of your purchase. The first is Product Fulfillment and the second is Product Delivery.

1. The time of Product fulfillment is the time is takes to get your order, process the credit card information, send it to the warehouse, waiting in the warehouse queue, pull it from the shelves (or possible manufacturing time), and put it on the delivery truck. This time usually takes anywhere from a few hours to 3 or 4 days if your order is places on Friday afternoon and has to wait until Monday (or Tuesday if a holiday). It can take as much as 2 or 3 weeks if the product has to be manufactured.
    
2. The second, product delivery time, is what you pay for by selecting Ground or 3-Day. This usually takes anywhere from 1 to 6 days and weekends and holidays do not count. Selecting 3-days can actually take as many as 6 days if it includes a weekend and a holiday. What all delivery agents use is 3 working days.

We try to get every day's orders processed each night, so that most will be delivered within 5 or 6  business days Max, although around Christmas time we tend to get a day or two behind. During most of the year most areas can expect delivery within 2 to 5 business days (for RoadPro products), if you order early in the day.  Selecting 3-Day Shipping should get it there within 3 business days from the day ordered if ordered before 9:00 am Eastern Time, but please keep in mind that we cannot guarantee you a delivery date as the delivery service is not in our control.  Please Note: Koolatron products are sent from Canada, so expect a day or 2 delay.  Alaska, Hawaii and Canada should choose 3-day but expect a minimum charge of about $30 and about $75 for a TV or a Pair of Chrome Stacks which are a bit heavy.  You can help by making sure your information is correct, so double check it and make sure you do NOT use a P.O. Box as the Ship To: address because we can not ship to a P.O. Box address.  The Most Common Reasons that Delay an Order are:

 
• Wrong expiration date for Credit Card (Top Reason)
• Billing Address given, does NOT match the Address your bank has on file and Bills You for your credit card. (Make Sure this is Correct)
• Shipping Address is a P.O. Box and NOT a Physical Address.
• Alaska or Hawaii think UPS can drive there :o)  Please choose 3-day as it will usually cover the shipping cost and we can ship immediately.  If it's anywhere near the cost, we will pay the difference. We would prefer not to ship to Alaska nor Hawaii unless you understand the RATES ARE HIGHER!

Delay is compounded if the phone and email are not correct.  In fact, give us a bad phone number and we will cancel the order. After all you are asking us to trust you when you order.
 

• How Do I Track My Order?
  It's easy to track your order at RoadTrucker. Just Click on "Track Your Order" located at the top right hand side of our main page, www.RoadTrucker.com. Enter your entire Order Number, including the leading zeros and click on "Order Status". Your order status will be shown. If UPS has scanned your order into their system, you will also see the Tracking Number and a button that says "Track". Click it and you will be taken directly to your order on UPS's web page. Note: FedEx orders will work the same way.
If your order does not show, wait until evening or the next day. Sometimes it takes a while to get into the system.  Any problems, just call us.
 
• Do You Charge Sales Tax?
  We pay for Most of the Sales Tax for our Neighbors in North Carolina. We only charge orders shipped to NC, 3% of the 6.75% NC Sales tax (4.25% for the state & 2.5% for the county), our state charges us.  RoadTrucker will pay the other 3.75% for your order. We hope our Carolina friends will find this very reasonable and continue to support RoadTrucker. Although we think it is unconstitutional for Florida to force their vendors to force other states to collect their sales tax, Florida does it anyway. We have 1 vendor in Florida and that is Engel. We have no choice but to add the 6.5% Florida sales tax for all Engel orders shipped to Florida. Thankfully the Engels are well worth it. I wonder if we can charge Florida a collection fee? :o)
   
• Will You Gift Wrap or Add a Note if my Order is a Gift?
  In general, no. We would love to, but because of the logistics, we can't in most cases. We drop ship many of our products directly from our suppliers and as a result ship from several different warehouses, including our own here in North Carolina. This makes it difficult to offer this service. The inventory we carry changes with marketing demands and availability so we never know what or when we will have a particular product here in Wilmington.
   
• Will You Ship Outside the Continental USA?
  In general, No. We generally ship directly from one of two RoadPro Warehouses and they are not set up to send outside the USA, although they are looking into the possibility.  Other considerations come into play like export laws, tariffs, high shipping charges, & delivery time. We will on occasion make the following 4 exceptions:

 
• For Our Friends in Alaska and Hawaii, we are sorry to say that yes, but at a much higher shipping cost. RoadPro will ship UPS Ground from Sa
lt Lake City, UT (zip is 84119) to Alaska, but the UPS charge is equivalent to our 3-day charge. Sorry only 2-day Air to Hawaii. Choose 3-day and most of the time, we will pick up any difference and be able to send it, except on heavier items. Choose ground and your order will definitely be delayed. We apologize, but that is the way things are. Some of the newer businesses do not realize the high cost of shipping to Alaska and Hawaii, because some of the shopping carts grossly underestimate the cost. It seems wrong to me to take advantage of them.
 
• For Our Friends in the Service, we will have the warehouse ship smaller items to us. We will then readdress them, take them to the Post Office, fill out the customs form and reship to Your APO address.
There is a small $8 Service Charge (for postage) for each item. Go to our Product Catalog Page and at the bottom, add the Service Charge to the Shopping Cart. Please add 1 for each item ordered.
 
• For our Small Business Trucker Friends in Canada, who are willing to pay the UPS freight from North Carolina, we will have the warehouse ship (Logbooks Only) to us at our expense and then re-ship to Canada. We're sorry we can't offer the Free Shipping we offer to those in the US. Cost is usually about $30 for shipping.

 
• For our Trucker Friends in Canada, we will ship any Koolatron Coolers or other Koolatron products directly from Koolatron's warehouse in Canada.  We only wish we could also do this with RoadPro and hopefully the time will come when we can.
   
• We will ship medium to large Prepaid Wholesale Orders to most countries. No, we will not take checks, money orders, credit cards or other common mechanisms used by dishonest people. Yes, we will check out your business via local business partners and authorities. If the order is large enough, we may pay for shipping or part of it. Payment must be prepaid via a Bank Transfer directly to a Business Account we have set-up for this purpose. Countries like Germany use this method for just about everything and we have found it to work very well.

 

• I Can't Find the Prices. Where are They?
  Most of our Item's Name & Price is Clearly Marked in the Blue Band Above each Item. Where there is no Blue Band, the Prices are Adjacent to the "Add to Cart" Button
   
• How Do I Order More Than 1 Item?
  When you add an item to our Shopping Cart and wish to keep shopping, you only need to Click on the Link at the top that says "Continue Shopping".  It will take you back to the same page you added your item to the cart from.
We apologize for the small link, but we rent our shopping cart and we cannot get them to make it the same size as the rest of the page.
 
• I am looking for a product that you do not list.
  Please feel free to send us an email at sales and we will be happy to assist you.
I have been known to send a customer to our competitor if they have something we do not carry. We do not have a competitor mentality and we do not need to make every sale. I have also searched the Internet for hard to find items and sent the URL to our customer. We are not necessarily endorsing these website. It is up to you to decide if you want to do business with them, but I will at least find you websites that have at least been up for a month or two.
 
• I Have a Question on a RoadPro Product.
  Please READ THE WEBSITE FIRST. Then if our website does not answer your question, you can call us. Also, RoadPro provides technical assistance for all their products.  You are welcome to call Toll Free (866) 622-7979 Monday to Friday from 8:30 am to 5:00 pm Eastern Time).

 
• I Need a Spare or Replacement Part.
  Spare or Replacement parts are available for many RoadPro products. Please contact Missy Winter, Inside Coordinator, RoadPro; 724 Lawn Road; Palmyra, PA 17078; 800-233-7009 Ext. 200; 800-437-3659 Fax; mwinter 'at' das-roadpro '.' com.
   
• Do  I Have to Give My e-mail?
  No, but we recommend that you do, so you will receive a confirmation for your order and we can get in touch with you should there be a problem.  We promise not to give your email to anyone, but if you are concerned, you can open up a temporary email at HotMail.com or USA.com and use that. There is no intelligent reason not to give an email.

 
• What if I do not receive an order confirmation via e-mail?
  This usually means you may have made an error when entering your email address because we automatically will send you a confirmation message via e-mail shortly after receiving your order. Also AOL and other ISPs that aggressively block spam tends to block legitimate email.  If you do not receive a copy of your Sales Order within a Couple of hours of placing your order please send us an email or call our customer service department at 1-800-507-0482 and we will be happy to send you another copy.

 
• Why do you have the Copyright on Your Photos? Isn't it ok to Copy Product Photos?
  NO! It is NOT ok to Copy our Product Photos.  We spend many hours scanning and taking pictures of our products and then cleaning up the photos so they will look good for our customers. Even when we use photos from our suppliers, we almost always crop and reduce the size for faster download.  That makes them our property and Copyrighted. We have found some of our competitors have just taken our work and put it on their own website. This is illegal and a Clear Violation of our Copyright. I certainly would not do business with someone who would take someone else's work and present it as their own. Makes you wonder what else they might be willing to do. We wish our competitors much success, but we would like to see them earn that success (as most do) by doing their own work.  We do give our customers permission to print our product pages for later review or to pass along to a friend.

 
• Why did you Stop Accepting American Express Credit Cards?
  In short, we felt American Express was just ripping off our customers by charging an exorbitant amount for Credit Card Processing which ultimately gets passed on to the customer. To be fair to American Express, a little more explanation is called for. Credit Card Companies charge a rate to process their credit cards. That rate is generally advertised between 2% and 3%, which on the surface seems low.  However, in order for most businesses to use this service, they must also use a cottage industry created by the Credit Card companies to actually process the transactions.  And yes, you have to pay extra for this.   In addition to the 2% or 3%, a business must pay $0.25 to $0.35 for each individual transaction (to check if the card has funds) and also another $.05 to $0.10 for what is referred to as an AVS (Address Verification check).  Then when the individual transactions are processed together (called a batch which also gets deposited in your account), the business must again pay another $0.25 to $.35.  In addition, they charge for the Gateway ($10 to $15/Mn) and for a statement fee ($8 to $10.Mn) and of course each one has their other individual fees of 1 type or another.  And of course there is always minimums, which do not effect us anymore, but do totally screw new businesses who cannot make that minimum during their startup phase.  Thankfully we have long since passed the minimum mark.

Now the Industry is starting to charge a fee for the paper statement that they are already charging you for. Ya. That's right, they are pushing businesses to get their statements electronically by charging them if they don't. How do they do that?  easy, they first change the name of the fee from statement fee to customer service fee. Isn't that cute? I don't know about you, but my mom taught me that was just wrong. And get this. The extra charges they gouge you with are not allowed to be added to the sales order so that the customer knows who is really charging the fees. They must be added to the product so it looks like the merchant's prices are higher.  Momma called that a double standard, not to mention outright dishonest.

And get this. We all know how the Credit Card industry brags about protecting their customers from fraud charges right? Well guess what? It's the merchant who covers the fraud charges and NOT the Credit Card companies. They don't cover squat! Oh! and there's more. Guess what the Credit Card Industry does when a merchant gets screwed with a bad credit card charge? Oh yes, besides bill them for the theft. They pounce down on the merchant with another Fee called a Charge Back Fee. Isn't that just as wonderful as you can get? They bill you and take more of your money when you get cheated from a bad Credit Card. Makes you wonder why so many of our children have Adult Trust issues, doesn't it? And trust me, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

RoadTrucker tracked the total charge for Credit Card processing for 2004 and found it was actually just over 4% of the cost of our products, on average, when all the fees were added. Think about that.  What are we paying 4% for? It's so the customer can borrow the cost of the product for a month.  That's an Interest charge equivalent to 48% a year.  Even at a 45 day loan period, it would still be about 32 1/2%.  And that's only if the customer pays the bill off at the end of the month. If they don't, there is another 8% to 20% or more in total cost to use the credit card. It could actually be almost 70%.  Good Grief! Al Capone would roll over in his grave with jealousy. People use to go to jail for that.  They called it loan-sharking. Now it's just called good business. And another cute tactic called "good business savvy" is delaying the amount deposited for 3 days or so. The guy who thought of it calls it Using other people's money. I call it stealing.

So why American Express?  Well to be perfectly honest, American Express isn't any worse (well maybe just a little) than Visa, Master Card or any of the other cards, it's just that we don't need them. We really can't do business without Visa or Master Card (I only wish we could), but everyone I know who carries American Express has a Visa or a Master Card or both.  I've been all over the world and have been to places that only take Visa and others that only took Master Card, but I have never been anywhere where the stores only took American Express.  And the clincher for American Express?  American Express was charging us 3.1% base rate. (I think they are charging 3.5% now). We are paying Visa and Master Card 1.99% base rate.  And by the way, that 4% processing total, matches about 23% of our profit.  That's right, for every $100 we made in profit last year, the Credit Card Industry also sucked in $23. RoadPro, our major supplier, requested we pay by check because their processing fees were totally outrageous. We happily agreed and started using cash where possible, instead of credit cards because we would rather see the profit go to the merchant than to see it go to the Credit Card companies. Quite frankly I think a huge percentage of people would be much better off if they got rid of their credit cards. I stop at the bank machine on the way to shop and get cash, just so I do not have to use my credit cards.

As this industry keeps looking for more and more ways to increase their profit, the cost of goods sold will rise. It's like an added tax, which in my opinion tends to slow the economy. You started to see it at the pumps (cheaper to pay cash), then by credit card. I am starting to see it at stores and also when paying via accounts. I wish I could get everyone to stop taking American Express because they would have to give merchants a better and more competitive rate. I will be happy to start taking American Express again, if they give RoadTrucker a rate equivalent to Visa and Master Card. And that's Total Real Rate, NOT the BS Advertised Fictitious Rate. Oh, you don't think it's fictitious. Take a closer look at qualifying and non qualifying rates and you'll probably find that qualifying rates are not even for credit cards. There for debit cards. Who in their right mind would use a debit card except those with bad credit. Your bank account could be drained completely.

And by the way, our real rate for Visa and Master card last month (2006) was 2.8%. Our best month was 2.36%. We found CardService International and dropped our total processing fees by over 1%. Still too high for a software driven industry, but at least less than we were paying. If you have a business and your fees are high (Total Fees/Total Sales X 100 = Too Darn Much), give Allen Lacoste a call at (STOP!!! We are NOT recommending CardServices International due to a rip off stunt they employed after our contract ran out). I believe they are owned by Wells Fargo. See next paragraph.

1 Last Warning! Even these guys will stick it too you if they get the chance. One of their tactics is to wait until your contract runs out, then quietly jack your "Non-Qualified Sales" up.  They charge over 4% for those. Mine jumped 8,000% from March to April, and Doubled again from April to May, when my contract ran out. Cute, isn't it? I don't know about you, but I am getting tired of businesses that act more like criminal gangs using cut throat tactics, then responsible businessmen. But what chance do we have when they are so powerful, the US government can't do anything about them?

I doubt if there is such a thing but if anyone knows of a decent processor who has a simple and reasonable plan, and doesn't try to cheat you with misleading and tiny wording, please let us know.

I challenge Visa CEO John Philip Coghlan (who we feel is the worst of the worst in Credit Card processing) and MasterCard CEO Bob Selander to do something about what I and many others feel is the worst industry in the business world. By the way, MasterCard tends to be much more reasonable then Visa, so if you can, Please use your MasterCard.

Follow up: The charge for processing a credit card has risen again. The non Qualified rate is now 4.31%. And yes, all the other charges are added to this.