We booked a material from your Sankrail Depot on 3rd February, 2023, for Guwahati vide LR no. [protected]. We had spoked to the booking office for door delivery of the material at Guwahati. While booking we were told that we can have door delivery of the material once it is delivered in Guwahati, as they are not able to confirm the door delivery from the booking office in Kolkata.
The material was booked and shipped. We checked the status of the material from the Guwahati office on around 10th February. It was communicated to us that the vehicle in which the material was shipped had an accident; hence, it will take some additional time for transit.
VRL never informed us of the receipt of material in Guwahati. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, we checked with the company around 25th February about the ware-bouts of our material, and it was confirmed that the material had reached the Guwahati depot.
We then sent a person with a cheque of Rs. 7967 towards the freight on the 27th or 28th of February, 2023. To our utmost surprise, the team of VRL in Guwahati had said that they don't accept cheques for freight, and the amount has to be paid by RTGS/NEFT. We had arranged for a vehicle to pick up the material when we sent the cheque.
For ten days, the signatories of Tirupati Aluminium were not present in Guwahati, and hence the amount couldn't be paid in the RTGS form. We then sent an RTGS of the requisite amount of Rs. 7, 967 to the company on 13th March 2023 and requested the company to deliver the material at our warehouse for door delivery. The company people denied that door delivery couldn't be availed now as it was availed for at the time of booking. We then requested them to send the material to the newly opened Gouripur depot. The company people accepted our request and said that we will ship it to the warehouse for a nominal charge. We have been waiting for the delivery for the last 45 days as they have repeatedly been saying that they don't have a vehicle of 20-30 feet long for movement between the two warehouses, and whenever a vehicle arrives which can take this material, they shall ship it. Meanwhile, we have visited the Gouripur depot of VRL 3-4 times. Finally, on 25th April 2023, after repeated follow-ups and over 50-75 calls later, the material arrived, but to our shock, the company levied a storage charge of around 28000.
We are totally against the storage charge as we had been waiting patiently for our material despite our fabrication team returning it because of the unavailability of the material, which we had shipped from a reputable national carrier like VRL. We had trusted the people and the team of VRL at the various locations and assumed to be working towards the client's best interest, but we are compelled to think this was a money-making trick in the name of storage charges. Instead, we should be levying an order for the delivery delay and service deficiency. We had twice visited the Gouripur depot with our vehicle including our hydra for picking up the material including 25th April, 2023.
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