Message from Tarptent

[legend]

I found this on Tarptent's Facebook page:
Just wanted to send out a message to you all to keep an eye out for illegitimate sales of incomplete, direct-from-sewing-factory Tarptents. These tents have not been inspected and assembled at our headquarters in Nevada City; this means that they also do not have proper cording, stuff sacks, stakes, poles, or struts. Sometimes, labels come off of the boxes being shipped via UPS down from the factory in Seattle. Unfortunately, when this happens, UPS sells the unlabeled boxes of new product to a liquidator in Utah, where they are auctioned off to the highest bidder. These tents are then sold by whoever bought them from the auction house and the unfinished, unusable, un-inspected tents often end up on eBay. Some of you may have bought a MoTrail (a bundle of fabric, really) off eBay in the last week and the scenario above is exactly how those tents got there. Sadly, we will not be able to fill an order for missing parts for these tents because they are un-inspected and unauthorized. If you have purchased one of these tents, please email us at info@tarptent.com for information on what we can do to help you get your money back as well as in inspected, storm-worthy, pitch-able tent for your next adventure. And to our community of sleuths, keep an eye peeled for folks selling tents bundled like the picture below!!

[GPSGuided]

How weird. How did they become 'unlabelled'?

[Mark F]

Perhaps Tarp Tent should invest in better labels, glue or tape if this not a one off event.

[north-north-west]

It's the boxes from the factory that are unlabelled, not the tents. No address, no delivery, so they get sold to cover UPS' costs.

Someone in despatch at the factory needs to have their butts smacked.

[Franco]

We don't own the Seattle factory.
They only make tents for us but most of their business is making other outdoor gear for a few brands.
We have been using the same factory for over 10 years so I suspect that what has happened is a recent and probably short term problem.
The point of the FF message I would think was simply to warn people that they may not be buying a full shelter but one that is basically just a fly without cordage/pegs/inner/tensioners...therefore it may not be the bargain it appears to be.
(all those bits are assembled at the Nevada City office)

[GPSGuided]

How did UPS accept the goods for carriage without any label in the first place? With 3 parties involved (sender, UPS, receiver), why didn't the sender or receiver come forward and identify the goods and claim them back? Australia post tries to deliver items that had the wrong or absent address, how would UPS just auction off the items? A loss to the sender and receiver?

[north-north-west]

How did UPS accept the goods for carriage without any label in the first place?

Logical assumption is that they were labelled and the label became detached.

With 3 parties involved (sender, UPS, receiver), why didn't the sender or receiver come forward and identify the goods and claim them back? Australia post tries to deliver items that had the wrong or absent address, how would UPS just auction off the items? A loss to the sender and receiver?

Yes, that does seem a bit odd. Makes you wonder if someone is running a scam. Not making any accusations, mind you . . .

[GPSGuided]

Having used UPS in the past, can't imagine how their stick-on label can just 'fall off'. Really weird unless someone deliberately peeled them.

[Franco]

At TT they don't know exactly how it happened but as I understand it UPS had 8 boxes to pick up, seven were delivered one lost or never had the label .
It had 16 tents inside . The box was sold by UPS to an auction house, someone bought the tents (no crime there...) and put them up on E Bay.
This is the first time we have had this exact problem .
Again the point was to warn potential customer that they are not getting a full tent and of course there is no TT back up on those.

[GPSGuided]

OK, so only 16 units out there. Not a massive number. Good of TT to put out a public warning for those units.

[norts]

I had some fun with UPS this year. I sent some gear back to my back up in Sacramento from Mammoth. It never arrived. About a month later it arrived at my home in Tassie with a note that it was undeliverable as the address didnt exist.
That saved me having to bring it home.

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