My company in VA purchased some equipment from a company in TX (lets call them XYZ) that had to be shipped overseas to me from Germany. This all occurred in March 2007. I was recently contacted by a CA about outstanding invoices I have with XYZ for shipping charges. There are two outstanding invoices, one for a smaller amount of about $1700 that I did receive in Sept. of 2007 that I did not pay for reasons that I'll outline momentarily and a larger one for about $7000 that I NEVER received. On the quote, the invoice, and PO for this equipment shipping was to be "invoiced seperately", but even before shipping the equipment they did not give me an estimate of shipping charges. The equipment was delivered very late, and one piece of sent overnight air (the $1700 bill) which is %50 of the cost of overnight air shipping from India. I never agreed to pay half of any overnight air shipping charges! They did that to get the equipment to me because I was hounding them for it. Since never received any invoices for the larger amount nor any estimates I assumed that they decided not to charge since they had been so late in delivery. They were a young company at the time and I assumed they preferred to get a good word from than charge me for horrible service. I know that XYZ is experiencing financial hardships and that is what has brought on this sudden "shipping invoice" issue. I certainly don't believe that I should be liable for these charges.
Am I liable for these charges?
Should I request validation?
What are my rights at this point and what should I do?
