BibleScholars(at)GRAMCORD•org D. A. Carson, President. Paul A. Miller, Founding Director.
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Phone (360) 576-3000 BibleScholars(at)GRAMCORD•org D. A. Carson, President. Paul A. Miller, Founding Director. |
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How to Order from The GRAMCORD InstituteRead this page or simply call (360) 576-3000!GRAMCORD FOR WINDOWS and other CDROM software: We ship by First Class Priority Mail and Global Priority Mail. However, while your package is in transit, you may request Internet download access if you are anxious to get started and are familiar with such standard procedures. GRAMCORD Lite (for Palm & Pocket PC) is usually "delivered" by Internet download after emailing the necessary instructions and password. This software is also password-unlockable on the GRAMCORD FOR WINDOWS CDROM. For most orders we simply need your: full name, postal shipping address, phone number, email address, and means of payment. No special form is necessary. You may order by phone, email, fax, or postal letter. More details appear below. Pre-pay by check and save $10 S/H charges!Ask about submitting payment through the mail by check or money-order and we will subtract $10 from the shipping/handling charges. Visa/MC fees are significant, so if you help us to avoid them, we pass along the savings! Or ask us for PayPal instructions and we will subtract $5 from your shipping/handling charges. (Paypal is very easy to use. Their website provides high security Visa/MC and direct bank account transfers without The GRAMCORD Institute ever having to see your credit card information. And our international users tells us that the currency exchange rates at www.Paypal.com are excellent.) Remember: The GRAMCORD Institute is a non-profit organization. If you have special needs or require payment terms, we regularly make special accommodations. And many academic institutions, Bible translation organizations, and even denominations have arranged special discounts for their affiliates. Ask us about special discounts and group/quantity-pricing offers. Ordering does not require a special order blank or form. Just tell us what you'd like -- whether by phone (or voicemail if outside of office-hours or when all phone lines are full), email, postal letter, or fax. Be sure to include your day and evening telephone numbers, email address, and postal address with your FULL name. (International orders: If you have a fax number, please include it as well in case we have trouble contacting you by any other means. If you send a fax, please remember to include your email address. If you plan to pay by check, make sure you get a complete price quotation from us including the shipping/handling charge. (You can click for contact information or look at the top-bar, sidebar, or footer to this page.) The GRAMCORD Institute accepts payments in the form of Visa, MasterCard, personal check, money order, PayPal, and educational institutional purchase orders. (With Visa & MasterCard be sure to include the expiration date and your name exactly as it appears on the credit card. Non-U.S. checks must be payable in U.S. dollars through a U.S. intermediary bank and utilize magnetic ink for the issuing bank identification numbers). When using PayPal, do NOT issue the payment to any of our online email addresses used for correspondence. Instead, PayPal payments must be dispatched to the special reserved address shown in the How-To-Order section of our emails. (Or simply ask an Institute staff member for the address by email or phone. Because of spam trawlers, we must limit the posting of email addresses on our website. ) If you plan to pay by check or PayPal, make sure you get a complete price quotation from us including the shipping/handling charge. IT IS VERY IMPORTANT THAT INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENTS INCLUDE THEIR EMAIL ADDRESS or at least a colleague's email address so that we can contact you (even if indirectly through a colleagues email address) if there are additional questions about your order. (For example, if a credit card fails in processing, we MUST have a means of quickly contacting you about your order.) Shipping & Handling ChargesIn general, U.S. shipping/handling charges can be determined from our published tables. However, unusual orders may require a specific shipping/handling price quote. For Visa/MC orders, the exact shipping/handling can easily be assessed at the time of the shipment. If you plan to submit your order by postal mail with a personal check or money order, please request an exact price quotation in advance. If one or more separate CD items are added to a GRAMCORD FOR WINDOWS bundle order, no additional shipping/handling is assessed General Guidelines for shipping/handling
The above are general guidelines for shipping/handling charges. For atypical orders, if you require an exact assessment in advance (e.g. when writing a check), please contact The GRAMCORD Institute. Some free bonus offers (especially heavy textbooks) may require a shipping surcharge for overseas delivery. Postage rates and shipping/handling charges are subject to change without notice. Express Overnight ShippingThe GRAMCORD Institute provides next morning business day DHL/Airborne Overnight shipping to U.S. physical addresses. (Please note that DHL charges an extra $30-$40 for Saturday overnite. Standard overnite shipments on Fridays usually deliver the following Monday unless special arrangements and surcharges are requested.) You must call or email to confirm availability on a given date and item. Orders usually must be submitted prior to 11:30am (PST) to qualify for Airborne Overnight delivery. Shipping/handling charges depend upon weight of package. [Please note: Not all destination addresses qualify for overnite delivery. Overnite delivery may not be possible during adverse weather conditions and extremely high-volume order periods.] Using Credit CardsTo minimize prices, we accept Visa/MC and no other credit card types. If you would like to have your package shipped immediately but prefer to pay by personal check, we can accept your Visa/MC as collateral against shipment and eventual payment. You must receive pre-approval for such "ship now and pay later" invoicing. TGI no longer accepts DEBIT CARDS.As of June 15, 2007 The GRAMCORD Institute no longer accepts DEBIT CARDS of any sort. We made this difficult decision out of concern for the serious risks to personal bank accounts when debit cards are used. Processing errors involving debit cards are rare--but when they do happen they wreck havoc. A computer glitch somewhere in the international network can turn a simple $205 transaction into a series of redundant "retries" where $205 x 5 becomes a $1025 subtraction from the innocent debit card holder's bank account. These errors can just as easily happen with standard credit cards but because they are routinely corrected within 72 hours, the credit card owner rarely notices the problem because it involves someone else's money. But when the $1025 error involves a debit card, the personal bank account of the unsuspecting debit card owner can easily be wiped out and every other check they write bounces. The debit card owner can be devastated by an overdrawn and/or frozen bank account and several hundred dollars in bank check fees. Why? Using a debit card is similar to handing someone a blank check and generous access to your bank account! And when glitches in the international electronic card processing system occur, The GRAMCORD Institute finds itself spending hours on the phone with distraught debit card owners, intermediate processors, Visa/MC, and the card-issuing bank trying to convince them that a computer error somewhere in the network process needs to be reversed. We have often found that the only solution is waiting for 72 hours or even more for the system to correct itself -- but the debit card owner can be left with a huge mess and bounced checks from an overdrawn bank account even though they eventually get all of their funds restored. Unfortunately, The GRAMCORD Institute has no way to know if the Visa/MC card number used to purchase GRAMCORD software is a debit card or just a regular credit card. Therefore, it is up to you to double check and make absolutely sure that you do NOT give us a number and expiration date associated with a debit card. A Note from the Director: If you believe that a debit card is your only payment alternative, please ask us about arranging special terms. We have an ethical obligation to protect our user community from the hidden dangers and risks of debit card processing. Special Payment TermsAs a nonprofit organization, The GRAMCORD Institute makes every effort to accommodate special financial needs and schedules. Please see the Special Payment Terms section or ask the Institute Associate Scholar assisting you for details. The GRAMCORD Institute accepts Visa/MC, personal checks, and money orders. (Institutional purchase orders accepted with prior approval.) If you have special needs and would like to make time payments on your software order total exceeding $100, you may request special terms. The most typical arrangement is 1/2 down and the balance in 60 days. Payments can be in the form of two credit card transactions 60 days apart OR by sending two checks with delayed processing requested for the second check. (You MUST attach a prominent note to the 2nd check requesting delayed deposit.) We can also time invoices and payments to fit your institutional fiscal year, your church's new year's book budget, or even your next semester's scholarship payment. For 25 years we've made all kinds of arrangements so as to make GRAMCORD Institute software affordable to everyone. We are a nonprofit organization -- so we offer terms unheard of among the commercial publishers. All special payment terms must be pre-approved by The GRAMCORD Institute. (A telephone call is preferred but email is acceptable.) If you know exactly what you want and are in a hurry, you can simply email, fax, phone, voicemail, or postal mail a list of items and the usual contact and Visa/MC information. For those who want to pay by check but still want instant shipment, we will accept a Visa/MC as security against shipment -- with the final payment by check to follow within seven days. About FAX orders/inquiries:The GRAMCORD Institute receives a signficiant number of illegible and partly illegible faxes. Handwritten messages are especially unlikely to fax in readable condition. Email messages are preferable -- but if you choose to fax, please use a large typeface and make sure that an email address and phone number(s) are included. (This provides a means for us to contact you for verifying your order and answering any questions.) We strongly recommend that international fax orders be verified by an email containing at least the name of the party ordering, the shipping address, and the items being ordered. We realize that some Visa/MC owners use faxes in order to avoid sending their credit card information over the Internet. Unfortunately, many international faxes (especially when handrwritten) cannot be read because of very faint reproduction or phone line noise. If we do not have an email address associated with the order, we may have no means of determining key information or even contacting the sender. Yes, we accept PayPal payments!By popular request, we honor PalPal payments. Many of our users find PayPal
a convenient means of nearly instantaneous payment and an economical method
of currency conversion. Visit www.paypal.com for details on making such secure
payments by means of the Internet.
When using PayPal, do NOT issue the payment to any of our online email
addresses used for correspondence. Instead, PayPal payments must be
dispatched to the special reserved address shown in the How-To-Order section
of our emails. (Or simply ask an Institute staff member for the address by
email or phone. Because of spam trawlers, we must limit the posting of email
addresses on our website.) Ask us for our special PayPal email address before dispatching your PayPal payment! Why no shopping cart on the new website?We prefer to deal individually and personally with each inquirer. Unlike most of the commercially published programs, we do not believe "one size fits all" and we want to make sure everyone understands their choices. (In fact, sometimes those choices include "Palm vs. PocketPC" for those who are about to order a new computer as well as new software.) Also, we sometimes recommend a more basic introductory program such as GreekFlash Pro or the Lightning Starter CD-- or even an economical GRAMCORD GNT/NAS95 bundle on a deferred time-payment plan. If someone is starting a seminary degree, we know that they will soon "grow into" the full-power of the GRAMCORD system. However, for those who do not yet know if they plan to learn a Biblical language, we may recommend the combination of English Bible search English-Greek interlinear features found in GreekMaster. Plus, a lot of inquirers tell us, "I have about X dollars to work with. What would you recommend as most important for my research?" We want everyone to be pleased with their selection. We believe the only way to do that is "person to person" and not via the automated website shopping cart. Of course, if someone knows exactly what they want and are in a hurry, they can simply provide a list of items and the usual contact and Visa/MC information. (For those who want to pay by check but still want instant shipment, we will accept a Visa/MC as security against shipment with the final payment by check to follow within seven days.) What about software returns?In order to keep our nonprofit prices as low as possible, The GRAMCORD Institute limits operational expenses wherever possible. Of course, most software publishers do not allow ANY software returns -- because software pirates simply purchase a CDROM, install it or make a copy, and then return it for a full refund. This expense -- plus the lost revenue and staff overhead -- must be compensated through higher software prices. As a nonprofit entity, TGI's Board of Directors determined that allowing purchase-and-return piracy would in effect mean that honest users would have to pay higher prices so that dishonest users could pay nothing at all. Obviously, this is very unfair. (DVD, VCR tape, audio CD, and the majority of software CD publishers have reached identical conclusions. To verify this reality, just ask a local retailer if you may purchase and then return any such products!) Therefore, The GRAMCORD Institute allows software returns ONLY in verified cases where there is a true equipment or software incompatibility and our technical support engineers are unable to provide a solution. (For example, in certain circumstances a particular Israeli version of Windows interferes with GRAMCORD's fonts. We immediately honor returns related to this incompatibility.) In no circumstances will returned software be accepted for credit without first requesting and being issued a RMA (Return Materials Authorization). Anyone uncertain about whether a particular TGI program is appropriate to their needs is encouraged to discuss their research or learning objectives with one of our Associate Scholars OR by experimenting with GRAMCORD software at any of the hundreds of our site licensed institutions worldwide or at an academic conference. What about software piracy?Even with due care, GRAMCORD software is often pirated. Besides simple duplication of CDROMs, we find that some users order an update CDROM and then give the old version CDROM to a friend -- and then we discover the piracy when the friend calls for technical support after losing the password sheet. Please respect TGI copyrights and the copyright permissions of the many publishers who allow us to publish their reference works and bibles within our software bundles. Anyone who discovers that they have a pirated or otherwise unlicensed copy of GRAMCORD Institute software may contact us and request conversion to a valid license by paying the appropriate royalties and related fees. One of our goals as a nonprofit publisher and research institute is to provide the lowest possible prices on Biblical language software tools. Discouraging software piracy and bogus purchase-and-return fraud makes our low prices possible -- as well as hundreds of software donations annually throughout the world. What are The GRAMCORD Institute's hours for telephone orders?A staff member is usually available from 9am to 11pm Monday through Saturday at (360) 576-3000. If we are short-staffed or if you call during a heavy volume period (or outside of our regular hours), you can always leave your order details on our voicemail system. (It is secure.) If you prefer that we telephone you for the completion of your order, we can indeed return all North American phone messages as soon as staffing permits. (If call volume is high it can sometimes take a few hours -- but the vast majority are returned within 30 minutes.) We will call you back within North America at our expense. If you are calling from overseas, we encourage use of email and fax. IMPORTANT: If all of our phone lines are busy and you reach our voicemail system, please "DO NOT" hang up. If you don't leave a message with your phone number, we can't return your call! Please help us to serve you by leaving both a day and evening phone number OR an email address. We reply to most messages within a few minutes. During high order-volume periods, we may have a significant backlog of messages -- each deserving our time and attention. We appreciate your patience as we do our best to assist all callers as quickly and as helpfully as we can. If your voicemail message includes a range of times when you can best be reached, you will help us to minimize "telephone tag". Thank you! Using our phone company's GRAMCORD Institute voicemail system:You will never receive a busy signal when calling The GRAMCORD Institute. If our phone lines are currently occupied, the local telephone company routes your call to our voicemail box on their computer system. (This also happens when you call us outside of our normal business hours.) Of course, because we use the telephone company's voicemail computers, there is no point in asking us to "Pick up please! Aren't you guys there??" Also, if you set an autodialer and repeatedly call us without leaving a voicemaiil message, you will only delay our assisting you -- and you will add to our telephone expenses because the rerouting of incoming phone calls between our offices incurs long distance toll charges. We respond to voicemails on a first-come/first-served basis -- so the sooner your leave a message, the faster we can reply to you. Please speak clearly, slowly, and audibly when leaving voicemails. Keep in mind that cell phones often leave behind inaudible voicemail messages. Always repeat phone numbers and other key information when leaving voicemail messages. Few things frustrate our staff more than long messages that come through clearly but the call-back phone number sounds like it was left by a hurried auctioneer Please keep in mind that the staff member taking your call or reading your email message reads and replies to hundreds of messages per week -- but your previous messages may not have been among them. Never assume that a particular Institute staff member will be familiar with your situation or recognize you by first name alone.. Please provide a complete context to all emails and voicemails. (The message "This is John. I've decided to go ahead and order that update we discussed. Send it to my school address. Thanks!" is unlikely to be processed intelligently -- even if you talked with a staff member only an hour before!) When emailing us, please include a complete thread of prior related messages whenever possible. It saves us time-consuming searches through our email archives and logs. Believe it or not: Email is not totally reliable!If you read computer related publications, you've seen plenty of articles with discouraging titles like "The Death of Email" and "Spam Has Doomed Email Forever". Unfortunately, such reports are not just cynical exaggerations. Spam (and the viruses which often come with them) is now estimated at between 70% and 85% of all email traffic. In reaction, many overburdened ISPs and email systems are utilizing overly aggressive spam filter systems such that increasing numbers of legitimate emails are being deleted by mistake. Therefore, NO ONE should consider email delivery 100% guaranteed. Your email may "disappear" on the Internet en route -- before we ever see it. Or our reply may likewise be an Internet casualty long before it reaches your computer (or a filter on your computer might delete it before you see it). Therefore, if you do not get a reply to an email sent to The GRAMCORD Institute within 48 hours, assume that your message failed to reach us OR our reply was somehow deleted on its way back to you. Obviously, we carefully process each and every one of the hundreds of emails we receive each week -- so if you don't hear from us, assume your message or our reply was lost. Just email us again OR give us a call. (You'd be amazed at how often our reply to an email address bounces back with the message "No such address" or "Mailbox full!") Special needs? Just ask!We are here to serve. If you have a special need (e.g. timing a delayed payment to coincide with next semester's grant money or your church's new fiscal year book budget), just ask. As a nonprofit organization, we can usually accomodate all sorts of special situations. We also have funding set aside for software scholarships and matching-dollar research tool grants.
Go to the GRAMCORD FOR WINDOWS page. Learn more about organizing a group of 2 or more for special quantity discounts.
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Home | About TGI | Windows Software | Handheld Software | Updates/Downloads | Group Discounts | Price Lists | Ordering | Contact Us | Site Map Contact the BibleScholars(at)GRAMCORD•org Phone (360) 576-3000 (FAX 775-361-9367) The GRAMCORD Institute, 2218 NE Brookview Dr., Vancouver, WA 98686, USA Copyright © 2007, The GRAMCORD Institute. All rights reserved.
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