International shipping hassles

[kiyoukan]

Re: Good sale gone bad

i have had this issue its why i stopped my GB.
Way to many people trying to pull this trick.
Pisses me off.
but hey its life

 

[MarioMaster]

Re: Good sale gone bad

Yobresal - do you still have the post office receipt? You know you can enter the customs form # into the tracking system on the USPS website?

It offers basic tracking on all packages that go international.

 

[yobresal]

Re: Good sale gone bad

No I do not. I am unaware of any international tracking other than express with the USPS. Does that tracking stop once it leaves the US?

 

[MarioMaster]

Re: Good sale gone bad

It doesn't seem to, but it would provide proof of shipment.

Delivered Abroad, October 22, 2010, 8:32 am, SWITZERLAND

Processed through Sort Facility, October 20, 2010, 1:58 am, CHICAGO, IL 60688

Acceptance, October 18, 2010, 4:38 pm, WILLIAMSPORT, PA 17701

 

[hakzaw1]

Re: Good sale gone bad

I have one going to China in limbo-land right now- I will never ship there again without express tracking-- MY BAD.

Its been over 30 days-- I still have hopes.

$975.00 worth of stuff-- my brain must have been out of order.

thanks-- Luke for the heads-up-- hope your package makes it--Len

 

[daguin]

Re: Good sale gone bad

The import/export document has a unique number and barcode. This **CAN** be used to follow a package. It is inconsistent and not always scanned, but if it is, you can "track" the package with it.

Peace,
dave

 

[Kevlar]

Re: Good sale gone bad

Thanks for the heads up Luke, and everyone else who has provided some insightful shipping/selling knowledge here.

I plan on selling the three lasers in my small collection soon and can use all the advice I can get; in fact, I had asked Luke for some advice in PMs.

I sent out my lasers to Dave so he could meter them for me last week. My post office told me they should have arrived yesterday but Dave hasn't confirmed anything yet. I did put $400 worth of insurance on the package so hopefully that will cover me if it doesn't make for whatever reason.

 

[lazeerer]

Re: Good sale gone bad

Iam not sure about USPS, But I had to ship my Camera back to Kodak By UPS and the camera got lost in shipping. After 2 weeks i realized that Kodak did not contact me so i called them and they told me they did not receive my package.

At the time I Lost the Receipt as well with the tracking number on it, So i went to UPS where i shipped it and they were able to look up my package by my Name. Its worth a shot to see if they can look it up for you at USPS. Many people loose there receipts/tracking slips so there has to be some type of system to recover it in there office .

 

[yobresal]

I have retitled the thread to a more suitable name.

 

[daguin]

Re: Good sale gone bad

I sent out my lasers to Dave so he could meter them for me last week. My post office told me they should have arrived yesterday but Dave hasn't confirmed anything yet. I did put $400 worth of insurance on the package so hopefully that will cover me if it doesn't make for whatever reason.

The package just arrived today. However, I am off to Disneyland this afternoon/evening to see the Halloween decorations. Your lasers are in my safe

Peace,
dave

 

[Kevlar]

Thanks Dave. Enjoy Disneyland!!

 

[Traveller]

Sigh, here we go again... I was going to multiquote, but I gave up after I selected like half a dozen of them...

1. I live in Vienna, Austria and I have had about 50 parcels shipped from the States in the past and every single one arrived without incident.

2. Except for one package which, based on my examination of posting dates, sat in the Customs offices for over four weeks! Thus, although four weeks is way over the average (8~10 calendar days in my case), it can happen. I wouldn't be surprised if the lasers arrived in the next days... .

3. Full tracking / insuring is highly prohibitive $-wise (and is why I passed on Jerry's LPM way back when).

4. USPS offers a "half-ass" Int'l tracking for a whole $13. You get a tracking number and you get to track it from the sender's home town to say, Chicago. Then tracking mysteriously comes to an end, but at least the buyer knows that the sender sent an International package on such & such a date... (better than nothing, imho :beer Not to mention said package is associated with a tracking # so USPS may be obliged to actually "track" that package on your behalf.

5. FWIW, I've received 3 packages from Dave, over a dozen from Jay and a few nice goodies from other non-pro sellers in other areas. I've never had a problem but we always do the $13 half-ass tracking if we're talking $100 or more. In general, I will accept the shipping risk (as long as there is some kind of tracking # or the item's <$100) and I use "gift" when paying with PayPal so the buyer doesn't have to worry about me stopping payment, etc.

Last but not least, I certainly hope that these rare incidents won't stop LPFers from doing business with Int'l members and/or insisting on full shipping / insurance charges. This would be bad news for us Int'l members. Of course, it's all relative and thus if you are selling an $800 473nm, it pays to have full tracking. Full insurance never pays for us, since Customs always verifies the insured value and applies 20% VAT accordingly.

An $800 473nm laser + $35 full tracking & another what, $25 to insure $800 worth and then top that off with a guaranteed extra %20... we've passed the $1000 mark already...

Ok, I'm done rambling, lol. Here's my last $13 shipment... a $250 limited edition Benchmade Rift, received 8 days after it was posted from Huston, Texas :beer:

 

[lasersbee]

Re: Good sale gone bad

Not true, you also shipped my HLPM II (price was $62.99) with insurance shipping. The bad point is that the customer has to pay high custom taxes :eg:

Yeah.... normally items over $50.00 get Shipping Insurance but no
tracking... Insurance PLUS Tracking is only for items >$100.00..:na:


@ Traveller...

If the customer signs a waiver clearing us of any financial
responsibility... we can ship without Shipping Insurance or Tracking
and declare the value as a $10.00 Sample...
But if it gets lost or damaged the customer will be out his $$$$ and
item... We strongly advise against it...


Jerry

 

[HIMNL9]

Re: Good sale gone bad

Thats because they are busy playing with your stuff :crackup:

International shipping, especially overseas can take more than a month......

I too have waited for what seemed an eternity for things to turn up from the US and more than four weeks at times......

Italy? Well, it's less than a third the distance to the US but often takes 3 times as long to deliver there from the UK! .....

Heh, the main problem, here in Italy, is that, "apparently" eg, customs offices try intentionally to "discourage" peoples from buying items from east, especially China / HK zones (but, i'm sure, they do this for our safety, not just cause so you can have the same items at 1/4 of the price that you have to pay here ..... /sarcasm )

Anyway, i had some packages tracked from HK to here, and seen that the main delay is caused from customs offices and postal system ..... usually, tracking reveil me that the packages takes from 5 to 10 days for travel from HK postal system to our customs in Linate Pozzolo, and from 35 to 50 days for do the last 150Km from there to my home ..... the record, at least til now, is a package that took 6 days from HK to Linate, and 59 days from Linate to here (tracked times ).

Also, if you see on ebay, there are always more sellers from east countries, that in their auctions states "we sell worldwide, except Italy" ..... usually, they are "diplomatic", and just say "cause strict customs inspections", but i've found some of them that stated clearly, and have also replied me in email, "Sorry, we do not ship to Italy anymore, cause half of the packages go lost in transit through custom offices" (this is rare for tracked items, but happens a lot of time for standard non-tracked shipping, and almost all those companies that sell "free shipping", usually don't use tracked system)

Yeah.... normally items over $50.00 get Shipping Insurance but no
tracking... Insurance PLUS Tracking is only for items >$100.00..:na:
......
Jerry

This is a good thing, but you have also to considerate taxes and fees, that for some countries are outrageously criminal (guess what country i'm referring ? ..... )

I mean, sometimes, a buyer ask for low prices declarations, cause otherwise he becomed ripped off from his own country ..... just for give you an example, i had to pay 29 euro for an item that i had already paid 40 Euro to the seller, and forgot to ask him to declare 20 or less ..... (73% extra of the declared value) ..... from these 29 Euro extra, 8 Euro was the tax (iva 20%, i think you call it VAT), 12 Euro was "custom presentation" (that, basically, means that they looked your package and decided that you had to pay an extra), and 9 Euro was "postal fees" (that, basically, is the price they charge you for the printing of the paper sheet that say you that you have to pay the exteas ..... and you're lucky that this sheet become delivered to you with the rest of the package, otherwise you will have others 14 Euro extra, if they send it to you via letter )

With a so "honest" system, is almost normal, that some buyers asks for reduced values declarations .....

 

[AUTO XX]

Holy crap dude! And I thought it was annoying getting stuff from DX...
I'd be tempted to suicide mission the customs office if they had my gear for that long :crackup:

 

[Traveller]

I'd be tempted to suicide mission the customs office if they had my gear for that long...

My packages (U.S. / CN -> AT) average two days in Customs. It takes about five business days for "airmail", tack on customs and/or a weekend and you're looking at an average of 8-10 days, which is more than acceptable imho :yh: So once again, please note that although there are some really good Customs-nightmare stories*, they are generally efficient (Country-dependant, of course, so YMMV).

One nice thing about the EU concept is the attempt to adopt EU-wide standards. I think Government-based services, like postal & Customs, are being asked to accomodate. Of course, this takes time and in some of the more ...ahem remote EU Countires, this could take an enternity...


*Of course I'm only talking about delays and financial impact here. If you are silly enough to declare a 1W Class IV laser, well.... or if your package is one of the unlucky 1in1000 packages that arbitrarily gets spot-checked, then that's some really bad luck...