[PART 1] Official BLF GT Group Buy thread. Group buy officially closed! Lights shipping.

If you are in the USA, you don’t have to worry about customs or taxes.

It will probably be declared at $30.

For the USA you need at least a $800 declared value before you have to pay customs fees. IIRC.

Waiting to hear back from Neal on if it is too late for people to change the shipping method. Now that the weekend is over hopefully will hear from him soon.

edit: deleted, I wait for the sequels…

+1. It’s greedy and it’s potentially bad for someone. Not just for buyers who might have their stuff scrutinized more, but to any party involved. A conspiracy to help in a customs fraud is not exactly beneficial to a forum and its owner. Of course legislation varies between countries and the US is probably pretty safe from consequences from some Swedish or Chinese bureaucrat losing it, crapping herself and attempting going international. As an opposite example, in my country very few domestic open and public forums would even allow the kind of discussion.

I don’t know who started a movement to maintain a list where people who wish to change their shipping method can make specific requests on how the manufacturer should help them in scamming their local authorities, but… come on. Was there ever such a list? I know there was a thread where wishes on how to value a package were collected, but this is one step further - and just adding a column as part of a reply to this spontaneous list about whether a parcel should be marked as a gift is on whole another level. How and when were Lumintop contacted about it and how come they wanted to do this… wait, that did not happen, right? :stuck_out_tongue:

Undervaluing packages might have been beneficial to customers for a long time, but these days I doubt it would make a difference in the greater scheme - at least in some countries. The amount of retail stuff coming in to most western countries from mostly China has skyrocketed in the past couple of years and seems to further grow. There’s only so many packages for example Finnish Customs can process, and if Chinese retailers started stating values honestly, the customs would have pretty much no choice but to ignore the majority of shipments for the time being. It’s not like any EU member government would be making a profit for charging 5-10 euros VAT per a typical package with all the expensive manpower involved and complicated communications needed unless they start charging service fees - which would in turn practically stop private import from Asia.

I don`t want to read all the pages, please tell me the problem with the registered Mail option. Is it to expensive for Lumintop to ship these orders to some countries, or are all countries involved?

Thanks
Robert

Robert…… You can go back to Saturday morning & read all the posts by TA to get that info. To much for me to repeat here.

Why that info isn’t in OP?

Beats me…… :question:

You are correct. Correct should be 15+10=25

I don’t know how to correct above excel table. If someone can please correct it.

Thank you

I don’t realize what happens here. Why is this table? It’s additional payments for fast dispatch?

TA…. I was referring to the valuable updates & info YOU gave in your posts of Saturday morning.

The ones many will never see because they never read & keep up.

Nothing more… was stated or implied.

Sorry, I was harsher then I should have been. I know what you meant, it was not a problem to suggest it.

The OP is more for long term issues or for things that we can actually provide information about.

At this point there is simply nothing of any real value to put in the op besides this weeks shipments have been delayed some, which will be irreverent as soon as they start shipping again.

At this point it is nothing more then a delay in shipping, they technically could not even ship now if they wanted as they don’t have the reflectors yet. So really things are still proceeding as they should.

I ordered mine a few weeks ago and chose registered mail as shipping method, as I was not in a hurry. I have not received any shipping information as of yet.

I would gladly change to DHL if that makes it easier for them. In fact I had replied to original payment confirmation email from Neal stating exactly this; that he could ship it with DHL if that is preferable.

Edit:
Thank you TA for keeping us updated and in the loop!
Shout out for Team Giggles for your continued time and effort…you know who you are!
Most of all, THANKS Neal!!

I also dont mind switching to DHL if it helps them out.

Naah…. you didn’t come across harsh, to me anyway. :wink: I just wanted to make sure I had not been misunderstood.

I thought your Saturday update & info about things you had found out from Neal was good & informative. :+1:

I could not read all the posts since my last visit
Maybe I missed something

Due to health problems I will have to stop following this thread (and BLF) for a while
An old ailment that I thought I had controlled has come back to bother me

My only concern is to obtain the DHL AWB to make the customs declaration, when it is shipped

It is shipped, when it is shipped

The last email I sent to Neal reminding him that the tracking number is absolutely necessary to make the customs declaration was not answered
Possibly he has not responded because he has not been sent yet
If it has not been sent yet, no problem
It is shipped, when it is shipped
I want the best Giggles

Giggles continue to arrive without notice of the tracking number
That will not happen in my country

If I do not make the customs declaration, I will not get it
If I do not have a tracking number I can not make the customs declaration
The only way to get my Giggles is with the tracking number

I called DHL to find out if there was a package in my name to get the AWB
They replied that they can only deliver information to the sender or with the AWB
If I do not have a AWB, they can not do anything for me
They told me that the AWB must be given to me by the sender
They suggest to me that if the sender does not send me the AWB, I can claim it initiating a dispute in Paypal (I hope I do not have to do it, I do not want to do it

By law, In case of not making the customs declaration within 30 calendar days counted from when the parcel arrives to the customs office, it is considered in abandonment

If it is considered in abandonment the customs will decide what to do with it

- It can be returned

- It can be destroyed

  • It can be confiscated

The only way of communication that I will have while the medical treatment lasts will be by email
I hope to receive an email (as it was said it would be), from Neal, Lumintop (or whoever can), with the DHL AWB

PS, About two weeks ago I sent Neal an extra payment for the shipping fees, as we agreed

No, some of the forum members here (who asked for registered mail shipping) took it upon themselves to make a list of who would like to switch to DHL and what they would like to see for declared values.

No one from the Team Giggles nor Lumintop asked them to do this.

Maybe it is helpful to Neal? I don’t really know.

If you’re from the US, you don’t have to worry about it. We are allowed up to $800

I’ll try and sum up the registered mail issue with various posts from Texas_Ace from Jan 26th and 27th. This from Texas_Ace so it’s all official information.

Texas_Ace:

It seems Lumintop are having trouble figuring out how to ship the registered mail shipments in a way that will be delivered with minimal customs issues and high reliability combined with reasonable costs. Seems that some areas could cost $80 to ship the light so they are trying to figure out more reasonable options as that kind of cost obviously causes them to loose a fair amount of money on the light.

I think they have a few options they are testing / working out now. Once they settle on one the lights should ship fairly quickly. I will let you know more when I know more.


Neal said he will have them finish shipping to the first 555 before the others once they sort out the registered mail. He hopes they will have that figured out next week, not getting into the details but know that both Neal and lumintop have been hard at work trying to get this sorted out for some time.

Neal also told me that the UK orders are shipping today (which could be Monday before they are actually on their way based on past experience), he thinks they have the customs issues sorted out. (I think this is the DHL orders. JW)


You are comparing lights that weight 250g with a light that weights 2500g. The weight and size is the problem with shipping the GT.

The other issue is customs, they are trying to find the highest likely hood that it will not be charged customs fees all while keeping the price low enough to not be loosing even more money.

This is no small task.

Also the registered mail was something we demanded, not something they wanted to do. They only wanted to offer DHL but many on here wanted an option with a better chance of not having customs fees, so they decided to offer registered mail as an option.

In retrospect I can pretty much say that they regret that decision.


It is not clear at this time how they will be shipped. I get the feeling it will vary depending on the destination. Most of the basic mail shipping methods are limited to 2kg but they can also cost $30-40 per box to ship.

All I know at this time is they are working on the best options.


For the list of those willing to switch to DHL, know that there is NO GUARANTEE that this can or will happen. It is so late in the game I am not sure what is still possible to change at this point. I will pass on the list to Neal and see what happens.

Do no be surprised if it is too late to make a change like this.


The cost for shipping varies by destination, I think most destinations average out to around ~$40 from what I could gather, which is about what they budgeted for the shipping costs for the GT based on other information I have put together.

The issue is that some of the smaller countries are costing upwards of $85 and needless to say that is not exactly great for lumintop.

You can’t really blame them too much for missing this either, they have never shipping orders this big before so it is all new for them. Plus looking up the prices for every possible country is not practical from someone that has personally shipped well over 25k orders over the years.


(From Jan 29th)

Waiting to hear back from Neal on if it is too late for people to change the shipping method. Now that the weekend is over hopefully we will hear from him soon.

I added a link to Post #1 to my previous post.

Note that I might move this link down to my little update section later on.

Lately there just hasn’t been much news to report.