*Update 21-08-14* Customs Charges .Shipping times from a few Chinese retailers my experience so far

Buy / Sell Budget Dealer Experiences
1

After joining this forum and reading up on a few flashlights I went ahead and made a few purchases
However as of today none have arrived here yet so I thought I would list a few to see if these are normal delivery times

First DX.com

15th March - Order received for one of these
[sold out] SKY RAY 6 x Cree XM-L2 T6 3-Mode Cool White Light Flashlight - Black (4 x 18650) US$ 25,76 free shipping @ DX
SKY RAY 6 x Cree XM-L2 T6 3600lm 3-Mode Cool White Light Flashlight - Black (4 x 18650)
And 4 “TrustFire Protected 18650 3.7V ”3000mAh” Rechargeable Li-ion Batteries (Pair)“:http://www.dx.com/p/trustfire-protected-18650-3-7v-3000mah-rechargeable-li-ion-batteries-pair-120476#.U29L7vldU5Y .

17th March - Partial shipment (of batteries)

2nd April - Full shipment

Nothing here yet , I raised a ticket with them on 23rd April and got this response

Dear Customer,

We apologize for the late reply in the delivery process, there is a heavy backlog of tickets recently .
Typically it may take 14-30 working days (i.e. Mon-Fri, excluding public holidays in Hong Kong and in your country) to deliver the package.
If after 4 weeks from shipment the order still hasn’t arrived you may contact us and we will follow up on the package
Or you can go you to local post office to have a check if they have got your package but have not told the receiver to get the pakage.
We strive to make sure the items reach you smoothly and safely. We appreciate your patience.

Best regards
Sincerely Ellen

Another DX order .

5th April - Order received Trustfire Flame 14500 battery x2.

7th April - Order shipped

EDIT 15th May - Order of batteries arrives

MYLED.com

5th April - Order confirmation for two of these Only ($4.52USD Delivered) LED Zoomable Flashlight CREE XM-L T6 800LM 3-Mode@MyLED.com

14th April - Shipping confirmation

Still nothing

LightsCastle

9th April - Order confirmation for one of these UltraFire LW-12L2 Cree XM-L2 T6 7920LM 5-Mode Flashlight-Grey+Silver(3*18650/3*26650)
And four of these “TRUSTFIRE RECHARGEABLE 3.7V ”5000MAH” 26650 LI-ION BATTERIES (PAIR)“:http://www.lightscastle.com/product/trustfire-rechargeable-3.7v-5000mah-26650-li-ion-batteries-pair-610153 .

15th April - Order status changed to shipped.

6th May - Order status changed to shipped.

Gearbest.

28th April - Order confirmation for Opus BT-C3100 V2.0 LI-ion NiCd NiMh LCD Smart Intelligent Battery Charger with EU Adapter - Black .

29th April - Order shipped.

Are these normal times to wait? The last thing I bought from DX which landed was a Fandyfire Warrior which came in three weeks so I was expecting around the same again
The first batteries from DX were supposedly shipped on 17th March which is now looking like a very long time ago.
I will update as/if they arrive.

EDIT 1 - 15th May - Order of batteries arrives from DX.com 14500 batteries.

EDIT 2 - 21st May - Order from Lightscastle arrives, however it is the wrong light, I ordered ULTRAFIRE LW-12L2 CREE XM-L T6 7920LM 5-MODE FLASHLIGHT but in the bag is a ULTRAFIRE LW-9T6 9*CREE XM-L T6 6050LM 5-MODE FLASHLIGHT. I have emailed Lightscastle to inform them of their mistake and asking them to ship the correct unit I ordered and paid for.
Upto now they have had good email responses so I hope they will resolve this for me.

Any ideas of what to do in this situation?

EDIT 3 - 22nd May - Order from DX.com for 4x 18650 batteries arrives (Order placed on 15th March, shipped on 17th March)

EDIT 4 - 23rd May - After opening Paypal dispute (on 45th day for one and 46th day for second torch) myLED have refunded fully for first $4.52 and a partial refund for second (I guess as over Paypal threshold they didn’t feel the need to fully refund, however something is better than nothing) £1.98 after a £1.01 Adjustment fee

EDIT 5 - 2nd June - Well my C3100 finally landed today, well a note from the post office did, saying I had a customs charge to pay
Went to collect and found I had a £15.05 ($25.21USD) charge to pay comprising of £7.05 VAT and £8 Royal Mail Handling Fee
Looking at the package I notice that Gearbest has put the value as $59.15 not the price I paid , which means I had to pay VAT on the full price
So the original price of $41 (£24.47GBP) became a lot more expensive after that

EDIT 6 - 18th June - Finally my SRK from DX arrives , just over 3 months to get to the UK.

EDIT 7 – 21st August – Finally my UltraFire LW-12L2 Cree XM-L2 T6 7920LM 5-Mode Flashlight-Grey+Silve from Lightscastle arrives 84 days after ordering it.

Well after the order going in on the 29th May, the torch has arrived at the wife’s works today I hope its correct and working this time.

Not bad to say I originally ordered it in March :open_mouth:

2

It can take 3 months. In various threads Im pretty sure others have stated they have waited longer than 3 months from payment, and things still havent left the supplier as they dont have it, and no idea when they will get it, except that they should be getting them in the next two weeks (each week over 3 months, they are due in the next two weeks). To be honest, I dont know if anyone has tested it yet, but maybe you could wait 20 years if youre willing.

I think in these cases either people cant get it elsewhere or its dearer everywhere else, and they live in hope. Personally, Id wait until around 40 days was up, then PP dispute it.

Normal? LOL.

3

I didn’t pay by Paypal I paid on a credit card , would you still claim on it after 40 days or are cards different?

Also they have all said it has been posted so I presume they had them in stock.

4

Depends on your CC’s ability to do a charge back. I use PP for the simple protection it offers.

The 45 day limit is set by PP. They offer protection up to 45 days from payment, thats why I initiate a dispute after around 40 days. Or at least I would, Ive not had too yet. Start by contacting the seller directly, then use the system if no response, or unsatisfactory response. Sent out or not, if you dont have it in your hand anything is possible, including they lied, or simply an error, and it was never sent. They often say things like, close the dispute as the funds are tied up due to the dispute. We will refund you no worries but you need to first close the dispute so the funds can be freed up. Or similar such. Its nonsense, by them issuing your refund the dispute closes automatically. But PP has processes in place that penalise sellers who have to issue too many refunds, or have claims made against them. By you closing the dispute there is no ‘mark’ against their name regarding it so they try to circumvent the system, and most will actually give you your refund if you close it, they do want to stay in business and dont want the reputation that goes with shafting people. But at the same time, if you close it, they can shaft you and you can not reopen the dispute, and plenty of people would do this too.

To me, the smart move is to forget the offers and claims of the seller and instead just do as PP suggest. If the item arrives, you should do the honest thing and contact the seller and repay for the item via PP. Sadly I assume many people in this situation just think of it as free stuff and shaft the dealer. It cuts both ways… when you consider this you can understand the reluctance of the seller to refund knowing they sent the item. But its part and parcel of doing business OS (pun intended).

5

Hi,

I think that if you purchased directly with a credit card (i.e., not with a credit card via Paypal), your dispute terms would depend on the terms from your credit card company.

The thing with using Paypal with a credit card is that Paypal itself has its own dispute policy and protection, and then you also have dispute and possibly protection policy from the credit card you use. I’ve had one incident a long time ago where I paid for an Ebay purchase that I paid via PP and credit card and ended up having to get a return from the credit card company rather than from PP.

6

DX shipping times to the UK are are usually terrible, all the ones I had are always virtually on the PP dispute mark.

In fact got a PP dispute with them at the moment (non delivery) 15 march, no reply even to the messages sent via PP. Claim will go in a couple of days.

If you ever order from DX IMV I am afraid a PayPal account is very handy. Thinking about it with the postal system and most vendors after sales service, I really hate to say this but PP is almost a necessity.

Apart from Simon @ convoy-flashlights whose shipping is about a couple of weeks. And FastTech around the 3 weeks mark.

These days you are looking at around the 30 days mark to the UK but 40 days is not that uncommon. Sooner than that is a nice surprise.

7

I ordered some stuff recently and noticed that I received the flashlights usually within 2 weeks but the batteries take longer. Maybe the post office has issues shipping batteries.

8

Lithium batts illegal to air-mail them… (IIRC)

9

Didn’t know that, I guess they really are on the slow boat from china. :frowning:

10

DX is the only one of these stores I’ve ordered from. My last order from them took exactly one month, and that was just a star-mounted XM-L2 IIRC. The longest I’ve waited for an order was nine months, and I was pretty damn surprised. I’d written it off in my mind, and then one day I see a bubble mailer with the signature CN postmark. It occurred to me that I could have made a human in less time :stuck_out_tongue:

11

EDIT 2 – 21st May – Order from Lightscastle arrives, however it is the wrong light, I ordered ULTRAFIRE LW-12L2 CREE XM-L T6 7920LM 5-MODE FLASHLIGHT but in the bag is a ULTRAFIRE LW-9T6 9*CREE XM-L T6 6050LM 5-MODE FLASHLIGHT. I have emailed Lightscastle to inform them of their mistake and asking them to ship the correct unit I ordered and paid for.
Upto now they have had good email responses so I hope they will resolve this for me.

Any ideas of what to do in this situation?

12

tell them it’s their mistake and if they want the light back… ask for return postage fee or better yet ask them to keep the light :bigsmile:

13

Just be reasonable.
You almost seem to ignore you did receive something rather comparable (if I’m not mistaking, links would help).
Obviously they won’t just ignore that fact…
I hear 50% refund is the thing to do in these kind of cases.
Or are those 2 lights really very different (also in price)?

14

The two torches are
this is what came

this is what I ordered

Main point (excluding pricing) are 9x XM-L T6 vs 12x XML2-T6 or claimed 6k lumen vs 8k lumen

So in my eyes they are not comparable an analogy would be buying a BMW 335i and getting delivered BMW 325i both good but ones better than the other.

Since I ordered (9th April) the price has gone up though to $82.79
My order confirmation from lightscastle

SKU Product Name Price Quantity
427022 UltraFire LW-12L2 Cree XM-L2 T6 7920LM 5-Mode Flashlight-Grey+Silver(3*18650/3*26650) 64.79 1

15

Hmm… Yes… :frowning:
I think they should then give you back the difference plus half the price of the one you received.
That would be a nice 325i deal i.m.o. :slight_smile:

16

Looking at the box it came in one thing I have just noticed is that there is a sticker with a matching SKU number for the LW-12 (427022)so it might just be someone has put the wrong torch in the box and when it was picked they went just off the sticker not its contents.

On a side note the torch also came with a few free marks on the body.

Hopefully their customer service is good and can resolve this.

17

Sounds like an honest mistake. Hope they correct their error. I heard that 12xml2 was supposed to be a BEAST in stock form.

18

for me its a bit different, altogether with batteries and chargers and torches and emitters, drivers, and bits and bobs, all my orders, which is about 60 have come in 10 to 14 business days, except 1 from lightmall, which was nearly 6 weeks for 2 dud batteries

all the horror story’s about DX on review sites, im surprised anyone orders from them

edit to say banggood got my btu shocker to me with free delivery in 7 days, ordered on the Monday, it came the following Monday

19

I took the torch they sent incorrectly to my Post Office to get a quote for returning it

I did ask lightscastle for a returns label but they didn’t know what that was and asked me to send back with a tracking number that they can track before they will send out the torch I ordered

However the cost for returning with tracking is £17.85GBP ( $30.12USD) which is half the cost of the torch (It’s a heavy torch)

I have emailed them to say the costs and offered a solution that they send me the torch I ordered and I will pay them $30 to keep the incorrect torch

Does this sound like a fair offer from me or am I being unreasonable with my offer?

20

EDIT 4 - 23rd May - After opening Paypal dispute (on 45th day for one and 46th day for second torch) myLED have refunded fully for first $4.52 and a partial refund for second (I guess as over Paypal threshold they didn’t feel the need to fully refund, however something is better than nothing) £1.98 after a £1.01 Adjustment fee.

Not having much luck with getting what I order from China atm

Still I can’t knock bad luck , if it wasn’t for bad luck I’d have no luck!!