Haha 
Still yet to see anyone on here that has received a light WITH batteries in the UK, from FedEx.
Can anyone confirm or deny this?
. Sent MP to Neal
.
Thanks to everyone for not giving me 5 pages of posts to read through, you have no idea how refreshing this has been the last few days with only a few posts to catch up on.
I got a reply a little bit ago with some more information.
Lumintop will be closing down for the China New Years next week, so the 3rd batch of PM’s will for sure not go out before they are back up and running.
They said that they should have most of the registered mail issues sorted out now and if the reflectors show up soon and are good quality they hope to get most if not all of the existing orders shipped before the New years celebration. This largely depends on how many reflectors there are and if they are good enough quality.
An update on the UK orders, they have had 5 GT’s returned from the UK 3 times. They are not sure why they were returned but so far it is only effecting these 5 orders that they know of. They are trying to figure out an alternative option for these orders.
They also had a GT from Romania returned that is somehow costing them $300 to sort out.
Otherwise they say everything is going as good as could be expected.
I will let ya’ll know if I hear anything else.
I’d like to see Neil’s face when the Military Police show up! 
:laughing: I guess shipping issues are a crime in China? hahahahaha
Ok, got a reply back with some more info.
It seems that the UK shipment issues are due to the value not being accurate on customs form. They are apparently hyper strict about this now and refusing packages that they think are under-valued.
So, TA, they can not meet the shipping change request?
And creating a table for who wants to change the way of delivery is no longer needed?
Thanks
They have not replied about that yet, this is common if I try to ask too many things in a single email.
Say Dale, DB Custom, didn’t you do a a thread sometime ago on polishing reflectors?
I recall that it said which grade wet sand papers to start with on through completion.
It might have been someone else, it’s been quit awhile.
I’ve been looking through my notebooks and can’t find the polishing instructions, sure was a good write up and I’ve used that process many times, sure would like to find that again. I think it had two methods actually, one was removing a coating to bare aluminum and the other was polishing that coating, can’t recall what it is called either. dang.
Are the 5 UK destined packages that are being returned to LT by Hong Kong customs all with batteries ?
iirc 2 UK lights without batteries were delivered fine, ChrisC & someone else.
Could it be that the extra weight of the packages containing batteries is what is raising HK customs suspicions ?
Still seems a bit odd to me that a valuation problem is with the sending countries customs as generally it would be the receiving countries customs that would have an issue with a packages value if they believe it to be incorrect.
Anyway I hope that LT do manage to sort the issue out & get some lights shipped before Chinese New Year
Kudos to yourself, Neal & LT for trying to resolve these issues & for keeping us updated :+1:
Hello
Did you maybe send to Neal list of people which wanted to change from registerd to DHL?
If not, can you send it and ask him if this is still possible.
Can you maybe ask Neal to give top priority to first 555 orders. So that GT are first sent to all from 555 list.
With registered or DHL, important is that after 2 months FL are on the way to customers.
If this can be done before China holidays, it will be very good.
Thank you
Kind regards
I got bitten by VAT today, for an item marked as over € 22.—
Especially the administration cost for the “work” of taxing me were high: €13.—
Tax itself was just €5.14
So, i just want to say (as others have before me) i hope Lumitop will keep it under $25 per package.
I would rather pay Lumintop some extra for shipping fees (which apparently turn out to be higher than expected) than for customs and their “work”.
BTW, i was glad to read Lumintop focusses on the reflector quality rather than fast delivery. :+1:
I don’t mind the wait.
Lumintop must specify shipping as $10, or whatever. If not, customs estimate at a much higher value!
I was taxed according to the specified amount on the package (it was a UT02).
When it’s under €22.— there’s no tax in NL.
The UT02 was just €2.47 over that… :person_facepalming:
And it’s not the tax that hurt, but the admin costs…
I think a value of $10 on the GT packages, even when split in 2 packages (like they said they would) is not credible though.
I only have what they told me, there is no reason for them to lie about it so I assume it to be correct. Particularly when they have lost a lot of money dealing with these returned packages.
I asked about switching the shipping type but did not hear back on that point. This is why I generally have to keep messages to 1 or 2 points at a time or the others get lost.
Sadly the value for the UK is having to be increased to even allow them to be delivered. They have raised the price each time they try to ship it but it still gets refused apparently. I asked for more details but have not heard anything yet.
All they said was that the last value they tried was $55 for it was still refused. Setting a low value doesn’t do any good if the light can’t even be delivered. They are trying to keep it as low as possible though at their own expense of getting them returned multiple times.
Some other sad news about shipping costs. I should preface this with some more information. The goal with this GB when it started was for the first 555 lights to be just slightly above cost (we had hoped the cost would be $100 and they would make $10 each light) and for the remaining lights to have a reasonable profit margin for them so that they would want to work with us again in the future.
Well after the various issues they have had, they are now officially loosing money on the first 555 and looking at making very little if anything on the remaining lights.
The reflectors have ended up costing more then they budgeted due to the several factors and the big thing is shipping costs are much higher then the estimated.
Technically since most of the orders so far are the first 555, they have actually lost money as a whole thus far is what I am getting. The remaining lights will be what allows them to break even and turn any kind of profit.
The fact they have kept going without complaint to this point is impressive all things considered.
So now to the sad news, there will need to be added shipping costs to several countries that are just too expensive to ship this big light to. Here is an excerpt from the email I got:
For those in these countries Neal should be in contact with you about the shipping and if not, you can contact him about it.
If you do not want to pay the extra Fee you are entitled to a full refund as well.
While this is sad to hear I also can not blame them for it, they are doing the best they can with a bad situation. The last thing we need is for them to loose money on this project and then never want to work with us again. They are by the best flashlight manufacture I have worked with to date for this kind of thing.
Texas_Ace thank you for informing! How do I know how much I need to pay extra for shipping? Write to you in PM? Or Neal? But he does not answer.
They said it is around $40 for most of them, some a little more. I think they might just go with a flat $40 for everyone but they didn’t tell me for sure.
Neal is who will be in charge of these payments, I am not sure how he plans to handle it as I have not heard back from him about it yet.
I assume the best place to start would be to send him a PM with a title like “where to send extra shipping payment” or something like that. I know he has contacted some members already about it, just not all of them.