Woody, were they among the ‘Item sent to LANGLEY HWDC’ (in the tracking info) ones?
Yep, for about 6 weeks. :bigsmile:
Cheers M8, yup mine also disappeared into that black hole for about 6 weeks as well .
Should give an indication of how long the surface option from FT will take nowadays
Mine also disappeared down Langleys black hole for 2 months
I received $12.60 
Heh! Here is another good news. My 8.89 points are not going to be wasted then.
"
FastTech is making a special one-time offer to all customers, including those with less than 10 active points, an automatic conversion that will convert all your expired active points into a gift card. The gift card will appear in your account shortly after 10/10/2014 and will be valid within 1 month after the conversion. As this is offered far outside of FastTech's policy, we will be unable to further extend the expiry dates. "
In response to my closing the PP case, and the arrival of the batteries by surface mail, FT have just told me that they will give me a gift card at the start of next month. Should be for about $6, but I don’t think I’ll be ordering batteries again any time soon. 
Just got my order in last week. Ordered late May, so it took 3.5 months to get here. So if any of you need 18650s for Christmas, now’s a great time to order!
-Paul
Thanks for jogging my memory - FT told me they would give me a giftcard at the beginning of “next month”.
That was last month - I’m still waiting. 
HK surface mail option has been disabled for me. Not sure about other countries.
I could be wrong but suspect that we are seeing postal restrictions that are about to become permanent, and may get stricter as time goes on. It looks to me like the days of unrestricted international postal air shipping of batteries is coming to an end. Too bad but it seems to be a case of too many accidents caused by defective cheap batteries, inadequate packaging, failures of devices batteries are in, etc.
Major US sellers in this market are paying hazardous material surcharges to shippers such as UPS and Fedex to get the batteries they buy in wholesale quantities shipped to them from overseas. Not a reasonable option for us. I do not know of a solution for those located in countries that do not have reasonably priced local sources for NiMH and lithium technology batteries other than to use surface shipping and expect shipping times of up to 4 months or so.
http://support.fasttech.com/faq/what-countries-does-hong-kong-surface-mail-serve
“Hong Kong Surface Post ships to almost all 216 worldwide destinations that FastTech ships, with the following exceptions.
Countries not covered by the Hong Kong Post Surface Mail service:
Hungary
Moldova
Pakistan
Serbia
Singapore
Countries covered but will not accept lithium batteries shipped via the Hong Kong Post Surface Mail service:
Afghanistan
Belarus
Germany
Italy
Indonesia
Laos
Paraguay
Romania
Taiwan”
I’m having troubles with two different orders, one from DX and one from FT. From DX I’ve ordered 2x Samsung 18650 back in May, which have been MIA. From FT I’ve ordered 2x10440 on 21st of July, tracking got stuck on “Prepare dispatch to destination country” and didn’t change for a month.
DX have already refunded to my PayPal account, good service if you ask me.
As an answer to my FT ticket I’ve got the following reply:
“Sorry for the wait, since tracking information hasn’t updated for a long time, we will raise investigation case with them. Sadly we have no means to know where exactly the package is except by filing complaint case toward the post office to institute investigation and waiting for their definite feedback. But they may take maximum two months for the post office to finalize the investigation.
Once they confirm it as lost, we will refund or replace your order. If the item is returned to us, we will contact you for refund or reshipment minus the battery.
Thank you for your understanding.”
So it will probably take the an extra two months before they’ll make a refund.
Waiting for a refund isn’t that much of a problem. Is there still a reliable way to get batteries shipped from China to the EU? I think both of the issues mentioned above are related to some kind of battery restriction, mainly because I’ve never had any problems getting my batteries delivered.
holycrap, i was about to send a bunch of energizer AA ultimate lithiums along with some flashlights, a nitecore mh1a that contains 14500, all gonna send to my friend who lives in indonesia where is very hard for him to get one, could that be a problem…?
edit; im based in malaysia by the way-
Just last week I finally received some IMR 18350's and 14500's I had ordered from FT back in May. I got the same response as CrashOne above when I asked about it. Kind of glad I didn't file a PP claim in time now. It seemed like FT's query on shipping status got it moving because it showed tracking activity a week or so after they responded to me.
Check with your post office or put all the batteries in a x-ray proof metal container, well wrapped and insulated so no chance of shorts, and lie like hell!
Ordered batteries from FastTech on July 1st and they arrived today (September 15)… 77 days via Malaysia Post.
Ordered from FT on 3rd August, arrived 16th September. Ground (Sea) shipping via HK Post.
Was a little surprised to see them turn up, expected to be waiting a little longer.
Packaged well - Bubble envelope, plastic box with extra bubble wrap around each box, & a small sheet of bubble wrap inside the box as well.
Looks as though they are doing the right thing.
I’d also ordered some cells from BG on the 21st August, expecting them to arrive before the FT cells, but they have yet to show up.
Just got a second order from this same seller for 8 18650 NCR18650A cells which took 22 days to get to me with HongKong post air parcel. Looks like I have my reliable source for batteries when it comes to actually receiving them in a timely manor. If your looking for something that is not listed on the store send him a message. That is how the protected NCR18650A’s got listed as he didn’t have them listed until I asked for them. 
The pessimist in me says he might have a source on battery wrappers. 
Well the BE’s charged and tested to what others have tested and observed (BT-C3100) and thus far the first set of 4 3100A’s are right where they should be. Just like the BE’s all cells have tested at 3.59-3.6volts out of the box…. Almost ready to test out the second set.
The more telling reason for these getting to me so fast might have more to do with how it was shipped: HongKong post air parcel. These are the only items I have purchased that have been shipped this way. I have gone through Ali and restricted the search to only display items that are shipped this way and there are not many who use it which may be the reasoning for the fast processing. :zipper_mouth_face: