Current shipping status (Ebay, Giantoy, KGHobby, etc)

jaztermareal wrote:I would assume SFC is surface snail mail, so 2-3 months. I do not for a fact that it stands for surface but makes sense.

Yes I'm thinking so too, now I've taken the trouble to actually think it through rather than just complain about it.  

It's odd though, that in the current uncertain situation some sellers seem to be actively choosing to send some items from a single order by the slow route and others in the same order by faster carriers.

Warehousing at different locations, and stock availability I suppose. It proves that the pandemic situation and its knock-on effects are far from over.  Still, it's very irritating.

Theboo-bomb wrote:the one that concerns me the most is the one coming in from China that since July 6 has had no updates whatsoever other than it left a distribution center

Same here, even the same date.

What's annoying me most about all this is that right now there's no way to predict which carrier a seller will use until it's in the mail - and even then a seller could well be using different carriers for different items in the same order.

Of the 5 recent Ebay orders I made (4 from China, 1 UK):

Order on 31st July (2x empire toys statues): arrived today
Order on 1st August (boxed clothing set): arrived today
Order on 2nd August (a head): departed China today
Order on 4th August (a body): Departed China today
Order on 5th August (a mini bust, UK seller): awaiting dispatch

Seems the first two orders from China arrived within about 10 days from date of order. one was from Guangzhou the other from Shanghai.

Meanwhile, the next two orders were sat waiting a while before leaving china. both from ShenZhen which neighbors HK so perhaps there is a backlog there. They could also be lower priority due to being smaller parcels/packets.

All 4 were posted via Speedpak.

The 5th order is from a UK seller so no surprise it isnt dispatched yet. In my experience I usually receive items from Asia faster than from I do from local sellers due to slow dispatch.

So, so far things seem to be moving fairly normally for me at the moment.

jaztermareal wrote:Of the 5 recent Ebay orders I made (4 from China, 1 UK):

Order on 31st July (2x empire toys statues): arrived today
Order on 1st August (boxed clothing set): arrived today
Order on 2nd August (a head): departed China today
Order on 4th August (a body): Departed China today
Order on 5th August (a mini bust, UK seller): awaiting dispatch

the final 2 orders from China via ebay arrived yesterday (11-13 days to arrive).

Meanwhile, the UK based seller still has yet to mark the item dispatched (10 days and counting) and has not responded to polite request for update. Will see what happens.

another quick update:

two weeks after paying for the UK sellers item via ebay I still have no item and no reply to my messages asking for update.
I checked the sellers recent feedback and it seems another buyer who won one of the other Iron Man busts had same issue.

At first I thought maybe something bad had happened to the seller but I saw other recent feedback where items were received while there was a much older negative feedback for an Iron Man figure stating the seller hadnt posted and no communication, so I came to the conclusion that both busts had sold for less than he hoped and he had just sat on them until buyers cancelled, presumably so he can re-list later and sell for more.
My suspicion seemed to be confirmed when I left feedback and opened a case a short while ago today, within minutes he refunded to close the case, yet somehow could not reply to any of the polite requests for update over the past 2 weeks.

Seller ID:
tesseract_seller (Darren Brown)

Be cautious if bidding/buying as items may never arrive.

Overseas shipping times are completely random now. Some will take a couple of weeks but others will take a couple of months. I track my parcels to the US and some have sat in Customs in Chicago for weeks before being released.  Overseas sellers have no control over that. If you want more reliable delivery times then you have to use DHL.

I'm getting stuff on average once a week, but only because I order stuff on average once a week. The stuff doesn't always arrive in the same order I buy it though, even though most of it comes from the same source; Monkey Depot.

Little update.

I got all my orders with the exception of the one coming in from Hong Kong, I contacted the vendor and they refunded me. Curiously enough I've seen quite a few sellers from China that no longer ship to PR which actually makes finding certain items much harder or expensive now.

I did something different the other day while making a larger than average order from Monkey Depot; I paid the extra $10.00 for Fed ex shipping and received the order in two days as opposed to two months. It's not something I would do for a minor parts order, but in this case I ordered around $75.00 worth of stuff and wanted it fast. So there you have it. Want it fast? Pay the extra for courier service where it is offered, and ye shall receive.

Another tardy GianToy delivery here, although this time the delay seemed to be at the outward port rather than at the UK end... ordered on the 13th, reached the UK south-west DC on the 21st. Arrived at my local DC today, so I can probably expect it tomorrow, fingers crossed. Ten days, where not so long ago I could expect one in six, max. Still a darn sight quicker than most deliveries from Asia at the moment, even so.

ThePhotogsBlog wrote:I did something different the other day while making a larger than average order from Monkey Depot; I paid the extra $10.00 for Fed ex shipping and received the order in two days as opposed to two months.  It's not something I would do for a minor parts order, but in this case I ordered around $75.00 worth of stuff and wanted it fast.  So there you have it.  Want it fast?  Pay the extra for courier service where it is offered, and ye shall receive.  

Yeah same here, if I'm ordering something from MD that's reasonably rare and/or expensive like a TBL head, I always pick the Fed Ex option, it's worth it. Two-three days Fed Ex-ed to the UK as opposed to three-four weeks otherwise. Plus it's always fun watching our local Fed Ex lady try to tap in the code on her thingummyjig without breaking her two-inch long fingernails

I've been getting a few bits and pieces from AliExpress recently seeing as they've got one of their sales on, and I've noticed they've started giving UK tracking numbers for purchases as well as the usual Chinese ones. Don't know if it's the same for other destination countries, though.

This hopefully means that once your package leaves China it doesn't drop straight off a metaphorical cliff any more. And sure enough, I checked the tracking number with Royal Mail and it says "We're expecting it".

I have an item coming from Aliexpress also (via China Post Registered Air Mail), the tracking on Royal Mail says it left China on the 10th with no further update while the tracking on Aliexpress itdelf says it left china on the 15th. I am guessing the latter is correct.

Yesterday I received an ebay item sent via EMS on the 16th august so just over a week to be delivered from China to UK. Not bad

Had an item from Giantoy ship July 28 and arrive Aug 7 which is faster than normal. Usually takes like 2 weeks.

Have an item from OSK and one from ebay ship this week, will see when they come, but looks like it's coming by boat so probably going to be a while. I'll update when they arrive.

My package of Jessica headsculpts finally arrived from Australia today -- OVER 3 MONTHS!!! (package was sent on June 1st). But, whoohoo! They are finally here.

got an ebay item Aug 19 ship , recieved Sep 3. They used some version of dhl, delivered by canada post. Dhl collected duties and taxes on it though.

Well. I've just received a customs charge demand for £30 on a head sculpt I paid £11 for, which is ****ing OUTRAGEOUS. I'll let them send it back.

Britain's Bright New Tomorrow Of Borderless World Trade Unstifled By Europe, right there.

GeeWillikers wrote:Well. I've just received a customs charge demand for £30 on a head sculpt I paid £11 for, which is ****ing OUTRAGEOUS. I'll let them send it back.

Britain's Bright New Tomorrow Of Borderless World Trade Unstifled By Europe, right there.  

oof that's hefty, probably like 20 is for their brokerage fee =/

csyeung wrote:

GeeWillikers wrote:Well. I've just received a customs charge demand for £30 on a head sculpt I paid £11 for, which is ****ing OUTRAGEOUS. I'll let them send it back.

Britain's Bright New Tomorrow Of Borderless World Trade Unstifled By Europe, right there.  

oof that's hefty, probably like 20 is for their brokerage fee =/

Royal Mail charge an 'adminstration fee' of £8 to 'hold the item for me' and the rest goes to HM Customs.I'd love to know why they're charging so much - it's well above the VAT rate - but of course, their website is down, so I have no way of questioning it without a very long wait.

They aren't supposed to charge anything on items under £15, and I can prove it only cost £11, but I have to now consider whether it's worth jumping through all their hoops to contest it or not (I would have to pay the fee, even though I can prove they're in the wrong right now, and then contest it and hope they'll do the Decent British Thing and refund me, haha).

That's horrible. I hope this is just a fluke. : (

skywalkersaga wrote:I hope this is just a fluke. : (

Me too, what with currently having two separate parcels containing base bodies from ebay on the way.

The Royal Mail webpage is back up, so I followed the link from the text I received, and to further add to the confusion, according to that the charge is £10, not £30.  

Even so that's still too much for a cheap sculpt I was intending to pretty much just use for painting practice, and the amount still seems off - it's actually lower than the usual combined Customs VAT/RM 'admin fee' which usually adds up to £12-13 (I've only ever been stung by customs before on base bodies and not heads though, so I imagine the VAT is less on smaller items).

So I'll have to wait until I receive The Grey Card now to find out what the charge really is before I decide to either contest it (after paying up) or just let it be returned to sender. I only bought the damn thing on impulse.

Yours, exasperated.

GeeWillikers wrote:

skywalkersaga wrote:I hope this is just a fluke. : (

Me too, what with currently having two separate parcels containing base bodies from ebay on the way.  

The Royal Mail webpage is back up, so I followed the link from the text I received, and to further add to the confusion, according to that the charge is £10, not £30.  

Even so that's still too much for a cheap sculpt I was intending to pretty much just use for painting practice, and the amount still seems off - it's actually lower than the usual combined Customs VAT/RM 'admin fee' which usually adds up to £12-13 (I've only ever been stung by customs before on base bodies and not heads though, so I imagine the VAT is less on smaller items).

So I'll have to wait until I receive The Grey Card now to find out what the charge really is before I decide to either contest it (after paying up) or just let it be returned to sender. I only bought the damn thing on impulse.

Yours, exasperated.

the tax is usually calculated based on declared value plus postage paid and if applicable purchased insurance. I know before I was stucng for hefty import tax because the sender thought it would be a good idea to mark the value high (like 10 times what I payed) I think they did so believing it would ensure it would be handled with care if marked as  a high price item, instead it just created a couple months of hassle.

A lot of this import tax could actually dissappear if we leave the EU ironically (VAT is an EU imposed tax), but prob not while the Tories are in charge of things. They would tax the air we breath if they could.

as for claiming overpaid import tax, it takes a couple months usually but in the 4 or so times I had to make claims, provided the proof is there with the application you will get the refund.

Yeah it'll be interesting to see what the seller has declared the value as on the label and if it was accurate, and if it was a case of 'Border Force' simply not believing it. But of course to find that out, I'll have to pay the fee.

As for our reptilian overlords the current UK 'government', as you suggest they'd only replace import VAT with something much less fair and much more expensive for the common plebs.

So looking forward to December 2020/January 2021.

GeeWillikers wrote:Yeah it'll be interesting to see what the seller has declared the value as on the label and if it was accurate, and if it was a case of 'Border Force' simply not believing it. But of course to find that out, I'll have to pay the fee.

As for our reptilian overlords the current UK 'government', as you suggest they'd only replace import VAT with something much less fair and much more expensive for the common plebs.

So looking forward to December 2020/January 2021.

Only two things in life are certain: death and (ever increasing) taxes

Had to pay my first tax ever on a kghobby order, wasn't super high (40€ for a 200€ order) but that's a first...

Shipping was fast and fine tho, quite "back to normal" in the middle of that covid situation!

Currently waiting for an order from "toyswonderland" which is a first buy there for me, I'll keep you posted!

I'm getting an extra Stormtrooper and realize that the CA tax went up. Instead of $7.98, I pay a $20.00 tax, then the $250 pre-owned figure, then $17 S&H=$287.

I had pre-ordered from Giantoy and I'm now worried of what tax I need to pay extra.

Regarding my customs issue above :  it turns out that the seller declared the shipping I paid on top to get it faster as part of the value of the item, silly s*d, which tipped the 'value' over the taxable rate by pennies (that has ended up costing me pounds).

We have had 'words' and so the seller has offered me a discount on my next purchase to cover it.

So I won't be paying expedited shipping again unless it's a seller I know and trust, that's for sure.

Stuff I'm getting from Monkey Depot now seems to only take about four weeks instead of more than eight. Let's hope this trend keeps up!

Had an item ship from OSK and arrived last week. Shipped Aug 31, arrived on the 5th! However, it was a different item than one i mentioned earlier. That one still hasn't arrived yet and was shipped earlier.

I also had an ebay item arrive today, Shipped probably aug 31 as well. arrived today the 14th. Unfortunately they gave me 2 right boots instead of one right and one left.