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

Stryker2011 wrote:

GeeWillikers wrote:

JYMachine wrote:I have another parcel from Giantoy also via EMS en-route (left China a week ago) which is different to Giantoy's usual UK shipping method (although not sure if this is due to the parcel size or issues with their normal shipper).

Could well just be the size - my head sculpt from GT (which tracking tells me set out last Friday) is moving through the usual channels, just more slowly than normal. Normally it would be here in my hand by now but tracking tells me it hasn't even reached the UK yet.

I also buy a lot of basic kitbashing materials (paint, glues etc) from within the UK and even those are taking much longer to reach me than usual.

I share sky's concerns - it isn't the waiting for items, it's the chance they'll be left to gather dust at an airport warehouse and get forgotten and then lost. I'm having to sit on my hands trying not to buy stuff at the moment purely because of that.

While I tend to be one of those that buys a LOT of stuff from Asia (due to the lower prices and free shipping), I've been buying more stuff from the US due to impatience; I guess I'm willing to pay the extra price gouging bucks per item -- mainly because I'm worried the things might sell out that -- which is good for the seller, but not so good for my bank account.

I'd love to buy more stuff from the US and even with snail mail it's quicker than most Asian sellers, but the shipping charges between the US and UK are just ridiculous now - up to three times the cost of the item you're buying, sometimes. In fact Monkey Depot are the only US seller I'll deal with these days, as well as being very reasonable on their item prices they're the only US seller I've found who offers low cost international shipping.

The US to UK shipping costs are indeed the worst. And then you get hit with the customs charges on top of it.... ugh. There’s currently something that costs about 35 gbp that I was eyeing up, but with shipping and customs the total would have been three times that!

I hope everyone is staying well, safe and healthy in these difficult times.  I know that some of our number have been laid off, and I hope you are not facing too many difficulties as a result.

I suppose I'm lucky in saying that the biggest complaint I have is that it's now two straight weeks I've received no mail at all.  Normally, this is something that pleases me. No mail, no bills to pay. This being said, I have no less than seven (7) separate parts orders I've been waiting for from Monkey Depot, the oldest of which is a month old today. This fact reveals another problem: to wit, that I have become a 1/6th scale addict who checks the Monkey Depot site religiously every night around 7-8pm when they post their daily stock updates and that I have been buying stuff nearly twice a week.  But that's another problem entirely.

I live in Canada and Arizona is pretty damned far away, but normally, it takes only about two weeks to get my stuff. I'm told that the COVID situation is making it take longer for stuff to cross the border and, perhaps more importantly, that Canada Post is experiencing Christmas time parcel shipments as people are doing all their shopping online during the crisis.  So I'm just curious if anyone else has had a problem and if so, please feel free to vent your frustration and or horror stories here.  I'd like to read them an know I'm not alone.  

The spring has been usually cold here and my plans to shoot outdoors have been thwarted again and again by the cold weather. That, plus a lot of parks are closed because of the pandemic.  Tomorrow however promises to be sunny and marginally warm; 12 deg Celsius : about 54 Fahrenheit to those living in America.  Not great, but acceptable, so barring the unforeseen, I'm going to try take several of my figures to the place in this picture and try to shoot photos for a story I've had in my head a few days.

The firefight05 by Gary Menten, on Flickr

I'd really hoped to have at least half of the parts I've ordered since Mar 24 as these would come in handy for this shoot, but I'll just work my way around it.  

Good luck and good health to you all.

Some of the stuff I ordered from China in January is just arriving now.

As for outgoing parcels, it typically takes 3-4 weeks to reach a destination in the US. However, Australia Post advises that because of flight restrictions, there are delays of 2-3 weeks. On top of that, staff shortages and the current high workload in Postal and Customs services are causing delays of an additional week or so.

Keep in mind that the vast majority of air mail is sent via passenger planes. 96% of passenger flights have been suspended so couriers have to wait for a flight to become available before they can send anything.

shazzdan wrote:Some of the stuff I ordered from China in January is just arriving now.

As for outgoing parcels, it typically takes 3-4 weeks to reach a destination in the US. However, Australia Post advises that because of flight restrictions, there are delays of 2-3 weeks. On top of that, staff shortages and the current high workload in Postal and Customs services are causing delays of an additional week or so.

Keep in mind that the vast majority of air mail is sent via passenger planes. 96% of passenger flights have been suspended so couriers have to wait for a flight to become available before they can send anything.

Yeah, I hadn't thought about the 96% of passenger flights being cancelled. I've been very lucky so far in this crisis. My income has not been affected (not yet anyway), I haven't gotten sick while a coworker lost his elderly mother to the virus last week and is now under self-quarantine, and two others were under self-quarantine earlier in the month. I go to work each day, come home, and buy groceries a couple of times a week, which sadly enough, is exactly what mostly used to do before the pandemic hit. So aside from wearing an N95 mask when I leave home, almost no-one riding the subway on the way to and from work and the postal slowdown, my life has been pretty normal and I shouldn't be complaining.

skywalkersaga wrote:The US to UK shipping costs are indeed the worst. And then you get hit with the customs charges on top of it.... ugh. There’s currently something that costs about 35 gbp that I was eyeing up, but with shipping and customs the total would have been three times that!

Find someone in the US to buy it for you and send it as a gift without the invoice.

shazzdan wrote:

skywalkersaga wrote:The US to UK shipping costs are indeed the worst. And then you get hit with the customs charges on top of it.... ugh. There’s currently something that costs about 35 gbp that I was eyeing up, but with shipping and customs the total would have been three times that!

Find someone in the US to buy it for you and send it as a gift without the invoice.

That is indeed probably the only way it would work. In normal circumstances, I wouldn't mind asking a friend or family member to do that, but right now I wouldn't ask anyone to take the risk of an unnecessary trip to the post office. If it's still available if/when things are less worrisome, then maybe... : )

skywalkersaga wrote:

shazzdan wrote:

skywalkersaga wrote:The US to UK shipping costs are indeed the worst. And then you get hit with the customs charges on top of it.... ugh. There’s currently something that costs about 35 gbp that I was eyeing up, but with shipping and customs the total would have been three times that!

Find someone in the US to buy it for you and send it as a gift without the invoice.

That is indeed probably the only way it would work. In normal circumstances, I wouldn't mind asking a friend or family member to do that, but right now I wouldn't ask anyone to take the risk of an unnecessary trip to the post office. If it's still available if/when things are less worrisome, then maybe... : )

All of the Post Offices here in the States are up and running, and aside from the major metropolitan areas (where the majority of the virus issues are centered), people in more rural areas are doing the social distancing thing, and that seems to be working — so very few people are afraid to still do things like go to the PO (at least in my county, and the surrounding ones).

Oh ok, good to know! : )

NEXT EXCITING INSTALMENT!

According to Royal Mail tracking my package from GianToy has now reached a Royal Mail (RM) distribution centre in the UK, meaning that hopefully I should get it in a day or two at most now. So that's around four-five days (including weekends) longer than usual, which isn't bad at all, considering the current situation. Of course I imagine this relatively quick turnaround is largely due to GT's arrangement with RM - everything else I have on order is taking weeks (and weeks) to arrive here.

Although interestingly, the GT package hasn't taken the usual route that GT orders do and is at a different RM regional distribution centre (RDC) than before, halfway across the country. Which suggests the package may have arrived via a different airport than usual and/or that RM's RDCs are operating a reduced service.

Just to remind readers, it's a headsculpt I'm waiting on, so it's a medium-small package. In these 'interesting times' anything larger may take longer (even though that hasn't been my experience with GT in the past).

I'll update when it finally arrives on my doormat.

So my headsculpt from GianToy is now here - all in, that's taken from Friday 17th to today Tuesday 28th. Four to five days longer than usual from Giantoy, but still a lot quicker than other Asian-based sellers at the moment. Remember though that this is to the UK where GT have a 'special shipping arrangement' with Royal Mail, so this kind of delivery speed might not apply everywhere.

The sculpt I got is really interesting, by the way - the YMTOYS 'Anna' sculpt, which turns out to be smaller than average and very pale (certainly not suntan as GianToy advertise, not even nearly). I was disappointed initially as I had it earmarked for a particular project with a body it turns out to be too small and pale for, but! I'm going to try it on an S24 body later as it looks like (drum roll....) it might be a good fit for it.

I'll dig out the head sculpt's relevant thread and report later.

Valiarde wrote:Ebay I had no problems at all last two month, but all my stuff from different asian shops still not here despite some mails that it is underway. I guess lots of stuff held back at customs or interim storage somewhere.

I'm still waiting on no less than 7 orders from Monkey Depot, the oldest of which dates to Mar 24. Normally, it takes about 2 weeks from Mesa Az to Montreal, but lately...a complete disaster. What I'm hoping now is that when my orders start to arrive, several will be delivered at once.

Today I finally received the first of seven parts orders placed with Monkey Depot since March 21st.  I of course do not blame Monkey Depot for this but the Covid 19 situation.  

What I am wondering now is will the other orders start arriving at something resembling the intervals in which I placed them?  If so, I should be getting another order next week.  If not....who knows?  

About a third of the items I ordered were to accessorize my Laura Neville survivor figure, another third to be split up among the six other figures I have so far, and a final third to be used on a future figure, which brings me to a point.  Has anyone ordered from Giantoy lately and gotten their stuff quickly?  I'm kind of curious.

SB32-2_0003 by Gary  Menten, on Flickr
Laura in need of accessories.....

SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

My more recent experiences with deliveries has been sour, not because of delays (though they do happen) but due to missing/damaged parcels.

First off I had ordered a small cheap item from Amazon that stated delivered on the tracking but nothing had been. I contacted Amazon and they sent a replacement which did arrive, but it had a 3 inch hole poked into the brown box (it looked like two thumbs had pushed a hole in, the creases etc matched up when testing it myself on a junk box) so I can only assume that the delivery driver had nicked the first parcel but found it contained cheap item so he checked the next one by making a hole in the box to check contents, saw it wasn't worth nicking so delivered it. Iknow it was done before it left the van as I opened the door to pick up the parcel right after he put it down.

Next and worse was a pre-ordered HT punisher War Machine ordered from KGHobby which was delayed a little (dont mind that) and once shipped I tracked it and saw that it was out for delivery on the 26th May with deliery time of 2pm. I waited around the entire day but the tracking status remained the same until midnight where it reverted to the previous 'destination scan' status with no estimated delivery date. I called UPS and the agent didnt believe it was ever out for delivery (he implied I misread the tracking status because all he could see was destination scan). I insisted that the tracking had indeed said it was out for delivery the enire day on the 26th.

A day or so later I got a response via email from another agent who stated that the parcel was indeed missing and they advised that I should file a claim. I contacted KGHobby for the shipper contact information needed to fill the claim form which they provided and I proceeded to fill in the claim form and when complete clicked submit only to be greeted by an error page. I tried again, re-entered all the info and clicked submit only to be greeted by the same error. I tried again multiple times over a couple days with the same error page.

I contacted UPS to inform them that the site was broken so I could not file a claim. their response was to ask the sender to file the claim (I did ask KGHobby to try filing the claim their side but no confirmation yet it was done). I replied with an almost angry email asking why UPS couldn't either fix the site bug or give me another way to submit the claim since they lost (more likely their new hire driver stole) the parcel and it was their site error preventing me even making a claim. All they did was reply with contact number for their technical team (they can't be arsed to let their tech team know about the issue then, they expect the customer they have been messing around to waste time and money calling their tech team to sort out their issue).

So, I am currently without the figure, without any replacement/refund and waiting in some sort of limbo for either the site bug to be fixed to file a claim or wait on the sender to file it.

I know I know, first world problems.

jaztermareal wrote:SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

My more recent experiences with deliveries has been sour, not because of delays (though they do happen) but due to missing/damaged parcels.

First off I had ordered a small cheap item from Amazon that stated delivered on the tracking but nothing had been. I contacted Amazon and they sent a replacement which did arrive, but it had a 3 inch hole poked into the brown box (it looked like two thumbs had pushed a hole in, the creases etc matched up when testing it myself on a junk box) so I can only assume that the delivery driver had nicked the first parcel but found it contained cheap item so he checked the next one by making a hole in the box to check contents, saw it wasn't worth nicking so delivered it. Iknow it was done before it left the van as I opened the door to pick up the parcel right after he put it down.

Next and worse was a pre-ordered HT punisher War Machine ordered from KGHobby which was delayed a little (dont mind that) and once shipped I tracked it and saw that it was out for delivery on the 26th May with deliery time of 2pm. I waited around the entire day but the tracking status remained the same until midnight where it reverted to the previous 'destination scan' status with no estimated delivery date. I called UPS and the agent didnt believe it was ever out for delivery (he implied I misread the tracking status because all he could see was destination scan). I insisted that the tracking had indeed said it was out for delivery the enire day on the 26th.

A day or so later I got a response via email from another agent who stated that the parcel was indeed missing and they advised that I should file a claim. I contacted KGHobby for the shipper contact information needed to fill the claim form which they provided and I proceeded to fill in the claim form and when complete clicked submit only to be greeted by an error page. I tried again, re-entered all the info and clicked submit only to be greeted by the same error. I tried again multiple times over a couple days with the same error page.

That pretty much sucks.....

That does indeed really suck, jaz. I've had issues in the past with parcel deliveries (UPS specifically -- they're customer service at times is absolute $#%t. Took me about 2 months to get an issue sorted out (out of which I only received a refund, as by that time the POd item was out of stock everywhere -- and I wasn't going to pay eBay "Bend over and take it Dry Style" prices. I hope it gets resolved for you, Brother.

Stryker2011 wrote:That does indeed really suck, jaz. I've had issues in the past with parcel deliveries (UPS specifically -- they're customer service at times is absolute $#%t. Took me about 2 months to get an issue sorted out (out of which I only received a refund, as by that time the POd item was out of stock everywhere -- and I wasn't going to pay eBay "Bend over and take it Dry Style" prices.  I hope it gets resolved for you, Brother.

My aunt once sent me a computer by UPS. They dropped the box so hard that the processor came out of it's socket and several pins were bent. Fortunately i was able to straighten them out and put them back in and it worked after that, but I've always been wary of them ever since. At my office, we are very wary about using them owing to the number of problems we've had shipping with them.

UPDATE: over a month since my Punisher War Machine figure was lost/stolen by UPS I am still out of pocket. After a lot of back and fourth with UPS trying to file a claim as I went into in my earlier post, I contacted the technical team they gave the number for and they bounced me back to CS as they said it was something a CS manager would need to do manually. I contacted CS again and finally was given the explanation that the reason the site wouldn't allow me to file a claim was due to me having the 'wrong account type' (business account) and that if you do not have the correct kind of account you cannot file a claim. They said they could manually open a claim for me as receiver but if they did so and could not locate the parcel the case would be closed (READ: we will not compensate you) so the only way to get compensation for lost/stolen parcel would be for the sender to file a claim. I contacted KGhobby severy times via email and FB message and still cant get any confirmation they even started a claim, let alone any indication they will refund/replace. I just sent another email to them politely demanding some sort of confirmation of what is happening as it has been over a month and I have done everything I can but I get the feeling KGhobby are just avoiding any responsibility.



Meantime, I ordered a couple Items from TNSfigures but they are not posting orders until things get back to normal with the shipping route with Hong Kong Post so we'll see how that goes.

Oh man, that does suck. I do remember that the seller is the one who had to file the claim in my situation, as well. I hope KGH steps up, or I’ll be removing them from the list of responsible sellers. It seems to be happening more and more lately with some of these retailers — not sure if it’s because of HK issues with the Mainland, or what, but it’s not looking good for the future of ordering from many places in that part of Asia.

Stryker2011 wrote:Oh man, that does suck. I do remember that the seller is the one who had to file the claim in my situation, as well. I hope KGH steps up, or I’ll be removing them from the list of responsible sellers. It seems to be happening more and more lately with some of these retailers — not sure if it’s because of HK issues with the Mainland, or what, but it’s not looking good for the future of ordering from many places in that part of Asia.

My last email must have done something because today they replied with request to confirm address for figure to be posted to me (I assume a replacement, meaning they must have been compensated by UPS).

I will see if it arrives this time and update with confirmation when all is sorted. just annoyed it took this long but part of me wonders if maybe they had claimed the loss much earlier but waited until HK postal services to UK were back to normal before confirming. I noticed my order of a couple items from TNS has shipped today so standard post seems to be resuming

So, I've finally hit a snag with the current shipping situation in China. As some people might remember, I pre-ordered that 1/6 scale elevator diorama set from a reliable eBay seller over a year ago. Around January, I started seeing other sellers who were offering claiming they were in stock and shipping. So when I contacted the seller I bought from, they said they were still waiting for theirs, and kept putting me off. Finally, in May, they said that they simply can't ship to me right now, there isn't an available freight option, and they'll let me know when they can ship. Frustrated to say the least.

I am seeing still listed on AliExpress, and they seem to still be shipping to the US (for for like $100 less than I paid too). So, I would love to know the thoughts from the crew here. Should I ride it out, or insist on my money back? Can I even get my money back after over a year waiting? Should I order from AliExpress? For $100 cheaper, I do worry that it's some sort of cheap knockoff, but I may just be paranoid. Even after all this, I don't think the original seller is scamming or anything. They're a reliable seller with a great rating who has been active for years, and who I've ordered from before. And I actually ordered some 1/6 shopping carts from another seller who immediately refunded me and said they just can't get to the USA right now, so I know it's a legitimate issue. But man, after waiting over a year, I just want this elevator, and would really like to not be out $470.

Adam, I would cancel with eBay and see if you can’t get your money back, and then try Aliexpress (as long as the seller seems reputable; can you use PayPal for that cheaper one as well?)

Just as Stryker said. I'd add that IF it is a "cheap-er" knockoff after all, I am certain you, Rev, certainly have the ability to spruce it up into something better than the original.

I’d go for AliExpress, simply as you would be able to get your money back pretty easily on their if it turned out to be shoddy quality. But just make sure to message the seller about a) whether it is truly in stock or not, and b) whether they’d be able to ship it in timely fashion, just to make sure you don’t run into the same problem.

just to add: if you paid via card you may be able to do a chargeback if needed. if the money was from paypal balance probably not an option this late

Thanks all for the advice on this! I'm going to contact the original seller today and hope for the best. I'm really hoping they'll just refund without making an issue out of it, since it's been over a year, and they just can't send it. It seems a pretty fair ask.

Stryker, I don't think AliExpress will let me use Paypal, but I've ordered through them before, so they already have my credit card, and I feel like they're reasonably reputable anyway.

GubernatorFan, I so appreciate the vote of confidence, but man, I want this to come out of the box photo ready. This is suposed to save me some work, not add another project. My bigger fear is it'll come and be like 1/12 or something terrible, although the listing does list dimensions, and they match the original, so I'm just being nervous. And who am I kidding, it'll probably get modified eventually either way. Nothing is safe in this houses...

Skywalkersaga, that is a good point about messaging to confirm. I'll have to make sure.

Jaztermareal, yeah, it was unfortunately Paypal right from my bank account, so probably no dice there. But if I have to get ebay involved, I at least have a long record of correspondence with the seller full admitting it hasn't shipped, so I hope that holds some weight.

And seriously, appreciate you all chiming in on this. Man, I just so badly want to get this in hand. Been so excited since this got posted, and dying to photograph.

^
Maybe a bit late to this, but in my experience on AliExpress it varies from seller to seller if they accept PayPal or not, and you often don't find out until you get to the Checkout. If things do go wrong, they're reliable enough in getting your refund to you in the end, but I can testify that the customer service interface and language barrier make it a very real, very frustrating slog to get one authorised. Be prepared to continually explain the problem in tedious and finite detail anything up to a dozen times during this initial process.

ELSEWISE:

Seems churlish of me to moan in these 'extraordinary times' but the UK postal system is running in fits and starts here (y'know, like the rest of society because... y'know). Good thing I work from home, as mail can and does arrive at any time of day (or not at all) now.

Long waits aside, my first real shipping disaster of the crisis has just occurred. I just got a package of 1/6th clothing from China 'finally delivered' to me... in Amsterdam. I, however, am in the UK.  It's not the usual ebay tracking scam because I've dealt with the seller before with no problems. It's a shipping foul-up, purely because they've used a different and less reliable carrier than usual. The seller however could of course care less until the shipping window closes at the end of next month and I can get my refund.

I was also wondering where my most recent Monkey Depot delivery had gotten to, until I remembered the current Covid-19 Reality Check situation that seems to be only just kicking in now in the States, and the likely knock-on effects to the Postal Service.

DISCLAIMER: I do realise that not every US citizen was in need of a Covid Reality Check. Just the one in charge of running stuff, mostly.



SPOOKY EPILOGUE:

I just now, right this five minutes ago, received a package of stuff from China that I'd long written-off, and even gotten a refund for.

Ordered it back in February.

Sooooooo my replacement Punisher War Machine from KGHobby arrived today. They came through in the end and it arrived quite fast via EMS shipping. Moral of the story: Do not trust UPS to deliver anything or to help out when things go wrong.

Relieved to finally have Punisher on display 1.5 months after original scheduled arrival day.

jaztermareal wrote:Sooooooo my replacement Punisher War Machine from KGHobby arrived today. They came through in the end and it arrived quite fast via EMS shipping. Moral of the story: Do not trust UPS to deliver anything or to help out when things go wrong.

Relieved to finally have Punisher on display 1.5 months after original scheduled arrival day.

UPS suck unmentionable body parts - they never deliver on time, their drivers are the surliest a-holes I've ever encountered (when that is they can be bothered to even knock on your door at all instead of just leaving a 'sorry we missed you' card), and their idea of 'a nearby pick-up point' is a post office associate fifteen miles away. I have never had a single pleasing encounter with them - so much so that I now take the trouble to find out if a seller uses them as a carrier before buying from them.

Glad to hear you finally got your Punisher.