[time-nuts] Cross border shipping ==> was: GPS receivers W/timing outputs greater than 1PPS

David Kirkby david.kirkby at onetel.net
Thu Jun 27 08:49:13 EDT 2013


<someone, not sure who wrote>

>   I don't  know  why   they   think   there  is  additional  risk with
>    international shipments. Just send it with a signature required, and
>    it has exactly the same risk as any ordinary shipment in the US. But
>    a lot of vendors feel the same way.

As someone living in the UK, I do dislike it when someone won't ship
outside the USA. But over the years I have learned there ARE
additional risks for both buyer and seller. Nobody will convince me
otherwise.

The main one I see is the costs involved if an item has to be returned
for some reason. Paypal insist the buyer pay the return shipping, and
the seller the forward shipping. So irrespective of the reason
something has to be returned, someone will lose out. Whatever the
item, the costs of shipping internationally is much larger than
locally, and on heavy test equipment the cost of shipping is often
more than the value of the item.

Here are a list of horror stories, which involve deals with both
idiotic sellers, to arguably the worlds best test equipment
manufacturer (Agilent). All have resulted in either

* Me losing out
* Seller losing out
* Both of us losing out.

Some have resulted in bad feeling, two of which become very public.

In one case the seller lost £500 (GBP), which is around $750. That was
a bit of an unusual situation though.

The reasons have ranged from total incompetence, to something nobody
could have forseen. As such, I believe there is additional risk even
if both parties and sensible and honest.

1) I bought an HP 70310A precision frequency reference. It arrived
with a fault. The shipping cost was more than the item. Paypal would
insist I return it to the seller at my cost, which would have been
pointless returning it. The seller kindly said to keep it, and he
would send another, which he did. The replacement worked fine.

I gave the unit to a friend, who had a bad HP 70310A. He managed to
fix his HP 70310A with parts from my HP 70310A, so I came out ok
there, and the seller lost a faulty item and Fedex shipping costs to
the UK.

2) I bought an SMA connector gage from eBay seller "jewels". This
looked complete, with every location in the foam with a piece in it
that looked as though it was part of the kit. The item arrived and I
got the manual and realized about 5 critical items were missing.
Someone had put new foam it, so it looked complete, but it was not.
The seller offered me something like a 60% discount if I kept it, but
the missing parts made it only fit for the bin. I returned it. The
seller did agree to both cover my return shipping fees and import
duty, so she was willing to ensure I never lost anything.

I felt she had been so fair, that I did not ask for the return
shipping or duty. But we both lost out.

She relisted the item, and made it clear there were parts missing. She
is an honest seller, and I will certainly always buy from her.

2) I bought an HP 85051B verification kit from a US seller
(spectratest on eBay). This has 4 components, plus a floppy which has
data on the 4 components. One of the attenuators in the kit had an S/N
different from that which matched the floppy disk., That would have
made the kit useless without a very costly recalibration. The item
cost was around $500, but getting it recalibrated would be around
$2000. I returned it to the seller, as it was practically useless. He
lost out carriage to the UK, and I lost carriage back to the USA and I
never bothered recovering the duty.

The unscroupulouse seller (spectratest on eBay), then relisted the
item not making a purchaser aware the attenuator in the kit was not
the same as the floppy disk was for.

Whereas we all use instruments out of calibration, a VNA verification
kit would be totally useless unless recalibrated, and the cost of
calibration on them is very high - far more than on a VNA.

3) I bought an HP 8753A VNA + S-parameter test set from the US, which
was badly packaged and arrived damaged. It was going to cost around
$350 to return it, so we negotiated a deal and I would repair it. With
hindsight I wish I had returned it and written off the $350, as it has
sat around here nearly a year gathering dust, and I've not even taken
the cover off.

(Anyone in the UK want an 8753A that needs a bit of TLC? It does work,
but I had to make a bracket to hold the power switch in. I've never
fixed the power switch)

That was no doubt the total incompetence of the seller. But I had a
similarly badly packaged Yaesu transceiver shiped to me from someone
in England, and it managed to survive, unlike the HP which had gone on
a much longer journey.

4) I bought an Agilent N9923A vector network analyzer from seller
"agilentused" on eBay. It was paid via Paypal, in USD. This is really
Agilent. The VNA arrived nearly a month later, which was to be
expected as it was stated delivery would be a few weeks. Despite it
being reconditioned, the VNA was in excellent condition. I can't fault
Agilent for how it was reconditioned.

However, in my opinion the VNA was not fit for purpose. There were
many firmware bugs, which Agilent did agree were too many. There was
also a hardware fault, which Agilent said probably needed the main
board replaced. I told Agilent to keep it.

Agilent paid the return shipping cost. Since by the time this was all
sorted out, it was too late to cancel the Paypal transaction, Agilent
was going to refund me the purchase price in USD, which would mean I
would lose nearly £500 (around $750) due to big differences in the buy
and sell rates of the two currencies. There had not been much change
in the GBP/USD exchange rate - it was just the difference in buy and
sell rates between Paypal and Agilent's bank.

I was fuming over this, and made my concerns about Agilent pretty public.

In the end Agilent offered me £500 as a gesture of good will, which
was a bit more than what I actually lost. So Agilent lost big-time on
this

* Transport costs from Malasia to the UK
* Paypal fees
* eBay fees
* Transport costs from my house to Agilent's UK offices, and probably
back to Malasia
* £500 they paid me as a gesture of good will.


5) I bought an HP 85052B 3.5 mm VNA calibration kit from the USA. It
arrived in poor condition. The seller did agree to give me my money
back, but I would have had to pay the shipping back to the USA. With
hindsight I wish I had returned it. Now I'm stuck with a cal kit I
can't use, and I did have an agreement with the seller when I bought
it that I would not resell it. He did not want to sell it to a trader
who made money from it.

I don't want to wind him up, but it has got to the point where I think
selling it is the only sensible option.

6) I bought some rectifier diodes from someone in the USA. They were
grossly under the advertised specification. Both the seller and I lost
out, and it came quite public too.

http://lists.contesting.com/_amps/1998-08/msg00137.html

To this day the guy thinks I tried to rip him off, and I know I did not.

7) Bought an HP 85050B (APC7 / 7 mm) VNA cal kit from a US seller. It
arrived with the foam badly damaged, and the kit was incomplete and
other items substituted. We did negotiate a reduced price, and I think
in the end I did not do too bad, though I've still not got the kit
into a complete condition, thought it is much closer to useable than
the 85052B 3.5 mm cal kit.


I could list many more examples where trades have gone wrong, and due
to one or more of

* Import duty
* Transport costs
* eBay fees
* Paypal fees
* Difference in buy and sell rate of currencies

someone has lost out. In some cases it is incompetence, with the most
extreme example being the rectifier diodes, but in other cases it is
just a genuine mistake.

Dave, G8WRB (lotated in England)


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