geekhack
geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: appleonama on Sat, 05 March 2016, 03:32:39
-
A couple months ago I ordered some items that weight about 1kg and shipping was $22.
I recently tried to buy the same item but they doubled the weight for shipping and it was now going to be $43.
This was strange to me so I complained and they dropped it back to 1kg and price went down to $23. I just weighed the item and it was ~.5kg but they claimed after packing it is ~.7kg and the shipping company would round it to 1kg.
I am pretty disappointed that they are trying to rip me off by manipulating the weight. I don't want to do business with a company that is trying to milk me by being sketchy.
Can someone point me to a better proxy?
-
taobaofocus, ordered twice, no issues.
Same for other people that ordered there.
-
taobaofocus, ordered twice, no issues.
Ordered quite some stuff there. Very good, nice and quick support!
-
Sounds similar to my issue with them. They charged me shipping, shipped half my order (which weighed less than they charged me for since the charged weight was for the complete order that they had shown in the picture), then said I needed to pay inflated shipping again to get the rest of it. Super sketchy.
-
Will certainly keep this in mind for the future, thanks for sharing. taobaofocus it is.
-
taobaofocus, ordered twice, no issues.
Same for other people that ordered there.
^
I've always used them, service has always been great
-
May try them next time. Bhiner charged me not much for fees, but the shipping cost was huge. $50+ for shipping alone.
-
Looks like I wont be using bhiner anymore. Their fee's may be cheap but they rip you off by overcharging you with shipping. Hopefully I have a better experience with taobaofocus.
thanks guys
-
just wanted to add my shipping experiences with them for comparison (bearing in mind all of the quotes are based off of today's XE exchange rate vs. whatever paypal's was back then)-
bhiner cost - $13.86, hkp quote- $9.70 (3/8/16)
bhiner cost - $87.41, ems quote - $140.65 (11/12/15), but bhiner probably has discounted vendor pricing
bhiner cost - $38.47, hkp quote- $34.89 (3/2/15)
and then i don't know which shipping service they used for my first order with them (back then they offered "bhiner express" shipping), but the shipping cost was $7.88 on a 1kg package in a medium packet. (1/20/15)
in general, pretty sure most of the services i've used (for cn/tw/kr/jp) have overcharged me for shipping to offset their low proxy fees though. they'll also sometimes add-on fees for things like packaging materials and combining packages (even if that only means dropping a tiny package into the other package's box), and so it's not uncommon that the shipping-related fees/markup add up to an amount similar (if not more) than their service fee. i just consider it standard gray-area proxy tactics at this point, so just as long as the service they provide is what i'm expecting (good comms, fast turn-around times, adequate packaging, able to correct issues if-necessary), then i still consider it a good service.
there's also the fact that often times with foreign auctions, the seller requires the winner have massive amounts of positive feedback to consent to selling the item to them, so there is some value there that the proxies aren't accounting for in their standard fee. so i'm good with being scammed out a few dollars here and there if it means long-standing services that open up closed markets to me have incentive to remain in business.
i'll give taobaofocus a harder look next chinese go-around though, thank you for the info.
-
Had a bad experience with them today. I ordered a Plum84 RGB-backlit Topre clone, thought it's a better deal than aliexpress cause faster shipping.
Week after they say the keyboard has arrived and show me a photo. It's the non-RGB version which is like $20 cheaper. I tell them they made a mistake, for 3 hours straight they tried to persuade me that I got something wrong and asked me to pay even more money to get the RGB version. I send them screenshots of their own website that says I ordered the RGB version and they go silent.
Also the shipping thing is indeed shady. The small packet airmail suddenly costed me $37 to Japan from HK whereas the usual rate is $15, $20 tops. I asked them about EMS price, it was $27, but the weight has magically changed from 1.1kg airmail to 1.5kg EMS.
After reading this thread, I sent them a request for a full refund, hoping to get my money back at least, very disappointed.