Hello Randy, Thank you for a comprehensive response. With mass production techniques being widely available, the old proverb, “you get what you pay for” has a new urgency. Copyright considerations are largely ignored and while it is likely true that no-one wants to spend a $1000 when one can spend $58 on an item to do the same work, they are unlikely to perform in the same way. You will be aware that Fluke multimeters had issues with counterfeit items. I even saw a meter on some temporary web pages (cannot find it now) in bright yellow that called itself a LUKEF!
While I see the logic behind some manufacturers reducing production costs by using Chinese labour, unless the manufacturer has reasonable QA processes (e.g. Apple) the products coming from PRC are likely not as good. In the UK, I had access to all global markets but having been disappointed twice, I went with JTech (League City, TX) . Jay was super helpful and his support was outstanding when I had an issue. I spent around £700 ($842) on JTech products. The stuff has performed admirably and without fault.
As for Amazon/PRC issues… even your admirable legal team connections may struggle. My wife (bless her) bought an item that was sold by Amazon except it was not their product and it was junk. It was a self-assembly shelving on a framework. She could not assemble it and I was requested to assist. Nothing was aligned and all of the screw holes and support bar holes were misaligned by about 2 inches! Amazon refused to take the item back because it was a company in PRC that sold the item through Amazon.
TLDR: The company would not refund the cost unless they could see the item. Item was $50 and postage would have amounted to $350 because of its volumetric rather than actual weight. I sent images and they offered a 10% discount on another one of their items to compensate me for the non-functional item! The company would not issue an RMA number and refused to accept their own garbage back. Lots of lessons learned but buying PRC made junk was not one of them.
Jeff:
When I bought my Ortur 15 watt it lasted about 40 days. In the middle of a burn that thing
locked up on the X drive. I mean locked up so bad it “broke” the back plate that the X drive stepper is mounted to. I took step by step pictures when I took it apart. I discovered that the spacers between the guide wheels and both the front and back plates are different lengths. They also can be installed
backwards as in my case. When it locked up the stepper motor applied so much pressure that it broke the back board.
Ortur has been really good to me on replacements parts. I contacted them, filled out their forms and they did want pictures so that they could understand just what I was talking about. (LOL) I sent them 17 pics and each pic had a detailed report explaining what, where, how, why and should have been.
Before the back board broke the little cooling fan bearings started singing and I would use a toothbrush to give a couple wacks and off we go.
About 8 hours after I sent my report in I got a response, I don’t remember the mans name, really
nice guy. He said that he just sent paper work to the plant and they are sending two new plates, and a
fan and he put a rush order on it. Seven days later my parts came in from, (ready for this?) From China. Did not cost me a penny. They also included a new power board on top of the fan. That new power board came in handy about a month later. My first power board developed a bad connection on the board where the diode plugs in. Diode stops burning and I could wiggle the diode wires and it would start burning again for about an hour and then go sleep on me. Wiggle the wires and off we go again.
A long story short, I’m really happy with Ortur, they did me right and didn’t mess around about it.
I think I remember, but don’t quote me on it, they said that their main office was in Austria ?
Check this out:
Origin - Sync Time: 2022-07-09 05:02:59 (GMT-05:00)
2022-07-05 19:46 Los Angeles USA, 离开UNITED STATES Los Angeles USA Los Angeles USA
2022-07-04 12:35 Los Angeles USA, 到达UNITED STATES Los Angeles USA Los Angeles USA
2022-07-04 09:35 Los Angeles USA, 邮件已被海关放行
2022-07-02 23:22 Los Angeles USA, 到达UNITED STATES Los Angeles USA Los Angeles USA
2022-07-02 12:22 SHE, 航班已从始发地起飞 UNITED STATES SHE
2022-07-01 15:13 SHE, 到达UNITED STATES SHE SHE
2022-06-30 15:22 东莞市, 邮件离开商业处理中心
2022-06-30 15:10 东莞市, 邮件到达商业处理中心
2022-06-30 13:51 深圳机场站点, 离开中国 深圳机场站点 深圳机场站点
2022-06-29 16:56 东莞市, 到达【东莞速递处理中心】
2022-06-29 16:55 东莞市, 离开【东莞国际营业部】，下一站【广商中心】
2022-06-29 16:51 东莞市, 【东莞国际营业部】已收寄，揽投员：何武，电话：18825547899
I have no idea where my my toy is. If that’s what I get, if anything at all. I hate to think this, but you may right on me getting burned this time. Maybe in another 3 weeks I might receive something.
Randy
Purchasing items from China is always a gamble. My Geeetech 3D printer came with some bent bed screws. After contacting them, they sent me two from China! I’m sure the shipping cost almost as much as the original 3D printer. A second time I purchased a 3040 CNC for $130.00 on Amazon. One of the shafts did not have a threaded hole at the end of it. I contacted them and they did eventually send one after some back and forth. YMVA.
I also knowingly one time purchased a laser from a scam site. It was through PayPal and only $25. I eventually got a pair of $0.50 safety glasses. PayPal gladly reimbursed me, that is why I did it in the first place just to see what I would or would not receive.
I’m glad you got your money back. Paypal did you right. I have a daughter in Ok. that sells all my stuff. She also makes those tumblers, ball caps and Tees. That girl has had problems with Paypal several times. Turns out that people buy with plastic and then claim that said item was broken or something along that line and Paypal sides with the costumer. How my girl did it I don’t know for sure but she got it set up that Paypal cannot refund anything back to the costumer because the costumer handles and inspects the merchandise before buying.
Right now my biggest selling items are anything with wacky tobacky stuff on them. My daughter lives in Ok. which is a wacky tobacky state and those dope smokers go crazy over that stuff. Right now I’m buying 1/2in. thick, 12” X 18” Acacia cutting boards (good looking boards) for $9.99 each. I burn something whacky on it and that girl of mine is getting $65 “each” for them. 4” ceramic tiles, (scratch proof) burned with anything wacky on them, she is getting $10 each. When Lowes announced that they were discontinueing their Satori 4” sq. tiles. I hooked it to my Lowes in Wichita Falls bought their last 1123 tiles from them at 7 cents apiece. So I made a trip to my sons house way up north in Stillwater, Ok. I hit every Lowes in Ok. City and then every store in Stillwater. I came home two days later with 21&1/2 boxes of tile at 7cents each and there 98 tiles to a box. As of right now I still have about 28 boxes of tile still out in the garage. Now I don’t know what I’m going to do when I run out of tile. 4-1/4” tile is just to big.
I know what your thinking, where am I buying these cheap cutting boards? “ROSS DEPT. STORES”. 16” bamboo lazy Susan - $9.99, 15-3/4” x 11-3/4” bamboo cutting boards are just $7.99 each, 11”x14” are $6.99 each. I got know the manager lady at my Ross store pretty well now, she told me that the truck comes every Tues. around noon and if I was there she would pull all the boxes of boards to the side and she lets me go through them all and get what I want. On the average, I walk out of there with about 20 boards a week.
I need to go for now, I turned my 7 year old Siberian husky into a puppy again with my silver water. Now all she wants to do is play for 16 hrs. a day. I guess I’ll have go adopt a puppy for her to play with. She is wearing me out and I’m pushing 67 years.
Randy
@rcline Nice catch on the tiles. It always pays to stock up when you find that. I try to get my bargain tiles at the local habitat for humanity restore. I don’t know if you have a 99 cent only store in your neck of the woods but I buy good size bamboo cutting boards there between $2 and $3 each. I give away most of my work and barter for the rest. When I finally retire in a few years I just might make it a business instead of a expensive hobby!
We have 3 such type stores in Wichita Falls. I hate to say but all they have is stuff that looks like the homeless threw away. So I don’t go there and they never had what I wanted.
Well : Nothing has arrived here yet. I did another track today, LOL, The tracking company said that it was delivered on, (ready for this) 2022-13-07 at 10:32 am my time. Only it won’t be 10:30 am my time for another 7 hrs. Must be a time warp thing !! So we will see.
Randy
Jeff: it’s strange you just now replied. I have been sitting here for several hrs. now tracking my package I checked all the shippers UPS, Fedex, the whole bunch. I was just now checking with USPS International. And I found this:
Tracking Number: AG670674969CN
Status
Label Created, not yet in system
A status update is not yet available on your package. It will be available when the shipper provides an update or the package is delivered to USPS. Check back soon.
This has turned into a major 3-ring circus with nothing but clowns !!
Hope to know more tomorrow.
R.C.
Wow! Randy, I see that this has become a bit of a saga. It appears to show the goods are not yet with USPS. How can they be so slow at sending paid for items? As for the already delivered notice, it is hard to see how they know it was delivered.
I have deciphered some of the blurb from your previous message:
2022-06-29 16:51 Dongguan City, [Dongguan International Sales Department] has received and mailed, solicitor: He Wu, Tel: 18825547899
2022-06-29 16:55 Dongguan City, leave【Dongguan International Sales Department】, next stop【Guangzhou Business Center
2022-06-29 16:56 Dongguan City, arrived at [Dongguan Express Processing Center]
2022-06-30 13:51 Shenzhen Airport Station, departing from China Shenzhen Airport Station Shenzhen Airport Station
2022-06-30 15:10 Dongguan City, the mail arrives at the commercial processing center
2022-06-30 15:22 Dongguan City, mail leaves the commercial processing center
2022-07-01 15:13 arrive in USA
2022-07-02 12:22 The flight has departed from the origin - this is far more likely to be the departure point in China which has the airport code SHE. Shenyang Taoxian International Airport
2022-07-02 23:22 Arrival in LA
2022-07-04 09:35 Mail has been released by customs
2022-07-05 19:46 Leave LA
Yes it helps, My post master here, ( bless her sole) is a sweet little old lady and has been here in Petrolia for forty something years and she runs our PO all by herself. She told me about 17tracking.net, that’s how I got the shipping info on China Post.
I e-mailed 17tracking about this matter yesterday and found a reply a few minutes ago. They said they
could back track it starting from the point of leaving Chine and could find out the USA shipper and go from there. So we will see !
It is pretty nice of 17track to step up like that as fast as they did. My PO master, (Sharon) said that
17track could track a lot stuff that USPS cannot. I meant to talk with Sharon today but I got side tracked, it will wait.
I told my wife today that this was my new mission in life, “FIND THAT PACKAGE”. If there really is one.
Sounds really ideal and one of the benefits of a small township. Perhaps she will find it by placing an ad in the Enterprise for your mail package. Your link to 17 tracking web page got me a plain web page that has an unknown someone squatting on it.
If the package really departed LA on the 5th, it is difficult to see how a flight to the northern tip of TX could be taking 10 days. I guess the agent for the Chinese company must still be sitting on the package somewhere, literally. I wondered if they could be driving the package to TX all the way from CA.
“unknown someone squatting on it.” LOL ooops! try 17track.net.
I got an e-mail back from 17track. They said that all they could go by is what info was enterd by the shipper.
They did come up with several e-mail adds. to the shipper that I have not been able to find myself.
3 cheers for 17.
RC
My wife (bless her) bought an item that was sold by Amazon except it was not their product and it was junk. It was a self-assembly shelving on a framework. She could not assemble it and I was requested to assist. Nothing was aligned and all of the screw holes and support bar holes were misaligned by about 2 inches! Amazon refused to take the item back because it was a company in PRC that sold the item through Amazon.
very interesting!
Your link to