Miffed at fasttech

[BlackpoolAndy]

My Vamo V2 turned up yesterday and sat for 24 hours in post office.. i picked up today and sorry chaps im keeping it as spare and something to look at.. I wont be ordering again tho as it is the black chrome version and has like watermark stains in picture. i cant be assed sending back..

 

[Mark]

I will always seek to use and support UK vendors personally. My experience of fast tech and seemingly a lot of others experiences (if not all in fairness) has not changed this. I don't mind a bargain and am amongst the first to spot the same thing cheaper elsewhere but there is nothing to beat the ability to sort any issues quickly with a trusted UK seller IMO.

 

[cdurkin100]

I will always seek to use and support UK vendors personally. My experience of fast tech and seemingly a lot of others experiences (if not all in fairness) has not changed this. I don't mind a bargain and am amongst the first to spot the same thing cheaper elsewhere but there is nothing to beat the ability to sort any issues quickly with a trusted UK seller IMO.

I agree Mark and I'm not just saying that as a vendor. I have ordered some so called evods from fastech for personal use and tbh they are crap. Flavour ain't the same, they don't last as long and the overall quality is much lower.

Its an old saying ' if it seems to good to be true, it probably is'

I will stick to ordering from UK vendors I have a direct line to incase of a problem if I need anymore which will be quite soon as most of these are now in the bin.

 

[robteifi]

Yay, Vamo arrived today!

Not a great time to discover that one of the 18650 IMR batteries I bought especially appears to be dead

 

[stumpey]

There are a few of us on here that say "Support your UK Vendors" , if you get a bad product you can tell the vendor, if its broken again you can tell the vendor and a many other reasons why you should. As stated before we are not buying high value goods these are relatively low cost items the price differences are not that large, but for the minimal extra cost you know what you are getting or you can send it back its the law.
I have found that all the UK vendors I have dealt with have been top people they know what they are selling and will help when you have a problem and replace an item without quibble , that's what I pay for.

Remember without our UK Vendors we will not get our shinies or juice next day and will have to wait maybe weeks for a delivery. I for one buy from UK vendors 99% of the time they need our support and they employ UK people in these times we need to help as much as we can. Many of the UK Vendors are also fighting our corner over the vaping debacle I know its in their interest but its also in ours but they cant do it if they are out of business because we are buying from China!.

I'll get my coat

Steve

 

[robteifi]

Oh, I've been supporting UK vendors quite a bit already

In fact the battery that failed was from a UK vendor - come to think of it, the same goes for the 18500 that failed a couple of weeks ago.

 

[Raguri]

My Vamo V2 turned up yesterday and sat for 24 hours in post office.. i picked up today and sorry chaps im keeping it as spare and something to look at.. I wont be ordering again tho as it is the black chrome version and has like watermark stains in picture. i cant be assed sending back..

Have you tried polishing it? May just be some residue left on the tubes

 

[Tobes]

Hello folks. This isn't related to Fasttech directly,but it's close enough I reckon.

I took a £22 punt on a SS Vamo v2 from China on 2/7/13,but not from Fasttech. The China Post tracking situation is a nightmare and the customs process is a major drag. My tracking number didn't appear on the China Post database until 6/7/13 and then the next status to appear was 'Opening' on 7/7/13. Having looked around t'interweb,it would appear that Chinese customs have opened the thing for some reason.....as if they haven't seen an e-cig or two being sent by that particular vendor to the UK before! Because nobody over here is ordering these,right? So,today the status still shows as 'opening'. People have said that their status has 'stalled' and they get no further updates past a certain point and their parcel ends up arriving anyway,suggesting that the CP tracking process is sketchy at best. But if this status is true,does it really take four days to reseal a ####ing parcel and shove it on a plane?

While the package will probably turn up at some point during the second half of 2013,I categorically won't be buying from China again. It's really not worth the hassle. In fact,if my Vamo ever turns up I'll be surprised beyond belief. If it doesn't,then I'll have the joy of opening a Paypal case,which is arguably the worst case scenario.

Yes,we pay more in the UK for electronic goods than in other countries,substantially more. We live in a country with a high cost of living and ridiculous VAT and a foreign bargain can seem a mightily tempting option. But my advice to anyone considering buying from China is:
1) Treat it as a gamble,nothing more,nothing less
2) Don't obsess over whether or not it's going to turn up in six days or six months (remember.it was a gamble right?) You'll only wind yourself up.
3) Only buy if you can afford to lose the money.
4) Remember you're dealing with a different culture,language barrier and timezone when you raise queries with a Chinese vendor. We are truly spoilt in terms of how quickly post arrives from the UK/EU/US and this only serves to make us have high expectations. Having lived in Turkey,I'll never knock Royal Mail again. The amount of domestic mail their postal service failed to deliver to me was pretty staggering.
5) If the previous four points don't sit well with you,save up and buy something that is already in stock with a UK vendor. Chances are they had to deal with the stress of the importing,instead of you. It's probably worth paying more then,eh?


EDIT: For any vapers out there who are as equally mystified as me about the status of their order from China,I've just found a link which gives more information about the status. My vendor gave me the following tracking link,which tells me the status is 'opening':http://www.17track.net/IndexEn.html. But,I just found another link which appears to be the official China Post tracking page: http://track-chinapost.com/track_chinapost.php It's basic.....VERY basic,but rather than just state 'opening' it tells me that my parcel is 'Waiting for transit airline space'. Now,isn't that a much more descriptive and encouraging status? I can live with that Which brings into question why the hell are two different statuses available for the same parcel?

 

[stumpey]

I work for a courier company that specialises in China. There are many regulations when sending from China that need to be completed the main one is that the vendor must have a License to export, they then get a CR number that they have to use on all export documentation. If this is not shown then China customs will hold onto the shipment until they get the correct documentation. Many vendors do not have a CR or title and "borrow" a title , for a small amount of money, to enable them to export goods. Now there are various "loop holes" that stuff slides through to the outside world but as they get discovered they get closed , so this may be the reason why some stuff takes so long to get to the customer as the vendor has had to find another way to move the goods. All reasons why it could take a long time to get your package, its a very tangled web getting stuff in and out of China and its getting tougher so dont hold your breath

Steve

 

[Tobes]

I work for a courier company that specialises in China. There are many regulations when sending from China that need to be completed the main one is that the vendor must have a License to export, they then get a CR number that they have to use on all export documentation. If this is not shown then China customs will hold onto the shipment until they get the correct documentation. Many vendors do not have a CR or title and "borrow" a title , for a small amount of money, to enable them to export goods. Now there are various "loop holes" that stuff slides through to the outside world but as they get discovered they get closed , so this may be the reason why some stuff takes so long to get to the customer as the vendor has had to find another way to move the goods. All reasons why it could take a long time to get your package, its a very tangled web getting stuff in and out of China and its getting tougher so dont hold your breath

Steve

Cheers stumpey. Definitely not holding my breath on this one. I had visions of Cold War-style bureaucracy before I even clicked the pay button In my case it looks relatively positive compared to what some people have gone through,whereby their tracking numbers never even make it onto the system,as it would appear that my stuff's been checked and chucked in a huge skip with 'Out' written on it,awaiting the cheapest possible way out of China. But there are so many reports on here of people receiving orders that were placed after orders they're still waiting on,so what you've described here explains why it's so erratic. Thanks for the info. This is a bit of fun for me really. I've made considerably bigger mistakes in life that have cost me dearly. If I get my Vamo....nice. If it works....even better. Twenty two quid won't rock my world,but it might for some. At the end of the day,it's the price of three packs of fags