freakin' customs thief....

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FlamingoTutu

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Oh man, you got ripped off, your birthday is Monday and you’re stuck in Barstow?! Which god did you PO?

My birthday’s tomorrow. I ordered something I really wanted from Amazon and it said it would be here by today. Hasn’t even shipped. At least I know I’ll get it eventually. Fervently hope FT comes through for you.

:bday: to you,
:bday: to you,
:bday: poor PMCode
:bday: to you! :toast:
 

pmcode

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Oh man, you got ripped off, your birthday is Monday and you’re stuck in Barstow?! Which god did you PO?

My birthday’s tomorrow. I ordered something I really wanted from Amazon and it said it would be here by today. Hasn’t even shipped. At least I know I’ll get it eventually. Fervently hope FT comes through for you.

:bday: to you,
:bday: to you,
:bday: poor PMCode
:bday: to you! :toast:

Back at you...

:bday: to you,
:bday: to you,
:bday: FlamingoTutu
:bday: to you! :toast:[/QUOTE]

I do, thankfully have a few (cough,cough) (9 ego batts, a dozen clearos, 3 RDA's) to keep me going. Was really looking forward to the tank/rba and mech mod to play with over the weekend. Something to keep me upbeat, while the damn Steelers keep losing. :blink: Don't think I ever gotten a bigger vape headache than watching their damn defense attempt to play. :confused:
 

nostinkies

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That suxs. Two words for you. CHARGE BACK. Contact your bank card people and tell them. You'll be relieved of the bill and let them pursue the thief. It may take a month, but if it's not over their set dollar amount, there is usually no investigation. BOA has a low limit however, 25bucks I think. :?: Let them handle it, you get NO WHERE with the post office or trying to deal with customs.
 

Racehorse

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You don't know that it was Chinese Customs that opened the OP's package. As has been said above, it could have been US Customs.

I doubt US customs opened it.

But if there were batteries with the order, I expect they wouldn't pass customs there or here, since they can't be shipped internationally.

If I were to order from fasttech (which I haven't) I would not order anything with batteries.
 

Rickajho

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That suxs. Two words for you. CHARGE BACK. Contact your bank card people and tell them. You'll be relieved of the bill and let them pursue the thief. It may take a month, but if it's not over their set dollar amount, there is usually no investigation. BOA has a low limit however, 25bucks I think. :?: Let them handle it, you get NO WHERE with the post office or trying to deal with customs.

BOA will tell you it's your responsibility to consult a crystal ball. If you did not consult a crystal ball it's your fault. If you did consult a crystal ball and proceeded with the purchase anyway it's your fault. Did I mention you will never get a successful chargeback from BOA?
 

kimran73

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hate to be the US negative person here but don't be surprised when packages even shipped inside US start being opened willy nilly. I hate to see this and love the variety I can get from so many on-line vendors but this is going to be an ongoing issue that is only bound to get worse. More local B&M's are needed. Unfortunately, we are all paying the price for terrorism. Government and media hype has made us all so scared to death of anything (in the mail, in the air, on a plane or a train, in a store oh man I'm sore-hehe had to get my Dr. Seuss on lol) This is a definite eye opener for me though being new to the vape world and on-line ordering. Hope it all works out for you in the end and have a happy vaping birthday even without your new toy.
 

TheSystemHasFailed

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Someone over on the FT forum just posted a picture of his package, officially opened by Hong Kong Customs:
https://www.fasttech.com/forums/vapers/t/1084167/vapemail-day

The sealing tape doesn't look at all like yours, so I wonder if you shouldn't make a serious inquiry with USPS?
Do you have any idea how rigid the penalties, civil an criminal an employee of the US government faces for the acts you claim?

A clone from China...yeah I can see a mailman or a C/BP agent risking his/her job for that.
 

Maggiemw

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Do you have any idea how rigid the penalties, civil an criminal an employee of the US government faces for the acts you claim?

A clone from China...yeah I can see a mailman or a C/BP agent risking his/her job for that.

I don't claim anyone did anything amiss. Please don't interpret it in that way.

I have simply posted a link to a package opened by HKP for purposes of comparison.
 

twiggums

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May 21, 2013
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That suxs. Two words for you. CHARGE BACK. Contact your bank card people and tell them. You'll be relieved of the bill and let them pursue the thief. It may take a month, but if it's not over their set dollar amount, there is usually no investigation. BOA has a low limit however, 25bucks I think. :?: Let them handle it, you get NO WHERE with the post office or trying to deal with customs.

That certainly sounds like a great idea. But as someone who works in receivables for a multi-billion dollar corporation that accepts all charge backs allow me to give a quick run down of what happens when a charge back comes through.
First the charge back is processed,, usually systematically and the payment is reversed.
But that invoice your payment was intended for and paid off,, well it no longer has a payment so now it has a balance outstanding, that is usually past due depending on when the charge back was processed.
Next that bank acct/credit card that you processed the payment with, is now blocked across ALL of our billing systems (we have dozens of services we provide and now your payment method is restricted across all of them)
And the actual account you processed the charge back on, is now restricted to cash or money order only. no more bank or credit card payments on that account for atleast 6 months.
And that invoice that has the balance outstanding now is handed off to our outbound collections teams assuming it's past due, they're calling and sending letters to get payment. Additionally since your last payment was "no good" (ie reversed) your going through collections alot faster than the normal account would.
After a short time the outstanding invoice has gone unpaid and is handed off to an outside collection agency and being reported on your credit report as delinquent/unpaid.
Depending on the frequency of this (charge backs) you're now flagged in our system as a customer with poor payment history and probably can't open any new accounts, or if you can will likely have a large deposit owed and be required to pay off the outstanding balance first.
Also depending on your bank and various other things, they may not exactly like doing business with you if you're requesting charge backs all the time. After so many times it starts to look more like fraud then a customer who got screwed over.

If you're fine with all of that then go ahead and have your bank or card issuer reverse the payment.

My suggestion would be to contact the vendor directly and advise them of what happened, don't start trying to talk down to them or ream the a new one, it'll get you nowhere. See if they'll credit the invoice in question and reverse the payment themselves. Be firm in your request but don't start demanding, again it'll get you nowhere.

Obviously this is only how one corporation handles this, it varies from business to business, I've got no idea how FT would handle the situation. But i just wanted to point out that processing a charge back isn't some magical way absolve yourself of financial responsibility. i often get customers who tell me they'll process a charge back if i don't do X Y or Z, as though it's going to scare me. Generally it just creates more of a headache for the customer than anyone.

Just my .02
 
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Ref Minor

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It looks like US customs are the ones who opened it. My (amazingly) friendly PO person said they (customs) have been opening anything they feel like lately, and have been using the green tape with no seal. Depending on where they cut the tape off the roll, you may or may not get a seal.

I doubt US customs opened it.


If I were to order from fasttech (which I haven't) I would not order anything with batteries.

When in doubt blame the US customs? It's clear FT has many issues with shipping batteries and mods.

Well, the OP for one doesn't agree.
 
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