Ordering from Freedom Smokes USA

[Ande]

Just got my order!

Wanted to let you all (I know you're lurking) know that ordering from FSUSA to your Korean address does work.

Shipping costs $29.95 on all orders to Korea, so it's not cheap, but is cheaper than Korean mall prices. (Maybe more importantly, you also get killer juice, which I haven't found much of round here...)

I had to use a US credit card to pay, as my Korean ones didn't work on their website. Or they take paypal, I think.

I ordered about $90 worth of gear- lots of juice and a few small spare parts. Customs was not interested, so no worries or problems on that end.

Delivery took 10 or 11 days; fast enough, but you do have to plan. If you aren't home when it arrives (I was, but that was just luck) they'll probably leave a notice and you'll have to go to the post office to get it.

Anyway, that's a recommendation for freedom smokes USA if you live in Korea- their juices are way tasty, and they will send them to you here.

Best,
Ande

 

[Ande]

By the way, just for the sake of comparison- a sampler pack of juice from Freedom smokes USA is $49.95, plus $29.95 shipping to get it here. (Takes a week and a half or so.) That's six 20ml bottles for $79.90.

At the vendors I know in Seoul, a 20ML bottle is 35,000 won, or so. A 10ml bottle is 15000 to 19000.

Doing the math on that, I feel like it's worth a 2 week wait. There may be other vendors with better deals, too- this is just the first one I found who seemed reasonably savvy about shipping to Korea.

 

[Valsacar]

Dave is great, he does A LOT of shipping to Korea (both Military and expat).

 

[Ande]

And the juices are really tasty! (Great RY4, really nice tobacco flavors.)

If you like chocolate, though, I've got some. Sweet flavors aren't gonna do it for me...


Ande

 

[WhiteKnite]

FSUSA is some of my favorite juice, and I was really happy with them so far, but my last order placed on June 2nd still hasn't arrived. Usually I get my packages from them in about a week or a little more. The longest any first class package I've ordered has ever taken from the date of shipment was 18 days. I contacted support and they basically said politely it's not their problem, it was shipped on the 3rd. Maybe I expected too much from them but I'm pretty disappointed and not really sure what to do. The order was for over $100. They did say Korean customs has been frequently rejecting their packages lately, nothing about why.

I have decided to cut out the middleman and order directly from flavorart in Italy: Flavourart. La sartoria degli aromi and start DIYing. The price actually ends up WAY less with just $13 for shipping and cheaper prices to begin with for the same flavors. They do say specifically if the package gets lost they are not liable with standard shipping though.

I've lived here in Korea for 7 years and have ordered hundreds of packages. If that one from FSUSA is lost it would be the first that I haven't gotten, aside from something from Deal Extreme that customs contacted me immediately about and said is illegal to import, then made me do some paperwork so they could send it back.

 

[Ande]

Good luck with your package- let us know how it turns out, cause if there are problems with packages getting through, it's going to affect a lot of folks who (usually) live in Korea.

Wondering if I should just bring a years worth of juice with me when I come back...

Best,
Ande

 

[WhiteKnite]

Still no sign of my package, and no word from FSUSA either. I've had better service from Chinese ebay sellers... Sure it may not be their fault but it may be too... No response from them at all about what packages were supposedly rejected from Korean customs. Customs says they don't have my package, and they would let me know if they did. Either way I'm out over a hundred bucks. Not happy...

 

[Valsacar]

Give Dave a call (number on their site), he's always been great when I've had to call him.

If you're DIY and live in Seoul... I have a TON of 100mg nic juice, probably won't be able to use all of it. Not giving away, but sell at whatever the standard price is (I have empty 30m and 60ml bottles). Also always have tons of spare parts on hand (I don't like running out of things) if you're in a jam.

Hint, shipping from china (hardware mainly) is QUICK for us. No excuse to run out of parts, or pay insane Korean prices.

 

[WhiteKnite]

Yeah I get most of my atties and batts from eastmall. I'm assuming Dave was the one who responded to my post in their vendor forums on here. Whoever it was only made things worse by trying to say I'm illegally importing nicotine products among other things.

I don't live in Seoul (about 2 hours south by car) but I could definitely use some nic juice. The flavoring won't be taxed so I can get a bunch of that from flavourart and some no nic PG and VG and not have to worry about customs issues. I'll definitely buy some of that juice from you, I'll be up by Seoul for RC buggy races once the rainy season is over. Otherwise if you are heading south for any reason maybe we can work something out.

 

[Valsacar]

That was probably Dave and/or Pam... Most of my stuff (I generally use APO mail though) comes in about 2 weeks, but I have had stuff take 1-2 months (STILL waiting on a book for my son, been a month).

Let me know when ever you come up, got tons of the stuff.

 

[WhiteKnite]

41 days and still no sign of my package.

I have a liter of PG/VG on the way so I'll try to make it up in the next couple weeks. If you have 200ml to sell I'll be set for over a year.

I've recently put in orders to flavourart, liberty flights, myfreedomsmokes, and perfumers apprentice, all seem like good vendors and will ship here no problem.

 

[WhiteKnite]

I picked up enough juice for a while from the box elder 50% off sale, so no real need for that now. Thanks for the offer though. I'd rather not deal with 100 mg juice anyway, I got some 48mg. By the way they have really cheap international shipping, so good for anyone non-military like me. Unless it was a glitch in the checkout system it was only $5 for 250ml in a flat rate box.

By the way, liberty-flights charged the same $25 as FSUSA but sent my package by EMS, so it should be here in 2-3 days, and is tracked the whole way. If you do order from them, keep in mind anything containing nicotine or e-cigs will most likely be taxed. I've had to pay taxes 90% of the time on EMS orders containing taxable items, but those were all items obviously valued over 150,000 won.

 

[WhiteKnite]

FSUSA had my package returned to them finally. They say it was due to an incomplete address, however the address was correct, and the same address I have used to have literally hundreds of packages delivered to, 6 of which were since that package was sent.. They won't refund my shipping either. Considering they told me a lot of their packages have been returned to them lately from Korea, I really think it might be due to the contents not matching the description on the shipping label. Keep that in mind if you plan to order from them, it's a bit of a crap-shoot.

 

[GIMike]

Wow, they have been the only people I've ordered juice from for the past couple of months. I always thought their customer service was great. This is very surprising and I think I'll start ordering elsewhere. Just about everybody carries my favorite flavor, I just liked how you could customize your juice to your liking. I know there are others out there with the same options, I'll start looking around.

If my name didn't give it away, I am veteran. I didn't like the military very much and it didn't like me. But I was in Korea and know how it is. So this definately makes me want to buy elsewhere.

 

[WhiteKnite]

Yeah, I was pretty surprised how they handled it too after all the good stuff I heard about them. They even locked my thread in their forum. They actually asked me to apologize on the forums, despite the thread being locked, because it was supposedly my error that caused the delay, even though all of my other packages including those from them arrived fine with that address.

I will definitely be ordering from liberty-flights again though. I ordered on a Thursday at 1 a.m. and my package was released from Korean customs Friday at 10:30 p.m. It arrived that Sat. morning. They actually take a loss of a couple dollars on the shipping.

By the way, tax here is 500 won per ml over 20ml. I didn't get taxed yet but a friend did.

 

[GIMike]

They even locked my thread in their forum. They actually asked me to apologize on the forums, despite the thread being locked, because it was supposedly my error that caused the delay, even though all of my other packages including those from them arrived fine with that address.

Wow. I've had customer service like that before and have been asked the same thing. I wrote a negative review and they got all upset and actually went to very lengthy extremes to put me down and make me look stupid so nobody would believe my review. To me "Who cares if it took 3 months, he got it didn't he? How stupid is that!" is not good customer service. And by asking you to apologize on the forum for your review is definately not good. If I were you, I would go into the "Reviews of Suppliers" section and make a review. Only ECF mods have control over this, and the supplier can't do anything about it. I wouldn't be outright mean in your review or people won't pay any attention to it. Keep it honest, mention the good (your past with them) and the bad. But it sounds like people who live outside CONUS need to be aware of internation shipping with this company and how they handle it.

 

[Bdbodger]

I wish I had read this topic before I ordered

 

[Valsacar]

Yeah, I was pretty surprised how they handled it too after all the good stuff I heard about them. They even locked my thread in their forum. They actually asked me to apologize on the forums, despite the thread being locked, because it was supposedly my error that caused the delay, even though all of my other packages including those from them arrived fine with that address.

I will definitely be ordering from liberty-flights again though. I ordered on a Thursday at 1 a.m. and my package was released from Korean customs Friday at 10:30 p.m. It arrived that Sat. morning. They actually take a loss of a couple dollars on the shipping.

By the way, tax here is 500 won per ml over 20ml. I didn't get taxed yet but a friend did.

Never had these kinds of issues, I love my APO. I do know someone that got taxed, but he had to pay a total of 600won/ml (including the education tax) and didn't say anything about over 20ml. Doesn't surprise me, if you've been here long enough you know that if you ask 3 government officials the same question you'll get 5 different answers.

 

[Ande]

f you've been here long enough you know that if you ask 3 government officials the same question you'll get 5 different answers.

That about sums it up. Not that it's just here, mind. I've played this game in a number of countries, and bureaucracy is a special kind of animal.

Ande

 

[Valsacar]

That about sums it up. Not that it's just here, mind. I've played this game in a number of countries, and bureaucracy is a special kind of animal.

Ande

That's true, but it's a bit more prominent here in my experience. China on the other hand it seems you'll get 5 different prices

P.S. I now I have 3 GGTS, 2 UFS & 1 iAtty. Leo (Concorde) has a GGTS w/ UFS as well.