Global Shipping Program disaster, need help

[Luka C]

Hi everyone,

As I live in EU, I've used Global Shipping Program quite a few times to order things from the US. Recently, I saw a beautiful old RCA Victor tombstone radio that was being sold on eBay. I asked the seller if he could enable GSP on the item so I could bid on it, after he contacted eBay representative he decided it's ok and enabled it. In the end, I won the auction and the seller shipped the package. Long story short, it has just arrived this morning, I was excited that I'll finally enjoy it only to find out that the radio is heavily damaged, the front wooden face has an entire speaker portion broken off. "Luckily", I always record the entire process of opening the package so I have proof that the item was indeed damaged in transport and no by my fault in any way.

Has anyone had any such problems before? Do I contact the seller, open a case or contact eBay (I can't seem to find their telephone any more on the site?).

[Shaun Merrigan]

Not strictly related to nixies but cautionary nonetheless is what follows. I have had the following items deemed restricted and thus could not be shipped from the USA to me (in Canada):

Heathkit W-7A amplifier 

Tektronix 130 LCR Meter

HP 410B VTVM

This has occurred within the last two months. My guess as to why this occurred would be (in order):

Selenium Rectifier

VR Tube with isotope OA2

VR Tube with isotope OB2

Of course no explanation is given and no appeal is possible. 

Shaun M

Sent from my iPad6

No Regret

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[Luka C]

I'm sorry if this is considered off topic, I just know Global Shipping Program was discussed many times here and I believe this could serve as sort of a warning on what could happen to international buyers. Of course, it depends on how this will be resolved, I have sent the seller the picture and the video of unpacking and hopefully will start a refund case soon.
I have previously purchased B-7971 tubes using GSP, it was rather slow in terms of "priority" that it claims to be, but the package has arrived without damage...I am not sure whether I will order anything of such value again.

As for forbidden items, I'm not even sure they do such "diagnostics" on materials, they probably just use "approximation" of whether something might be problematic based on previous items that were problematic, just my guess.

In the end, I just feel some sort of "guilt" because I have asked the seller to enable GSP (thinking it would be the safest option for him because eBay/Pitney Bowes takes responsibility for damage in transport) and now this happens. I wouldn't even mind that much if it was a laptop or something that can just be easily returned and replaced, but items such as these and Nixies will never be produced again and seeing them destroyed in this way just breaks my heart.

[SWISSNIXIE - Jonathan F.]

A friend of mine who is addicted to clothes :) buy always in US because sellers products are way much expensive here.

She uses https://www.shipito.com.

Its basically a service where you can send you package to, and they just forward it. It costs a few $, but so does the GSP.

I've not tried this for ebay, but i guess it will work.

You basically sign in, then you get an adress with your name and a "suite nr" in a ware house.

[Nicholas Stock]

I have a friend who uses the same process....appears to work well. I’m sure GSP works OK for the majority of items, but vintage electronic equipment is apparently not one of them....

Sent from my iPhone

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[blkadder]

I wonder if they offer a service like this in Germany?  There is store there that won't ship to the U.S.

[J Forbes]

The description of the damage, and the picture, both make it look to me like this is an item that needed extra care to get it ready for shipment. It probably was not obvious to the seller that the radio either had a basic structural design flaw, or else was missing fasteners. The heavy speaker appears to have been supported only by two flimsy strips of wood. If the speaker board had been securely screwed to the inside front of the case, it probably would have survived.

It's a shame it was damaged...but we all can at least learn to be more careful with stuff that we ship. Heavy things need to be securely fastened! It's a basic principle of packing things for shipment, that many folks seem to be oblivious to. I've received several damaged items because of the same problem. If something heavy can move inside a package, it will break stuff.

Hopefully the damage can be repaired without too much loss of appearance. thanks for sharing your experience!

[Luka C]

Update: I have contacted the seller sending pictures and the unboxing video and explaining the situation. The seller was extremely helpful and contacted eBay first to explain the situation to them. After that, I called the eBay's Customer Service and explained everything again and upon looking into the photos, the unboxing video and the previous conversation with the seller, the customer support agents were able to conclude that it was neither his (seller's), nor my fault and they have issued me a full refund stating it was the fault of their courier's bad handling. I will now try to find someone who can repair the damage since I'm not really skillful when it comes to working with wood.

@J Forbes: The seller had actually put a large "pillow" filled with foam peanuts inside the case of the radio but, most likely, when eBay/Pitney Bowes repackaged the item in their sorting center in Erlanger, they have turned the radio around, so that the front face with the speaker was facing upwards (probably thinking that it would protect the glass dial better that way). This combined with how packages are usually tossed around when loading/unloading on planes (and the fact that the package is quite large and heavy, could have easily dropped from someone's hands in the process) at some point caused the weight of the speaker to break the entire front part off.

Just a note to buyers, when you receive a package, get your cell phone/camera and record the unboxing (and make sure you record the shipping label with the tracking number!), this seems to help a lot with speeding up the resolution of your case as it is a definitive proof that you did not damage the item yourselves. I have recorded every delivery so far and have never had a problem before this, but taking a few more seconds to record can save a lot more dollars!

@blkadder: I think Global Shipping Program is only available to sellers from the US and UK.

[J Forbes]

That's good news that they are going to pay for the damage.

I expect that what you suggest, is what indeed happened. Like I said, when you prepare something for shipping, you really do have to prepare it well. The shipping companies will not handle it gently. If there is something heavy inside, it will get knocked around, and cause problems. Packing peanuts won't keep things from moving completely, but they will absorb some of the energy of things moving. In this case, the speaker needed to be firmly attached to something substantial. The damage is not something that was easy to foresee...unless you have seen things like that happen before.

Hopefully you can get it repaired to it's former beauty

[Roddy Scott]

That is sheer negligence in the case of GSP to pack it in such a way that damage could happen. Glad to see you got the matter resolved and good luck in finding someone to restore the damage to such a nice radio.

I ship clocks via TNT fully insured delivery and, touch wood, have not had any damage occur to them, mind you I err on the safety side in packing them up with a foam sheeting box inside the box and then stuffed full of bubble wrap and apply fragile tape everywhere all over the box and handle with care, glass parts inside.

[Oscilloclock]

At least GSP shipped the radio and did not deliberately “safely dispose” of it because it contained old tubes! (See other posts about these woes when shipping CRTs)

I now request US sellers to send directly to me by USPS Priority Mail International (or Express) with insurance and tracking, and so far it seems okay.

Glad that you got the beautiful radio and all the best for restoration!

[GastonP]

Heh, if they just had known that old radios had tubes inside, that would have been the fate of this one.

[jb-electronics]

Strange, I have never had this issue with Nixie tubes sent via the Global Shipping Program.

Cheers
Jens

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[SWISSNIXIE - Jonathan F.]

I guess it really depens on alot of factors how they even notice it.  Also i think its based on the description of the seller. So for example if you write "B4998 Burroughs Nixie Tube" it might get detected by some sort of matching system. But "small round nixie tube" won't match any systems. I don't know what database they use, but some nixies / tubes are listed for sure. Speaking about that, some tubes have restricted. For example the B-7094 Jumbo tube is technically illegal to ship from USA, because its listed as an ITAR (some military thing) restricted item,  another example is a non nixie tube the KN-6 Krytron because it was used in nuclear devices! But for the realism, if one can get all the other parts for such a device, i guess its easy to manage an export of krytrons!


I don't think they check every content manually because...

My 2nd hobby is radiation science, and once i ordered a tube from US which was radioactive, had a big fat icon on the tube box, and it was so radioactive you could detect it through the package! Went trough GSP!
Also alot of tubes i orderd came in sealed tube boxes which were never opened by GSP

Also it might be dependant on the person working on you package. If some guy who never seen radio vacum tube would get your package, how could he possible identify the correct item? Alot of tubes are even offered as "Lamp" on ebay... :)

[jb-electronics]

That's quite the story Jonathan. Let's hope nobody from GSP ever reads this ;-)

Cheers
Jens

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[Tomasz Kowalczyk]

This thing can be easily explained, in Polish and Russian (and I bet  in most Slavic languages, too) we use word "lampa"*, which means both electron/gas discharge tubes as well as regular lamps. At the same time, word "tube" translates to words meaning a pipe (which is never used to describe a electron tube). 
So a seller from Slavic nations, who doesn't speak english well and uses google translate ends up with "nixie lamp" instead of "nixie tube".

* in Russian it is written in cyryllic, of course, but reads almost identical to Polish

[Bill van Dijk]

In Dutch "lamp" also used to be an acceptable colloquial designation for a tube. It was also the regular name for a normal incandescent light bulb.

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[Manuel Azevedo]

As I mentioned in another thread about GSP, they disposed 6 DA-2021 numitrons because “they contained mercury”.
As someone pointed out, it was maybe the shinny getter on the glass, which might have triggered a “oh my god, mercury” reaction, which made GSP dispose of the tubes, which in this case are real lamps, as numitrons just have glowing filaments, like ordinary light bulbs.
I was reimbursed, but I could never find numitrons again at that prce. It was an excellent deal.

[Luka C]

The only Nixie tubes that I have ordered from the U.S. are B-7971, I think all went through GSP, arrived safely and had no problems clearing their export control, fingers crossed in case of future orders :)