EU UK Request for info re bitdeals.tech ordering

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YardBouncer

always yield to the hands-on imperative
Jul 13, 2019
50
28
18
UK
As per title.

Has anyone from UK or EU bought anything from bitdeals.tech?
I'm looking at their SAS drives in particular, probably 6 or 7 of them.

If you have bought anything how did the P&P and delivery time work out?
Did you get stung for import duty? Did the drives survive the journey?

I'm trying to work out if its worth ordering from there; the prices are nice but theres always a catch somewhere.

Thanks for any info.
 

lhibou

Member
Jun 12, 2019
49
21
8
As per title.

Has anyone from UK or EU bought anything from bitdeals.tech?
I'm looking at their SAS drives in particular, probably 6 or 7 of them.

If you have bought anything how did the P&P and delivery time work out?
Did you get stung for import duty? Did the drives survive the journey?

I'm trying to work out if its worth ordering from there; the prices are nice but theres always a catch somewhere.

Thanks for any info.
Heya! Just in case anyone else doesn't chime in...
I'm not from the UK, but we have similar taxation upon import here in Canadaland (ie: it's to be expected, unless the goods are manufactured in the USA/Mexico - which I'm assuming drives/most electronic products are not...).
I'm located on the East of Canada and they're in California, so it was a similar distance to travel (~6hr flight), minus the whole ocean thing ;)

I had an order come in from Bitdeals the other week (was all SAS drives).
The shipping was very fast - when it was finally shipped. I chose DHL as a carrier, only because they're familar. USPS/Canada Post/etc would be a fair bit slower.
Like others experienced, the time to drop it at the carrier was quite slow. I think they're a little backlogged on shipments.
There were indeed taxes and duties on the import, and any carrier brokerage fees. So you can probably take your VAT/import duty rate and extrapolate from there.
EDIT: Should clarify in case it's not obvious - the export was prepared with the actual value of purchase. Not like something coming from overseas that seem to often be "mistakenly" labelled wrong for customs documentation... ;) So, expect to pay taxes on the purchase value...

The drives are good. It was very well packaged also. Lots of foam padding all around the box, and those thick cardboard dividers that retail HDD sellers package things in. Each drive was individually packaged in heat-sealed anti-static bags, as if they were fresh retail packaging. Was a nice touch for refurb/used drives.

Hope that helps a little.
 
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YardBouncer

always yield to the hands-on imperative
Jul 13, 2019
50
28
18
UK
Thats great, thanks for the info.

What kind of delay was there in shipping?
And yes, I was kind of hoping they might have put the price of one drive on the paperwork rather than the price of 6 or 7.
Seems I have a fair bit of research to do so I can run the numbers and work out if its worth it.

Cheap SAS drives are rarer in the UK; they exist but bitdeals.tech are MUCH cheaper.
If the saving after P&P + import duty is >25% I'll probably take the chance.
 

lhibou

Member
Jun 12, 2019
49
21
8
Thats great, thanks for the info.

What kind of delay was there in shipping?
And yes, I was kind of hoping they might have put the price of one drive on the paperwork rather than the price of 6 or 7.
Seems I have a fair bit of research to do so I can run the numbers and work out if its worth it.

Cheap SAS drives are rarer in the UK; they exist but bitdeals.tech are MUCH cheaper.
If the saving after P&P + import duty is >25% I'll probably take the chance.
No problem.

As far as I understand, it's a father and son shop and they're often inundated with STH buyers. Looking back at email, seems it took a little more than a week for it to hit the package stream after ordering. Others have had similar delays, and in my case there was apparently a customs labelling issue and it took almost three weeks for it to actually be en-route. I think that was an outlier though. The drives were worth it to me, anyway...if that helps.

With that being said, I've not seen any problems with not receiving stuff or items being messed up. It seems well-meaning. Just some record of slightly unpredictable shipping times.

If you check out one of the other Bitdeals STH sale threads here, in case you haven't seen, there's feedback from other members as well: https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/memorial-day-sales-p3605-3tb-4tb-s9300-etc.24612/

I feel ya on the availability. Sometimes there are ok deals once and awhile here in Canada but generally much better availability for this kind of stuff ordering from the US :)
 
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Jax_the_Gnome

Active Member
Aug 14, 2014
111
31
28
Portland
Thats great, thanks for the info.

What kind of delay was there in shipping?
And yes, I was kind of hoping they might have put the price of one drive on the paperwork rather than the price of 6 or 7.
Seems I have a fair bit of research to do so I can run the numbers and work out if its worth it.

Cheap SAS drives are rarer in the UK; they exist but bitdeals.tech are MUCH cheaper.
If the saving after P&P + import duty is >25% I'll probably take the chance.
You realize that what you are hoping is mail fraud, and not only are there penalties for the business there are criminal penalties for the person as well.
 
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lhibou

Member
Jun 12, 2019
49
21
8
You realize that what you are hoping is mail fraud, and not only are there penalties for the business there are criminal penalties for the person as well.
True, yup. I'm not sure which laws it falls under in the US but in Canada, if it's a sizable shipment enough to warrant a B13 export declaration, not only will you be falsifying customs paperwork, you'll also be submitting false declarations to Statistics Canada which is yet another federal body.

It's a pretty commonly misunderstood thing to ask for from sellers of goods.
If you're dealing with a business that takes themselves seriously, they will say no, without any exceptions for sure. There are some regions that seem to do it by default, which is kinda funny.
My biz ships a lot of stuff around the world every year, and people ask for falsified documentation sometimes. The answer is always no. Unless they want to front the cash for the fines if we're caught :p (kidding, still nope.)
 
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YardBouncer

always yield to the hands-on imperative
Jul 13, 2019
50
28
18
UK
I was hoping rather for ambiguity; stated price of one drive rather than 6 instead of outright lying ie understating price of a single object (which I would never ask anyone to do).
I know its not the done thing, suppose I'm so used to it with stuff coming from China.

The drives I'm looking at are about $20-40 each so would have been nice to get in just under the limit for import duty.
If they had free P&P I'd just have ordered 6 different times. But P&P will just about equal the price of the drives even on 6.
Theres no easy to use import duty calculator that I can find so I will have to err on the side of caution and have more than I expect to need available just in case.

I'm essentially just a bottom-feeding Starving Hacker TM so that sometimes leads to a certain moral flexibility where paying money to governments for stuff like this is concerned.
Not from any political principle, just the fact that £100 means a hell of a lot more to me than it does to a government.

And with mine eating it's own arse over Brexit I've literally no clue what ordering stuff from abroad will be like in a month or two.
If I order within the next month I'll probably be under current rules but who knows what it'll be like after that.