Buyee problem for shipping to US

[lascosas]

Japan Post stopped shipping packages to the US when de minimus tariff exemptions were cancelled.  That means shipping items through Buyee limits your options to Buyee Select (where Buyee selects between UPS, FedEx and DHL) and ECMS.  None of these are available for liquids, including fountain pen inks. In the past, it simply meant you only had one shipping option, EMS, Japan Post.

 

I accidentally consolidated a package with one bottle of ink among many fountain pens and have been told my options are to dispose of the package or send it to another country.  I have been pleading with Buyee to just remove and dispose of that one bottle of ink, and their most recent response was that of the 20 items in the package, 16 are fountain pen ink.

 

I was shocked.  Fifteen fountain pens, none with ink, are all listed as fountain pen ink, and thus ineligible to be shipped to the United States.  I'm still going around in a circle trying to get a coherent answer from Buyee, but I wanted to put this out here for two reasons.  First, to warn people of this problem.  And second, to ask if anyone else has encountered this.  There is no way to know how your fountain pen will be categorized until it shows up in the warehouse, in which case if it is categorized as ink, you are screwed if you want to send it to the US.

 

I have gone through the last few shipments from Buyee, all shipped either UPS or DHL through Buyee Select, and fountain pens have been categorized as...

fountain pen

writing instrument

fountain pen ink (and yes, the packages shipped with that description)

stationery

watch case (a Pelikan M200 fountain pen)

[inkstainedruth]

YIKES!

Is there any way for you to cancel the order and/or get your money back?

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[lascosas]

Nope.  You buy from a Japanese seller and send it to an entirely different company, Buyee, which then consolidates and ships the items.

[inkstainedruth]

Wow.  That really sucks.... 

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[VacNut]

I have received numerous pens from overseas by DHL, FedEx, and UPS. I have never used Buyee, but I suspect the difficulty is due to the customs declarations. I always request they list “fountain pen, no ink”

on the forms.

 

Ink to us means pen ink. Ink can imply many different types of inks in the shipping world. It could be industrial inks, toner, flammable print inks, or ? Talk to the shipper to see if they could amend the customs form.

An empty fountain pen is really just an empty tube of resin or plastic with a little metal trim.

 

Let’s not talk of shipping celluloid…🤫🤫🤫

 

Good luck.

[I-am-not-really-here]

I thought FedEx would ship liquids if the importer (in this case that's you, the buyer) filed a TSCA certification?  But It's been 2-3 years since I've bought ink from overseas so the process may have tightened up since.

[boilermaker1975]

@I-am-not-really-here I have recently bought ink from Cult pens in the UK, delivered to me in the US. These were two separate large purchases, like 20+ bottles of ink in each. These were mainly 80 ml Diamine and 50 ml Waterman bottles. There was no issue. If something had to be done Cult pens took care of it. So in both cases I had a heavy box filled with ink on my porch. I believe the packages were shipped through DHL.

[I-am-not-really-here]

2 hours ago, boilermaker1975 said:

@I-am-not-really-here I have recently bought ink from Cult pens in the UK, delivered to me in the US. These were two separate large purchases, like 20+ bottles of ink in each. These were mainly 80 ml Diamine and 50 ml Waterman bottles. There was no issue. If something had to be done Cult pens took care of it. So in both cases I had a heavy box filled with ink on my porch. I believe the packages were shipped through DHL.

 

It is only with FedEx where I have encountered the TSCA certification requirement.  Others may have different experiences.  
 

Perhaps DHL has a different policy or maybe their scanners aren't looking for liquids at all. 

[lascosas]

US Customs has no prohibitions against fountain pen ink.  This is solely the business practice of the shipper.  When you order ink from Britain or Europe there is the option of using the national postal service, and in my experience, none of them have a problem shipping fountain pen ink.  Shipping from Japan the national postal service, Japan Post, no longer ships packages to the US, so your only option is to use DHL, UPS, FedEx or ECMS.  None of them will ship fountain pen ink.  Though the enforcement of this prohibition has always been sloppy.  I purchased large numbers of ink bottles when EMS (Japan Post) was still an option and I would always attempt to use a cheaper shipping option (ECMS, DHL, FedEx, UPS).  Most of the time whichever shipper would send it.  If not, I would simply shift the shipper to EMS.

 

For many years FedEx has been strange about hazardous materials.  I have probably needed to complete the TSCA form for them a dozen times.  Frankly it doesn't matter how the item is described in the invoice, they want someone to have affirmatively stated that there are no hazardous materials in the shipment.  It is a simple form and you just add the shiping number a description of the item and affirm the lack of haz materials and they proceed.  Never have I had any other shipper ask for this form.

[inkstainedruth]

Hmmmm.  In the past I've order inks from the UK a couple of times (from, IIRC, Cult Pens) and don't remember having any issues with whoever they used as a shipper.

I did have problems with a CD I bought from a 3rd party vendor on Amazon a few years ago, when I got a song and dance about how "Oh, DHL doesn't provide tracking!"  After I said in the notes for the purchase that I wanted the package put inside my storm door since I was going to be away over the holiday and was worried about it being delivered in bad weather; then contacted the seller DIRECTLY and asked for the package to be put inside the storm door and THEN said, "Oh, BTW...." about the tracking stuff.   

And when it was delivered?   I think that DHL palmed it off onto USPS for "final" delivery, because it was on top of the stack of mail on my front porch that had been held while I was out of town....  Of course the thing that PO'd me even more was that the seller was basically in the next county(!) and I could have DRIVEN there and back in roughly 2 hours or so....  And of course, I ALSO suspect that they ordered it from the slightly cheaper seller in Germany (hence NOT wanting me to know that they had done so).  And of course ALSO think the thing was PROBABLY a bootleg at that (I've owned the album on vinyl since I was 14 but didn't have a working stereo at the time, and had misplaced the CD of the album in my house at the time that I'd gotten my brother to get me...).

OTOH, since that little incident (I think my "amended" review got that vendor kicked off of Amazon -- my mother would be SOOOO proud! ), I've actually seen DHL vans driving up my street every now and then....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[boilermaker1975]

@inkstainedruth You can't leave me hanging. What was the album?

[mke]

I have shipped a few times inks to the US - it always was Fedex only - after Japanpost stopped shipping.

It always was a PITA for the receiver.

How do the US stationery shops get their Japanese ink if it wasn't allowed to be shipped.

 

Personally I have received inks from Germany by UPS.

 

> Fifteen fountain pens, none with ink, are all listed as fountain pen ink, and thus ineligible to be shipped to the United States.  I'm still going around in a circle trying to get a coherent answer from Buyee  

 

If they are unresponsive, ship it to Blackship where you can write your contentlist by yourself.

 

Additional resource: https://www.reddit.com/r/fountainpens/comments/mv2wxw/a_warning_to_pen_or_ink_importing_to_the_us_and/

 

[stan]

I have worked with Buyee for a good number of years and no issues, even during Covid and the current tariff stuff. I've seen the lists of package contents and nothing there should trigger any issues. Will continue with them. BTW, have tried Zen Market and their system of repeatedly needing to add funds is (bleep). May work for some.

 

The issue might be with ink, or how the word is used. I have never purchased ink from Japan or abroad. Considering all of the options for purchasing ink in America, this is silly. Go to any pen show and you can buy 500 flavors of ink.

 

What I would do is write a nice (repeat NICE) letter explaining your understanding of the problem. Use simple language. No big words with multiple underlying meanings. I'm certain someone there can read and understand English as they have responded to my questions in the past. Proficiency might not be 100%. You might consider a Gemini or Copilot translation of your letter and indicate it as  machine translation noting it as an attempt to avoid any translation misunderstandings.

[lascosas]

Stan-

I am always nice when dealing with Buyee.  And simple language, though that is never the issue.  I find that there are two categories of people responding to Buyee inquiries: those who don't really read the question, and those who try hard to explain and help.  You just need to keep asking the question until you get someone in the second category.

 

Buyee did confirm that they will correct the description of all the pens from fountain pen ink to the correct fountain pen.  My problem, and it is my fault, is that I included ink in the package and Buyee refuses to remove the ink from the consolidated package.

 

As to ink, you can get unbelievable deals on ink bottles purchased as lots that are 90-95% full from Yahoo Auctions.  Recently 10 Bungubox inks in the shoe bottles for $80.  Those are at least $40 each in the US.  Tons of Tono & Lims for under $6 a bottle when bought in lots.  Sailor Workshop for under $5, again when purchased in lots.  But that era is over for Japan to US shipments.

 

Mke-

Thank you for the suggestion of Blackship, but they are in Japan.  Buyee won't ship within Japan, only international.  Your reddit reference is to FedEx's fetish with the TSCA form.  For fountain pens you just describe the item as "fountain pen no ink" and then go on to certify that there are no hazardous materials.  For ink you describe the inks "6 bottles of water based inks for use with fountain pens" and again certify that there are no hazardous materials.  FedEx wants the properly filled out forms, I have never encountered a situation when they engaged in independent due diligence to verify the certification.

 

How do Japanese companies ship their inks to the US?  Good question.

 

 

[inkstainedruth]

22 hours ago, boilermaker1975 said:

@inkstainedruth You can't leave me hanging. What was the album?

It was the one and only album by a group called Sweet Thursday.  The lineup was a bunch of British session musicians (probably the most famous being the keyboard player, Nicky Hopkins).  They apparently originally signed with some rinky-dink label that went belly-up after a few hundred pressings of the album.  Then, in the early 1973s (through circumstances I can only surmise) Columbia got their hands on the master and re-released it (of course the group had gone their separate ways long before that).  I first heard of it when I saw a half-page ad in the back of a music magazine my brother and I used to buy at the newsstand, and the headline read "At Village Oldies you'd pay $50 for this".   Then had a photo of someone holding up the album cover, and next to that was a blurb about the history of the recording and how Columbia was now releasing it for the price of a "regular" record.  Then, across the bottom, gave the lineup.  And I was going, "I've heard of EVERY ONE of these guys, in other contexts!  And they played together?  Huh...."  Then a few months later, when I got home from school and turned on the radio to do homework by, I heard the most amazing song (I listened to GOOD radio back then -- sadly, years later, I found out that station had switched formats about a decade ago, and were now "Adult Contemporary" (which just made me want to cry).  And the DJ who did the 2-6  pm shift through the week, then comes back on, says what the song is, and who had done it.  And I was like "Ohhhhhh!" and went to my brother and said, "GET ME THIS RECORD!  Christmas, birthday, whatever....  The rest of the album can suck but it'd be worth having JUST for that one song!  So he went to the library and found an ad in the back of an issue of Rolling Stone for a place on the West Coast, and sent away for their catalog.  And we dropped something like $40 US just on the first order (we bought a LOT of records and cassettes and the occasional 8-track tape from that place over the next few years) -- including that album (I could have paid two bucks less for the original recording, but figured it might be used.  And as it turned out?  Other than the "obligatory" 60s "drug" song (which is pretty goofy) buried in the middle of side 1?  The album DIDN'T suck.... 

Years later, I got my brother to get me the album as a CD as well (we didn't have a working turntable at the time).  Then misplaced that in the house.  And then found the "remastered" (aka BOOTLEG) CD from that 3rd party vendor on Amazon.  I did then find the original CD, but now it's gotten very skippy.  I may have to take a deep breath and bring the album to a local used records store, and say, "Okay -- I was wrong....  Can you burn this to a CD for me, if you can't figure out what's wrong with the original CD?"  (By chance a few years ago I found out that the group had put out a single, and those two songs were NOT on the album, and tracked  down someplace on eBay that had the 45 for sale.  Had it for several months before I got up the nerve to go down to the store and ask if they'd hook me up to a set of headphones so I could the track I DIDN'T hear on YouTube.  And they offered to burn both songs to a CD for me (and offered to burn the album to CD for me as well, but at the time I HAD both the "original" CD and the "bootleg" one....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

[boilermaker1975]

@inkstainedruth I have heard of the Steinbeck novel by that name but not of the music group. And that was my era of music. I'll have to check them out.

[inkstainedruth]

Well, I literally heard of the group (originally) from that magazine ad.  And it was just a fluke that I heard the one song on the radio.  Because, of course, by the time I'd seen the ad, the group had long since all gone their separate ways....  

I don't know how easy it would be to find the album at this point, either on vinyl, or the NON-"remastered" CD -- which (when I first heard it) was CONVINCED that it was a bootleg, and of course ALSO convinced that the reason that the place in the next county gave me that song and dance about DHL "not providing tracking" was that they'd ordered it from the cheaper vendor in Germany, and didn't want me to know that....

I had always assumed that the group took their name from the Steinbeck novel, (which I actually ended up reading before reading Cannery Row, after finding the sequel in the library around the corner from where I grew up, and where I worked part time after school when I was in high school -- mostly re-shelving returned books and making sure that the "tipped in"prints in art books hadn't gone walkabout, and sometimes cleaning the plastic book covers when the books got too grody).  The last year I worked there, I was finally allowed to work the checkout counter....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[VacNut]

I have noted on this forum in several places, and it may not be the most economical process; but I have found Mailboxes ETC to be extremely helpful in receiving local packages and shipping them internationally to my residence. It is most economical when they ship multiple packages, as they will repack the different packages into a single envelope or box for reshipment. The international carrier will typically be DHL, FEDEX, or UPS.

 

One should contact the individual store directly, preferably by phone and email to make the arrangements. Most of the stores are kind enough to hold the packages until all the packages arrive.

 

The process works great for sellers who do not offer international shipments.

 

A friend bought pens from Italy, had the packages sent to Portugal, for shipment to the United States. The process may take  longer, and one has to factor in the cost of the international postage. In the end sometimes the additional cost washes out since sellers will offer free domestic postage within their country.

 

The cost of the items on the customs forms is up to each individual to declare.

 

Good luck.

 

 

[lascosas]

Vacnut-

Thank you for your advice, but the problem is that UPS, FEDEX abd DH will not ship fountain pen ink.  Fountain pens are not a problem.

[VacNut]

DHL and FedEx will ship fountain pen ink. The type of ink needs to be clearly noted on the customs form to be fountain pen ink or water-based inks.

 

Commercial inks and toners may be solvent or alcohol based. As such they are considered flammable.
 

It is similar to shipping watercolor and acrylic paints in tubes, as opposed to oil-based paints or spray paints.

 

Trust me…