How does ocean shipping from China work?

[tigerwillow1]

I'm looking for feedback from anybody who has a lot of experience with receiving shipments from China to the USA. My shipment is in the 400 lb. ballpark and I have a fedex tracking number from the selling company. Fedex tracking says the shipment was delivered today more than 1,000 miles away from me, to Trabuco Canyon, CA. Before I go off crying wolf "I've been scammed", or "Fedex screwed up", I want to ask if this could be a common occurrence, perhaps a group of shipments bundled together, then re-shipped from California or something like that? I'm also running this by the seller. It's just there's a bit of a language barrier that makes it hard to communicate without talking past each other.

 

[Bud Martin]

Who is the seller? If we have the name then some one may have bought from the same seller as yours can tell about his/her experience with the seller.

 

[Bob B]

I'm looking for feedback from anybody who has a lot of experience with receiving shipments from China to the USA. My shipment is in the 400 lb. ballpark and I have a fedex tracking number from the selling company. Fedex tracking says the shipment was delivered today more than 1,000 miles away from me, to Trabuco Canyon, CA. Before I go off crying wolf "I've been scammed", or "Fedex screwed up", I want to ask if this could be a common occurrence, perhaps a group of shipments bundled together, then re-shipped from California or something like that? I'm also running this by the seller. It's just there's a bit of a language barrier that makes it hard to communicate without talking past each other.

I would be concerned. I had that happen to me, but had purchased with PayPal and was able to get a refund when I gave them the tracking information .... If it is Aliexpress, I would be even more concerned.

I would message the sender immediately .... it is possible it is just a mix up in the tracking number.

 

[tigerwillow1]

I'm holding off on naming the seller until I gather more info. I don't want to post possibly damaging information on the chance that I'm not understanding how the process works. I'm looking to educate myself on this before jumping to a conclusion. Thanks for the feedback so far.

 

[740GLE]

AFAIK a seller will only provide one tracking number and that goes “live” once package has landed on shore and is now in Fed Ex hands. If its marked delivered and not in your hands conversations should be had.

Did the fed ex delivery address for the tracking number always show the wrong address? Hopefully it was just a confusion on the tracking number provided to you.

 

[tigerwillow1]

Did the fed ex delivery address for the tracking number always show the wrong address?

It's crazier than that. The seller provided me with a copy of the fedex shipping label, which has my name and address on it. Fedex labels contain the tracking number in 2 places, once by itself labeled as tracking number, and the other at the tail end of the barcode. On my shipping label copy the two tracking numbers are different, one delivered to California and the other to Texas (over a year ago!). I never looked at any of this until the standalone tracking number went live a few days ago. I'm still hoping the company has some legitimate explanation for this. It does look highly fishy.

 

[Rednecktek]

On my shipping label copy the two tracking numbers are different,

That's most likely a scam then. When the labels are generated there is only 1 number, not 2. You're getting ripped off.

 

[poldim]

Many times international packages will get delayed at customs. I've had this take anywhere from 3 days to 3 weeks. But the carrier's tracking info will say that it's in customs review or waiting for additional customs documents as they want the shipper/receiver to know they arent the reason for the delay. Since you're saying it says delivered, that might be an issue. Another option could be a freight forwarder, but again, you're using FedEx, so I doubt it.

Hopefully, you paid with a CC, then just dispute the charge.

 

[Bvillebob]

Lots of cases of fake shipping info being provided lately, which sounds likely given what you've said about the tracking info.

 

[tigerwillow1]

I can now write the final chapter of this thread. My battery shipment was from Seplos and it was delivered today. I ordered it on October 13, and it shipped on October 26, so in round numbers it took 3 months. The problem was bad communication, compounded by the long shipping times we have now. The detail of the whole process is that the shipment goes into a no-information black hole then gets delivered about 3 months later. I really think they need to (1) Set the correct expectation up front, and (2) Find a way to provide occasional status reports. Two other forum members bought the same battery and had roughly the same shipping experience.

 

[time2roll]

How does this reconcile with the FedEx delivery to Trabuco Canyon?

 

[tigerwillow1]

Just speculation on my part, they took an old fedex label and changed the delivery name and address to mine and left the old tracking # alone, either to make me happy, or possibly to communicate the delivery info to the outfit in Gardena, CA. that transferred the shipment to fedex. My paperwork doesn't have anything called a tracking number. It has a "Freight bill number" that gives the correct info when entered into fedex tracking. It left Gardena a week ago. Would have been nice if somebody would have given me call then with the tracking info. The misleading information I got was worse than none at all. The battery itself does look pretty well built.