I just checked with SF Express about my order picked up on Jan 25. Now the system said customer cancelled the order and the order was returned. Vitacost can’t find any more information about the order than what I see on SF system. Vitacost says the international team will look into my order but appears to be sent back to Vitacost. I suspect that someone in Vitacost cancelled the order accidently perhaps after I contacted them last week to find out where my order was. The SF website never showed any news about the order leaving US shores.
What a mess. I am reluctant to order again but only have found the items I want on their site or iHerb site.
It’s SF Express. A package I ordered (not from iherb) was sent using them (this was not my choice, and not noted in advance)—and it was send out for local delivery in Taiwan to an institutional address on a weekend, which made it a failed delivery attempt (duh!). I waited for them to try again, and the next time I checked they sent the package back to the US!!! Only after calling SF Express’s Taiwan office (it took a while to get through) was I able to get them to send it again across the Pacific, before finally getting the goods. A long, bad, experience.
What a mess. I am reluctant to order again but only have found the items I want on their site or iHerb site.
How disappointing and aggravating. Time-wasting, too. I’m now reluctant to pull the trigger on the shopping cart I filled at Vitacost.
With Taiwan’s cumbersome import system and vendor unwillingness to deal with it, it’s become virtually impossible to obtain perfectly legitimate goods if you live here.
If I remember correctly iHerb sent my stuff using SF Express and I always received okay. But actually no way to know who actually was arranging the “last mile” shipment to my house. Perhaps in past SF Express was outsourcing all Taiwan stuff to someone else. Well, just don’t know anything for certain except my case was a mess. I have no idea who “cancelled” my order.
You can me both. I want to try again but my confidence level is very low. If you plan to open a vitamin import company let me know…I will order from you if you stock Bluebonnet brand.
Piping Rock sent me a “VIP discount” of 236NTD, I guess cause I’d already ordered something from them before. Not a big discount but enough to pay for half of the DHL shipping, so a better option than iherb at the moment, even though there’s no cashback option like using Shopback when ordering from iherb, at least as far as I know, don’t know about other cashback websites.
Has anyone placed an order with iHerb since this nonsense started? I put together a cart in an amount below the duty threshold, but a “duty & tax” amount of nearly USD20 was added to the total. According to the page, “With DDP (Delivered Duties Paid), you do not have pay any additional duty or tax at the time of delivery.”
What happens if no duty or tax is actually levied? Do I get a refund or does DHL pocket the money? Before placing the order, I asked iHerb and am awaiting an answer. I’m not confident of receiving a responsive reply, so I would like to find out if anyone here has experience with the issue.
Not yet. I’m toying with the idea because of the current 22% offer for orders over USD$80 (valid for another couple of days), but I don’t think there’s anything I particularly need at the moment.
I found it better to order off Amazon and have someone in the US mail it here if Amazon won’t ship it here directly. Still cheaper than iHerb if you order a year’s worth.
Are Iherb’s “prepaid Duties & Taxes” the same as Amazon’s “import fees deposit”? If your order is below 2000, Amazon refunds you that deposit (I got it on 1/10)
I don’t understand why Iherb shows those prepaid Duties & Taxes no matter how much your order is, maybe it’ll be better to wait until they have an alternative shipping method
UPDATE: In reply to my questions iHerb said that the “Delivered Duties Paid” amount is the maximum that will be charged for duty + taxes. If the actual amount is less, the difference will be refunded. If the amount is more, the customer will not be charged more.
FWIW, I was eventually able to place an order, and got it 15 days later through USPS. Seems to be in line with other peoples’ comments about USPS giving the least hassle, although there are some curious bits on the label:
From: is merely named “Shipping” with the address pointing to a place in AZ, with no other indication as to sender/brand. (oh, the addr looks to be WR Group, which owns Biovea )
description of contents is merely “Consumer goods”
they listed the value as ~$10 even though I paid over $50
also shows an AES/itn/exemption: “NOEEI 30.37(a)”
Anyway, not a big fan of one of their branded items I picked up nor the technical issues, so hoping iherb can go back to being more competitive/reliable again soon.
I just received my order from iHerb. When placing the order they charged the import duties. I will check if later they refund my money.
Order sent by DHL which is the first time I received order using DHL.
DHL called to confirm the address…well, on iHerb website I had to change the Chinese address to English so DHL was confirming my strange address.
I, too, recently received an order from iHerb via DHL. The charge included an estimated amount for duties that looked high to me, but I relied on iHerb’s assurance that any excess would be refunded. After the shipment arrived, I contacted iHerb to ask about the actual duty. They reported that the actual amount was greater than the estimated amount I had paid but that I would not have to pay anything further. Fine.
At my request iHerb sent me a form showing the details of the import fees. As far as I can tell, it’s a DHL form not something prepared by the Customs Bureau, so it appears that it was DHL that categorized the items and determined the duty rates for the individual items. I have doubts about the characterization of the items and want to follow up with DHL.
Before the 22% discount my order was over NT2,000, but after the discount it was under the threshold. I’m not surprised that the shipment was considered dutiable. What concerns me is how the duty was assessed and by whom.
I’m curious how this works out. For an iHerb order a couple of weeks ago, I just maxed out the shipping weight, since that seemed to minimize the ratio going to shipping and duty.
I think only once have I had duty reimbursed, from Amazon, and that was months later. I assumed that was normal but I guess not.