I recently found a Pentax Ni-Cd Battery Pack LX advertised on eBay, from a seller in England, and bought it, as I have the LX motor drive, but no power source for it. (Of course, the NiCd cells in these are long dead by now, but there are NiMH cells to be had that are of a compatible form factor, and I'm reasonably good with a soldering iron.)
The seller was willing to ship abroad using eBay's Global Shipping Program, which I'm used to appreciating, as eBay's international shipping partner, Pitney Bowes, is efficient, has reasonable prices, has excellent tracking, and handles the customs clearance process quickly and faultlessly.
However: this time, the shipment was stopped at Pitney Bowes's facility in the UK, where they claimed that NiCd batteries were transport restricted, so the item could not be shipped internationally. This is just plain wrong; there are restrictions on batteries containing lithium, but not on NiCd or NiMH.
The seller contacted eBay, and asked them to clear up the misunderstanding, but was told that there was absolutely no way to get any communication from the seller to Pitney Bowes, and absolutely nothing eBay could do to affect their process. Mistake or no mistake, Pitney Bowes had said the item was restricted, and that was that. After a couple of rounds back and forth, the seller was rather rudely told to stop complaining, and the case was closed.
Worst of all: the way Pitney Bowes handles a case like this is by destroying the restricted item. Not only did I not get it, but the seller didn't get it back, so we couldn't redo the transaction, using regular post for the transport.
eBay absorbed the cost, though - I got a refund, and the seller got his payment. Kudos to eBay for doing that, but it still really hurts that an old, out of production, piece of equipment was destroyed.
Me, I now have a set of NiMH cells ready for when I manage to find another battery pack LX. I'll just be very careful about not letting Pitney Bowes handle the shipping!
-tih
The seller was willing to ship abroad using eBay's Global Shipping Program, which I'm used to appreciating, as eBay's international shipping partner, Pitney Bowes, is efficient, has reasonable prices, has excellent tracking, and handles the customs clearance process quickly and faultlessly.
However: this time, the shipment was stopped at Pitney Bowes's facility in the UK, where they claimed that NiCd batteries were transport restricted, so the item could not be shipped internationally. This is just plain wrong; there are restrictions on batteries containing lithium, but not on NiCd or NiMH.
The seller contacted eBay, and asked them to clear up the misunderstanding, but was told that there was absolutely no way to get any communication from the seller to Pitney Bowes, and absolutely nothing eBay could do to affect their process. Mistake or no mistake, Pitney Bowes had said the item was restricted, and that was that. After a couple of rounds back and forth, the seller was rather rudely told to stop complaining, and the case was closed.
Worst of all: the way Pitney Bowes handles a case like this is by destroying the restricted item. Not only did I not get it, but the seller didn't get it back, so we couldn't redo the transaction, using regular post for the transport.
eBay absorbed the cost, though - I got a refund, and the seller got his payment. Kudos to eBay for doing that, but it still really hurts that an old, out of production, piece of equipment was destroyed.
Me, I now have a set of NiMH cells ready for when I manage to find another battery pack LX. I'll just be very careful about not letting Pitney Bowes handle the shipping!
-tih