Aim! Shoot!! Duck!!!

I ran into Borderlinx on Citibank website one day, promoting the ability to do online shopping in USA by providing you with a local USA address to send your items to. This perked my interest to check it out as I thought this is a neat service to have. When I first checked it out sometime last year, it was still very new & the website didn’t have much info. Apart from creating an account, I didn’t bother to do much more. That was until one day I received an email notification from them regarding their new ‘Total Cost Calculator‘ tool in their website. This happened around the same time I started to check out BigBadToyStore. Call it a coincidence. I compared the shipping cost using their ‘Total Cost Calculator‘ tool with BigBadToyStore international shipping & it seemed at that time, Borderlinx didn’t cost a lot more, like maybe around RM40 to RM50 more when converted. Unfortunately, the ‘Total Cost Calculator‘ tool didn’t really make it clear how shipping cost is calculated nor did I have a clue as to why there was a section in the tool to enter the dimensions of the package. It’s like, how would I know how big the packaging would be? So I ignored it & proceeded to try out using Borderlinx. This is where the ‘nightmare’ begins.

Borderlinx Total Cost Calculator

Basically how Borderlinx works is that it provides you with a local USA address to send your stuff to. This is of great help when online shopping sites only ship to USA addresses & don’t do international shipping. Their service has since been updated to offer a UK local address as well to do online shopping in UK. So you pay for local shipping from the online merchant to Borderlinx, then ship it back when you are ready. Sounds great right? So I waited for my item to arrive in Borderlinx, and when it did & I checked the cost of shipping it back, I was floored. From just being an extra RM40 to RM50, the shipping cost is now a staggering RM100 extra. I instantly used their very useful online chat to find out more. Here I found out 2 things:

1) Volumetric weight vs Dead weight. Volumetric weight is the amount of space a package requires while Dead weight is the actual weight of the package. Shipping is charged based one whichever value is bigger. So if your box is big but it’s light, you’ll get charged for the space of the big box.

2) Items can only be kept in Borderlinx for 30 free of charge, after that, it’s shipped & your credit card automatically charged.

I have to say, I was shocked. Shocked because I knew, no matter what I’m stuck with Borderlinx & will have to pay that amount to ship it back, whether I liked it or not. Worse, I had to do it in 30 days max. During that time, these particulars weren’t clearly mentioned in the website & the support staff apologised for it. I even asked the support staff how could I know how big the package would be in the first place? He conceded that I wouldn’t be able to know. That’s OK, lesson learned, I thanked the support staff & waited as long as I could before I hit the ‘Ship It’ button.

The day finally came when I had to hit the ‘Ship It’ button. Luckily, the exchange rate for USD to RM went down so I saved a measly RM5 on shipping. So I clicked the ‘Ship It’ button, hoped to see my package arrive in a week time & be a happy guy. Too bad lady luck completely deserted me. A week after I shipped the item, I got a call from the local DHL office, informing me my package has arrived, BUT I needed to settle customs tax before I could  get my item. How much was I charged? Tax + administrative charges = RM100++. At this point, I’ll be honest, I was PISSED & really wanted to ‘kill’ someone/something.  I couldn’t believe my luck. But I decided,  I was going to find out how did they calculated the tax & get it reduced. After a few days talking to DHL & customs, it turns out it was calculated based on some odd shipping charge DHL was giving customs. After clarifying & providing proof of the shipping charge I paid to customs, DHL finally informed me my item has been released from customs FREE of tax! Wow! Thank heavens! Finally it’s settled, after a week being stuck in customs & DHL.

By now, you must be thinking, this is a damning review of Borderlinx & I would never use it again. It almost reached that point. But it didn’t because of the great support staff. I chatted with 3 different support staff & had email exchange with 2 more. They all answered my queries well, even though they couldn’t exactly give me a better solution, they at least helped by clarifying everything. I’ve noticed after my conversations with them, the website was updated with more detailed information, like for eg, clarifying volumetric weight & a detailed section about tax & duty. It’s even mentioned in the tax & duty section that tax & duty is now prepaid with shipment & your item SHOULD NOT be held in customs. I’ll hold them on that.

So would I use Borderlinx again? Maybe, because it can clear customs faster & will most likely arrive when compared to using international parcel. I got an email from the support staff thanking me for my feedback & rest assured that my feedback would be channeled to higher management so that the service will be improved. That email kind of made me feel, OK, at least my relentlessness paid off.