How do I get round this?

[Deerhunter]

All,

I have identified an item (a reproduction MG 08/15 Assault Sling) on a US site and, having called, was politely told that they do not dispatch items to the UK.

My first question to them was: it's not a weapon or weapon part, can you please make an exception? (politely told "no").

Has anyone else had this problem and managed to get around it?

Regards,

DH

[4thGordons]

It is increasingly common.

Because of tightened export regulations many companies now do not ship components of any sort abroad.

I don't think it is the regulations per se, rather that it is too much trouble for retailers to work out which items the restrictions apply to and which they do not, and therefore they apply a blanket policy. It can be frustrating but I think it is probably understandable given that exports likely constitute a very small portion of their sales or potential sales.

Chris

[John_Hartley]

You find that many American sellers using Ebay will only despatch to the USA (and, sometimes, Canada).

I guess the only way round it is to have an American friend who will take delivery and then forward it on to you.

[centurion]

It is increasingly common.

Because of tightened export regulations many companies now do not ship components of any sort abroad.

I don't think it is the regulations per se, rather that it is too much trouble for retailers to work out which items the restrictions apply to and which they do not, and therefore they apply a blanket policy. It can be frustrating but I think it is probably understandable given that exports likely constitute a very small portion of their sales or potential sales.

Chris

I think that the problem arose in part because some low life in the UK who were re activating deactivated weapons or converting replicas to fire (mainly to supply to gangs) were found to be sourcing from the USA. The authorities here consequently gave a certain amount of grief to some US suppliers via US authorities. Inevitably some quite legitimate suppliers were drawn into the net and the word got round that it wasn't worth the hassle

[pioneecorps]

I was intouch with a dealer in America to buy military parts, just last week, which were cheeper than the dealers in this Country, he would have sent them to me, the only problem was the postage, by the time I paid it, it worked out a lot dearer.

[healdav]

This is a perpetual problem - and not just for weapon parts.

Some years ago World Books stopped sending books abroad after many years of doing so without problems and gave a list of reasons that only showed they didn't know what they were talking about e.g. losing money on exchange rates when using a credit card! Postal charges (we paid in advance to an account and they just charged post to the account).

They then changed their name.

Dell wouldn't send me a computer from Britain as my billing address wasn't there, but France Dell wouldn't send the computer to me as the delivery address wasn't in France; they couldn't care less about the billing address and Britain didn't care about the delivery address.

A friend told me only yesterday that one website in Britain refused to sell a train ticket as the billing address wasn't in Britain, but the next site was quite happy to do so.

Some companies won't send to the Channel Islands but will to the IoM. Others say the opposite.

There is a possibility that at some time in the future the BBC will be doing a radio documentary about this - I was talking to the producer about it last week. This new example is another for the file.

[Garron]

I've stopped buying bayonets on ebay.com as its just getting too much hassle; some will without a problem but they are getting harder to find its normally Continental US only. Then you get the sellers that either wont post to the UK or when they do they give you a astronomical quote for postage which is completely false.