I'm confused by the Grant Fidelity email re: shipping. In one of your earlier posts it seems to indicate that Rachel was ordering directly from the factory so I don't follow why she would have used an estimate from some vendor on Aliexpress to quote you shipping versus having taken the time to get it directly from the factory and freight forwarder before finalizing the order. Yes, I know she said they weren't responsible for shipping, however in my mind that doesn't preclude ensuring that customers are provided with complete information for the transaction before finalization.
The email is what it is. IMO, some information was held back because they thought there was a good chance I wouldn't have bought the speakers had I known shipping was going to be $2500 for that item alone. She said shipping isn't her responsibility. She gave me an estimate and it was way, way higher and someone needed to come up with more money. The email came in at 11:45 PM right before I went to bed; wire an additional $2336 by tomorrow morning or you don't get your merchandise. I was a very unhappy guy and let her know that but every response was always 'not my fault, you must pay.' I don't think that money ended up with her (though that's who I had to wire it to) but how do I really know it went for shipping. The whole thing sounded like a scam to me and I felt like a schmuck wiring more money. I was convinced that I would never see anything, which was 100% untrue, I got what I was promised by GF.
At the risk of sounding racist, I was told afterwards by friends that have done business in China that this kind of thing is not unheard of. Sometimes you have to grease palms to get things out of the country. Even Rachel said to me after I screamed about the extra $2300 that "China is a third-world country after all." I would NEVER import anything from there again. I've imported big ticket stuff from the U.K., France, Poland, Switzerland, Belgium and Hong Kong (pre-2020) and never had any issues. IMO, China is the wild-wild west.
