Foreign orders

+ Larger Font | - Smaller Font Hawaii, Alaska, and Puerto Rico are NOT "foreign" destinations. Neither are APO and FPO addresses. We ship via USPS, and these are considered domestic.

We have had many enjoyable dealings with "educated" foreign buyers. We have also had a few problems with foreign buyers who did not understand the realities of overseas shipping. There are several hurdles which must be addressed in order to place an order going outside the U.S. or Canada.

Canadians: you can use a credit card but if the card is one of the few which does not support address verification, we may ask for further documentation, such as a scan of your driver's license. We can accept a Canadian money order in Canadian funds sent to a Canadian address, a Postal money order in US funds sent to us, or a personal check in US funds drawn on a US bank. Many Canadian banks have a US branch and are therefore considered US banks. Most packages to Canada took 7-10 days to arrive. On the rare occasion, customs held it up for a few weeks. On even rarer occasions, they tacked extra VAT taxes on it. Where possible, we send these packages with friends and relatives going into Canada so they can be shipped locally and avoid the delay.

non Canadians: Most foreign credit cards do not support address verification or CVV. We have no way of showing proof of delivery. Therefore we do not accept direct credit card payment except for U.S. and Canada. You can use Paypal. However, because of numerous problems which have been reported with payments made via foreign credit cards, we do not accept credit card payment via Paypal. You can pay from your bank account or paypal balance only. You can also use your credit card with Bidpay which is a FREE service which will charge your card and send us the payment. Click the Bidpay link for more information.

Shipping: Shipping is inexpensive on small items. Batteries, smartmedia and compact flash can be sent airmail or Global Priority for $5 to most destinations and typically arrive in a week to ten days. Battery chargers are about $8 to ship. But there is no tracking or insurance. If you want tracking or insurance, the costs go up tremendously ($15 and up). So far the only package we sent that got lost was going to a U.S. Army Base. Digital cameras to Germany, Austria and Australia arrived safely, but with insurance, they cost about $40 to ship and took about two weeks to arrive. Small packets to England, the Phillipines and South America took a week to ten days. Remember that shipping outside the U.S. can not be tracked and may take a while to get there. We do not want to be held responsible for the shortcomings of international postal delivery service.

Customs and VAT taxes: You will be responsible for any Customs or VAT taxes. We are a company and our shipping labels indicate this. Please do not ask us to write "gift" on the customs form.

If you have done your research and know how to pay and what the procedure will be to get it through customs, then email and we will be happy to hear from you.