Shipping Questions – Premium Vacuum Tubes

Pilot Program: Import Charges Prepaid – Ship to Europe

In response to European customers request while they seek top quality vacuum tubes, we are starting a pilot program for shipping to European countries with Import Charges Prepaid, as of Feb 1st, 2024.

Terms and Conditions:

First set currency to EUR

To participate the ‘EUR – Import Charges Prepaid’ pilot program, you MUST first set purchase currency to EUR from the website currency selection dropdown list.

Placing orders with pricing in currencies other than EUR (such as USD or CAD) do NOT qualify for ‘Import Charges Prepaid’ pilot program to European countries. If you prefer, you can still place order in USD currency but you must pay all import charges to your countries’ tax authority directly at the time of import & delivery, at your own extra expenses.

2. Prepaid Import Charges quoted by DHL portal

The Euro currency price shown on our website has been calculated to include Import Charges such as duty, tax and customs processing fees to selected western European countries, as per estimates provided through DHL Express International shipping portal. If your country has other special levy for imported goods not included in DHL portal quotation we have received, it is not included in our website quoted price.

3. Use DHL Express shipping for smooth delivery experience

We strongly recommend ALL European customers who wish to use the ‘Import Charges Prepaid’ pilot program to use DHL Express shipping option. We engage DHL Express as import broker to bill and collect import charges from OUR shipping account. This can greatly speed up delivery process.

If for some reason, DHL still requests you to make certain fee payment before they can deliver the shipment to you (yes sometimes DHL processing error does happen), please make payment promptly so that you can receive delivery right away. Please also remember to request and keep your ‘import charges’ invoice / receipt from DHL, scan them as picture or .pdf files, then send them to us via email for your refund. Please note the refund amount is between the actual charges and maximum UP TO 20% of the item value in your order, excluding any service fee, insurance and shipping freight charges.

4. Postal office shipping option doesn’t work for ‘Charges Prepaid by us‘ – Pay to Postal Office first then claim refund from us

If you opt to use Postal Service during checkout for your order, the carrier (Postal Service) in your country CANNOT and WILL NOT bill import charges back to sender (that is us outside of your country). You may have to line up at your local postal office service counter to pay in person or pay online for import charges out of your pocket prior to taking delivery.

In the case of Postal Service delivery, please make the required payment by your country’s authority, obtain your ‘import charges’ invoice / receipt from such authority, scan them as picture or .pdf files, then send them to us via email for your refund. We CANNOT issue refund based on verbal / email of ‘I paid such and such at the time of delivery’. An invoice and payment receipt must be presented at the time of refund request.

Please note the refund amount is either the actual charges or MAXIMUM UP TO 20% of the item value in your order, excluding service fee, insurance and shipping freight charges.

If you used PayPal or Credit card (by Stripe) as payment method to pay in Euro currency, your Euro funds paid to us were automatically converted to US Dollars when PayPal or Stripe released to us at the time of your order (we do NOT receive Euro funds to our banks from these card payment processors). We can only refund the US currency equivalent Euro amount at the time of refund. There may be a small shortfall to you, due to exchange currency charges by financial intermediaries and due to unexpected international exchange fluctuations – we have no way to claim these charges back so they will have to be born by the buyer in the order.

5. Pilot program maybe subject to change or cancellation without notice

Due to the complexity of regulations in multiple European countries, this Pilot program may be subject to change or cancellation, if it doesn’t work out smoothly as we expected. The success of the program relies on the accuracy by DHL shipping portal, and destination country’s policy stability over long term.

Please be rest assured that if your order was placed with ‘Import Charges Prepaid’ with us and payment completed, we will honor the program terms and conditions, even if the Pilot program is cancelled before your shipment delivery.

We hope the above pilot program will allow our European customers to have better understanding of the total cost to expect when placing tube order with us in Canada!

Happy tube rolling and happy listening!

Grant Fidelity – Premium Vacuum Tubes

I got a USPS tracking number…. now what.. why isn’t it moving?

We are receiving questions from customer on USPS tracking – here are the answers for all:

For many tube orders from USA customers, we use Canadian domestic courier service to ship to the border of Alberta/Montana, then customs brokers clear the parcels through US Customs into the USA. Once the parcels entered the USA (AFTER customs clearance and released by US Customs), the USPS tracking number will become live tracking on www.usps.com, and the journey starts from a small town called Sweet Grass, Montana.

Don’t jump when you see your order was shipped from Montana, not from Canada. It’s just cross-border paperwork to get on USPS shipping network.

This is the current QUICKEST way to ship cross the Canada/USA border at a realistic price. Alberta / Montana borders are much faster for parcel processing than the typical Western Canada/ USA parcel processing through the Vancouver BC Canada shipping hub, which is operated by Canada Post.

USA Customer will receive a 26 digit USPS tracking number (sometimes it’s a UPS tracking number) as soon as Grant Fidelity process your order in Canada – ie. pick n pack your orders and give the boxes to the Canadian couriers (this will happen within 48 hours of receiving your orders).

Customers in USA need to wait (patiently) for 2-3 business days for domestic transportation within Canada and border crossing into USA to complete, before starting to click on usps.com for updated USPS tracking, for either First Class mail (usually 5 days delivery within cont. USA) or Priority Mail (usually 2 days delivery within cont. USA).

The above described is the process of cross border shipments between Canada and USA these days – which can be subject to USA customs inspection and/or processing delay, depending on cross-border freight volume around holiday peak season, and/or the current Covid-19 restrictions which may cause even further delay with reduced staff everywhere in the supply chain.

Stay well and safe. Please bear with the freight forwarding system to cope with Covid-19 challenges. Your orders are sure coming to your way, as soon as it is humanly possible (till the day AI replaces human processing! 🙂

Happy Listening and Safe Holidays!

Rachel @ Grant Fidelity

What if a tube is ‘out of stock’?

When placing order on the website, you may be notified that a product is ‘out of stock’ at time of order or after the order is placed (we take many phone orders so the website stock level may not have been updated in real time).

When the product listing has ‘out-of-stock’ notice and if we have plan to re-stock it, we will be glad to accept pre-order with payment by credit card or Paypal. Your pre-order will have priority over others to be fulfilled once new stock arrives. Many our ‘Best of Best’ top tubes have waiting list once it becomes out of stock – these tubes are of limited quantity. First come first serves so please get your pre-order in line as soon as you can.

In each factory run of tube production, tubes meeting Grant Fidelity test method Top 10% Best Grade requirements are very limited. We will never ship lower quality grade tubes in order to rush to fulfill an order.

If a tube is out of stock and your order has been placed, we will email you in 24-48 hours letting you know of future stock availability. You have the option either to take an immediate full refund or your order will be in line among other pre-orders for guaranteed fulfillment from new arrival stock.

Thank you.