Shipping Questions – Premium Vacuum Tubes

Ship to Europe Pilot Program: Import Charges Prepaid by us!

In response to European customers request while they seek top quality vacuum tubes, we are starting a pilot program for shipping to selected 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. If you see the webstore pricing changed to EUR pricing, your country is currently included in the pilot program.

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 to handle import tax process yourself at the receiving end, you can still place order in USD currency. In this case, 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 are 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 major 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 (this might be the case of some Eastern European countries) and such levy must be paid by the buyer once we present you the customs invoice we receive from your country.

Important Notes: When your order is shipped with Duty and Tax Prepaid by the sender (that is us), if DHL in your country requires any documents for customs clearance, please forward the request by email to us – our email is the order confirmation email you received from. Please do NOT provide documents from your side to DHL without confirming with us first, in order to avoid customs confusion on tax & duty assessment resulting in double taxing.

3. Use DHL Express shipping for smooth delivery experience

We ask 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. So far we have done orders by DHL through to Germany, Sweden and Italy as of May 2024 and the process worked seamlessly.

If for some reason such as missing paperwork, DHL still requests you to make certain fee payment before they can deliver the shipment to you (yes sometimes DHL processing errors do happen), you can make payment promptly first so that you can receive delivery right away. You must 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 fee refund. Please note the refundable import charges is between the actual charges and maximum UP TO 20% of the item value in your order, excluding any insurance and shipping freight charges in the order.

4. Postal office parcel shipping option doesn’t work for ‘Import Charges Prepaid’

If you opt to use Postal Service during checkout for your order (ie. the cheaper shipping option), please place order in USD currency which excludes any import charges in the pricing. The carrier (Postal Service) in your country CANNOT and WILL NOT bill import charges back to sender (that is us in Canada 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 your country’s import charges out of your pocket, prior to taking Postal Office international parcel delivery.

If you used PayPal or Credit card (processed by Stripe) as payment method to pay an order in Euro currency, your Euro funds paid to us were automatically converted to US Dollars when PayPal or Stripe releasing funds to us at the time of your order (we do NOT receive Euro funds to our banks from these card payment processors). In an event of processing refund, keep in mind that 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, but all orders will be honored

Due to the complexity of regulations in multiple European countries, this Import Charges Prepaid Pilot program may be subject to change or cancellation. 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?

For tube orders from USA customers, we sometimes 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 for final delivery by USPS. 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.

In the above shipping scenario, USA Customer will receive a 26 digit USPS tracking number as soon as we process your order in Canada – ie. pick n pack your orders and give the boxes to the Canadian couriers (this will usually 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.

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.