My Jauce Experience - Use at your own risk!

[Roxy13]

Like I said Jauce doesn't deal with customs taxes. Every country has it's own rules on that for one thing. And they do ship things everywhere that is not Japan. They do these things for you:

Allow you to bid on or buy items in Japan.
Store it for you for at least 60 days. More if you are in a country that no longer has EMS service.
Repack it and ship it to you.

 

[brokentoeswalker]

Phew, thats good at least !!! You can get to the bottom of it then It looked on your Jauce form that you already paid the shipping and your account is at 0.

 

[zombywoof]

Buyee did exactly the same to me in the last 6 months. I believe it to be a problem with them using DHL and the fact that they are now repacking guitars in massive DHL boxes to avoid damage claims. I had 5 guitars in their warehouse when they hit me with their bait and switch pricing. From Japan uses FedEx and their prices are slightly higher than EMS but roughly half that of DHL.

They would NOT combine guitars into the same box either. This was not revealed until after purchases.
They are putting sellers shipping boxes into these oversized boxes filled with airbag packing. I could fit two normal guitar boxes easily into one of these DHL boxes with plenty of room for packing. (This is probably an ins. liability issue with DHL)

I spoke with my attorney friend and was basically told "You're F*****d" pay them or forfeit your stuff".

Before you all say "file a PP claim or do a charge back", that doesn't work when you send them a deposit to make purchases on your behalf via bank transfer. Could there be a case filled and possibly won? Maybe. But the risk/reward is not worth it. Not risk/reward of losing but money spent on legal fees vs money possibly recouped.

 

[zombywoof]

You might also call DHL and ask them directly IF the customs tax is included in their shipping charge. If that is it, sorry, anything you buy over $800 you have to pay it. When it went EMS and through US customs and to USPS you had to pay it to get your guitar. But, DHL does pay it on your behalf so they might have already added it to the bill. That is what you need to know: is it already added or are you getting another tax bill as well.

I thought the same as you Roxy but I got hit by DHL while my guitar was in customs and they would not release it until I paid them. Also DHL charges a fee to use your money to pay customs. FedEx is the only way to ship to the US now that EMS is down.
I believe DHL is taking advantage of the situation.

 

[Ph03n1x]

Rinkya is trying to charge 500USD to ship 2 guitars so I don't think the OP is going to find happiness going back to them.

 

[BadMongo]

So I'm in the midst of my first Jauce experience - I've got two guitars that have been set to 'Shipment Processing' for about a week (I wanted to wait until after the holidays before requesting the shipment) - but honestly if it's going to be more than twice as much to ship DHL, I might wait it out for EMS - though who knows how long that will be.
I had a guitar from Reverb get here in two days from Japan via FedEx for about $100, why on earth would Jauce go with DHL instead?

 

[Ton of Tone]

Now I am certain that Jauce is deceptive and doing this intentionally. I had no idea that EMS service from Japan>USA was suspended for months until now, but Jauce has obviously been aware of it for a long time. Still, they give you a shipping estimate using EMS, even though they know they'll have to use DHL. There is no option to get a DHL estimate, for good reason. Their sales would drop significantly if customers knew they were going to get charged $300 shipping for a 4lb guitar (without their consent). I know I would have bought something elsewhere. Then things get worse. When Jauce receives your guitar, they re-pack it and use the actual weight and dimensions to calculate the actual shipping charge for a service they know they cannot use. They allow you to select and pay for a service that they know isn't available. What happens next is the worst part. They refund your payment for EMS shipping (which should have never happened in the first place) and switch to (and charge you for) a much more expensive shipping method without your consent. This new shipping method is more than twice the original shipping estimate. No doubt this is intentional bait and switch.

 

[currypowder]

To the OP, I'm sure that if this were happening to me, my head would explode. Seems pretty underhanded to me. I hope you receive your guitar, even if it does end up being more expensive that you thought. Be prepared to pay another couple hundred when DHL applies duties and their brokerage charges.

Many here are probably getting tired of me beating the FromJapan drum, but my OVERALL experience with them has been much better than Rinkya and Zenmarket. I will readily agree that Rinkya and Zenmarket package better than FJ, but it comes at a pretty steep price, IMO. I will also say that I ran into a period, when my buying was at its peak, where I thought that FJs packing was substandard and at least contributed to a couple of guitars being damaged during transit. However, I've also concluded that the heavy handed handling by EMS/USPS also contributed to damage. Some of the boxes I received from all of the proxies through EMS looked like they had been rode hard and put out wet. Using FedEx Priority reduces the time in transit considerably and I've noticed that the boxes arrive in pretty clean condition. That combined with FJs improved packing has, IMO, minimizes the risk.

All that being said, I have not had a single issue with FJ in over 2 years. And FedEx Priority through them (essentially overnight) has been costing me right about what I was paying for EMS. And if I combine 2 guitars. something I would probably avoid with EMS, I can generally get the shipping cost to around $125 per guitar for overnight shipping from Japan. That is amazing to me.

There are no surprises with FJ. What I pay in UDS is very clear and the fees (stated and hidden) are pretty cheap. Like other proxies, they use their own exchange rate that seems to take about a 4-5% haircut. You might be able to avoid that with other proxies using other payment methods like transferwise. But FJ only allows deposits/payments via credit card or PayPal.

Every now and then, shipping cost ends up being very high, maybe around double normal. In those cases, I've simply asked them to discard the original sellers packaging and repack without it. Takes a few days to complete, but has always reduced the shipping cost considerably. I have to thank John @JDZ for this little tidbit of knowledge. I don't think I would have figured that out by myself.

 

[brokentoeswalker]

Damn i thought shipping 2 guitars with hardcases via EMS was crazy last time i did that, and it was $300 U.S . Of course my package was quite heavy lol took 2 post office guys to lurch it to my door. I feel for you guys that do this for a side hustle. I only buy them from Japan for pleasure, and because even losing 30 cents to the dollar and usually paying 18% duty and taxes on top of the price they still end up great deals here in Canada. I couldn't flip for any real kind of profit. We still have EMS running in Canada but its slower. It took a month for me to get my guitars that were shipped around the 1st of November. Sea shipping takes 2 months to get to me usually. I'd never use EMS again. We can't use any of the courier services here unless you want to pay an extra $150 for being a Canadian lol yeah, sign me up for that.

Thanks to the OP for alerting us to this.

 

[BadMongo]

Now I am certain that Jauce is deceptive and doing this intentionally. I had no idea that EMS service from Japan>USA was suspended for months until now, but Jauce has obviously been aware of it for a long time. Still, they give you a shipping estimate using EMS, even though they know they'll have to use DHL. There is no option to get a DHL estimate, for good reason. Their sales would drop significantly if customers knew they were going to get charged $300 shipping for a 4lb guitar (without their consent). I know I would have bought something elsewhere. Then things get worse. When Jauce receives your guitar, they re-pack it and use the actual weight and dimensions to calculate the actual shipping charge for a service they know they cannot use. They allow you to select and pay for a service that they know isn't available. What happens next is the worst part. They refund your payment for EMS shipping (which should have never happened in the first place) and switch to (and charge you for) a much more expensive shipping method without your consent. This new shipping method is more than twice the original shipping estimate. No doubt this is intentional bait and switch.

So - this part I'm not sure of, to be honest, and I'm inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt. They give the option of storing indefinitely past their usual 60 day storage time for free for folks who can't have their packages shipped EMS until it resumes service, seems to me more that they're trying to make the best of what's a pretty shitty situation for everyone IMO. I don't disagree that the way they're adjusting the prices is pretty gross (although they do warn in a few places that DHL will cost more), but it seems pretty clear that your options are either wait indefinitely for EMS (for free - which means it costs them money/warehouse space) or pay extra for DHL and have it sent sooner. If they didn't give a shit about their customers, they'd just ship it DHL and not even give you the option of taking up space in their warehouse indefinitely. My $0.02.

 

[Roxy13]

I don't understand why they didn't message you about the increase like they did for me over the bass. I discussed it with them over a 3 day period. They put together an estimate for the bass with the singlecut in a case and for just the singlecut by itself for me and said I could leave the bass until whenever EMS resumes to the US.

I've had 3 2 guitar packages come from Jauce via DHL since EMS has been cut off without any issues. It does cost more but with the exception of my stupidly tall bass, it wasn't that much more. Now, none of these guitars were priced high enough that I had to pay customs taxes though either.

However, if the one I do have there is going to cost this much then it will be coming here SEA.

 

[Ton of Tone]

I don't understand why they didn't message you about the increase like they did for me over the bass. I discussed it with them over a 3 day period.

They give the option of storing indefinitely past their usual 60 day storage time for free for folks who can't have their packages shipped EMS until it resumes service.

They didn't give me the option of shit. They cancelled and refunded the EMS shipping option and chargerd me for DHL. I was not informed of anything. I wasn't offered any options. If my account balance didn't go negative, I would never had known they changed it until I got a tracking number.

 

[Ton of Tone]

If they didn't give a shit about their customers, they'd just ship it DHL and not even give you the option of taking up space in their warehouse indefinitely.

Well, that's exactly what they did.

 

[BadMongo]

My dude I'm not here to start drama but you explicitly have to give them a shipping order, otherwise it sits in their warehouse until you do. I literally just put in a shipment order and there's all sorts of disclaimers about EMS right now.

 

[Ton of Tone]

My dude I'm not here to start drama but you explicitly have to give them a shipping order, otherwise it sits in their warehouse until you do. I literally just put in a shipment order and there's all sorts of disclaimers about EMS right now.

I thought I explained pretty clearly what happened here. I guess not. I did explicitly give them a shipping order. It was for the EMS shipping. They changed it. They charged me extra. They processed the shipment. They did all this without notifying me of anything or waiting for an approval. The only communication I received was a notice of negative funds which I topped off. When I put in my shipment order, the was absolutely no disclaimers about EMS. If there was, I wouldn't be here right now. I don't know why this is so hard to understand. I'm sorry my experience with Jauce doesn't match your experience with them. As I said in my original post, I am being 100% factual and not exaggerating in any way.

 

[Ton of Tone]

They are putting sellers shipping boxes into these oversized boxes filled with airbag packing. View attachment 511627

Christ, those boxes are huge! They could fall out of the plane with the guitars untouched. I guess the good news out of all this is that I don't have to worry damage in transit.

 

[BadMongo]

No one is saying that it's not a shitty user experience or that it's an easy and totally transparent process, but there's absolutely a disclaimer. Obviously you're welcome to believe that they want to personally screw you over maliciously, but it seems much more likely that it's a convergence of other factors related to a once in a lifetime pandemic reducing air shipping availability and disrupting their entire business model. It obviously sucks and it's totally reasonable to be mad about the situation, but assuming that they're out to get you seems like a stretch.

 

[Ton of Tone]

No one is saying that it's not a shitty user experience or that it's an easy and totally transparent process, but there's absolutely a disclaimer. Obviously you're welcome to believe that they want to personally screw you over maliciously, but it seems much more likely that it's a convergence of other factors related to a once in a lifetime pandemic reducing air shipping availability and disrupting their entire business model. It obviously sucks and it's totally reasonable to be mad about the situation, but assuming that they're out to get you seems like a stretch.

You stated that you're not here to start drama, yet that is all you're doing now. I never said anyone was out to get me or they want to personally screw me over. That is all in your head. I'm only sharing my honest experience, so others can see what they may have to deal with themselves. I'm sorry you don't like it. You seem defensive and determined to discredit me. That's not going to happen. Perhaps it would be best to start your own thread, discussing how happy you are with Jauce's service. That is not what this thread is about. Please stop crapping on it. Thanks.

 

[m5570]

What currypowder said about FJ +1. They ship FedEx & guitars are here within a couple days.

I’m not crazy about the boxes they use (opening down the front) as Rinkya used boxes you opened at the top, & one box took a hell of a beating & the driver said we should check it out to make sure it was ok (it was). But they are my go to. Jauce is holding my stuff due to EMS. They tried to charge me $600 to ship 2 guitars & a pair of sunglasses and I told them FJ was using FE and they said they’ll continue to hold my stuff.

 

[Ton of Tone]

Jauce is holding my stuff due to EMS. They tried to charge me $600 to ship 2 guitars & a pair of sunglasses and I told them FJ was using FE and they said they’ll continue to hold my stuff.

I wonder what Jauce has against FedEx. It sure seems like DHL is milking the situation. Jauce told me the guitar shipped 2 days ago, yet DHL tracking shows that only a label was created and the package hasn't been handed off to them.