I start by saying I have no understanding whatever of how this works. But here’s what happened with my last online order from a company called “buletboard.”¹

I wish I had bought these directly from Amazon, I could have gotten an instant refund, because these things are:

So poorly designed that there’s hardly an American car that the device will clip to. I barely got it to stay on my Rav4, and then the phone essentially blocks my view of the road. The device does not take phone cases into consideration, the phone barely fits in the clips, and getting the phone into the holder is close to impossible. Shame on me for buying from China once again.

The product was ordered on August 16, and arrived today, September 10th. But the most interesting thing was the emails I kept getting from the company about “The status of your parcel has been updated.”

• Belfast,bt170wg,United Kingdom,The shipment has been processed in the parcel center of origin.
• The shipment has left the sorting center.
• Lincoln,LN4 3SD,United Kingdom,The shipment is in transit in United Kingdom.
• The shipment arrived at the customs of United Kingdom.
• The shipment is being inspected at the customs of United Kingdom.
• The shipment has been shipped to United States.
• The shipment arrived at the customs of United States.
• The shipment is declared at the customs clearance of United States.
• Departed Shipping Partner Facility in the United States.
• Transit: New Orleans,70139,United States,The shipment is in transit in the country of United States. (four days after the parcel arrived.)

When the package arrived, it had several labels, one on top of the other. The first one was in Chinese, and included my name, address, the product description, and a bunch of barcodes.

The second label indicated that it was shipped from “Online Seller, 2700 Center DR, Dupont, WA 98327.

This is far, far from the East coast where I would have expected the package to arrive, if it were indeed being shipped from Belfast, and being processed through customs in the UK. It’s also an Amazon fulfillment center.

The second, final label indicated that the sender was:

DEBRAG HABOUSHS
3511 VICTORY BLVD
STATEN ISLAND NY 10314

A self-storage office? This makes no sense at all. I mean, I can see the package being sent from Washington on the West Coast if the item were shipped from China, to a distribution point in the East, since we live in Maine. But a self-storage office, and with such a phony-sounding name?

One thing is clear: the chain of emails sent to me by “buletboard” was 100% bogus, since the product obviously came directly from China. Combine that with the poor quality of the product I received and essentially wasted my money on, should be a glaring drudge siren flashing in my eyes to remind me never to buy anything from a Chinese vendor again.

The Old Wolf has sadly spoken.

Footnotes

¹ Most of these Chinese companies must use random name generators for their popup companies which are here today and gone tomorrow, re-appearing somewhere else with a new name after the first one is shut down for shady dealings.