Thanks for the comment, but

a) How do people know who is not allowing goods from China to come in if they don't inform the recipient?

b) How come I had a 0% loss rate for some 200 items in my first 2 years, followed by 3% losses in the whole of last year, stepped up to 25% in the last three months?

c) The supplier who claimed to have re-posted a missing item clearly lied because a short time after saying that they offered to refund? And they had done that once before. And in any case neither arrived.

Thanks for the welcome!

Afraid I have ethical problems with Amazon as they shut down our High Street Shopping areas, but my wife says I should have similar problems with slave labour purchases from China.

Yes, I have looked at Pimoroni and it is a bit of a shock. As an experimenter I have been used to buying multiple items on eBay for 0.99 GBP which come from China by Air mail, and that price even includes the postman walking down my drive. To have to pay 10x that would have severely limited my horizons!

However I can identify with your "Now what was it I ordered this for?" - or more accurately "Where can I find the notes I made of how this thing works?"

I would blame HMC&E.

I have heard many stories of them not allowing goods from China into the country. And they don't bother informing the recipient!

I'll assume ? you've read Bill's first post in this topic, so since you are in the UK have you tried Pimoroni?  I myself usually go the Amazon route.  Being a Prime member means I never pay shipping and most items arrive the next day or the day after.  Yes I guess I pay a little more in the long run, but the extra cost saves me from never getting some items, or worse yet, when it does arrive after weeks of waiting, I not left wondering, "Now what was it I ordered this for?"  ? 

And Amazon is building an enormous warehouse within about 5 miles of where I live, so maybe I'll be getting deliveries within just a few hours of the order that are delivered by drone! 

Welcome to the group!

I am in UK and have ordered some 300 items from China for my Arduinos via a range of sources on eBay in the last three years, with most arriving in 14-21 days. Then in August of this year I noticed that three items had never arrived - and all in the previous 12 months.

But then things got worse and I found I was waiting more than 40 days for 6 items, two of which never arrived. And now I have another two missing after 40 days.

Looking back I see that some of the missing items I bought in auctions, or by making an offer. One outfit claimed to re-post a missing item, but that never arrived either, so I think something underhand is going on.

I cannot believe that postal staff are risking their jobs by stealing items at 2-3 dollars. So are some eBay suppliers trying to make ends meet by not posting?

I would be interested to hear other people's experiences.

Yes, I also get the box kits for the M2-M4 stuff, but there's always that one length that you run out of, so I refill that size when I order the bigger stuff on Bolt Depot.

I do similar as well. Slow boat for cheapy items to try/play with and need now Amazon other or onshore.

I have looked at Bolt Depot a few times but never ordered.  For hardware like that, I order kits and boxes from China and stockpile what I use a lot of like M2-M4. I have had some luck at hardware stores for metric larger though, never smaller than M5 :(