June 14, 2009

Whew... Saved by the Crazy American!

Update on my previous posting about trying to get items shipped to US military addresses.

A friend in California has agreed to be my middle-gal - so I can buy from Amazon, ship to her and have her re-ship it downrange.

Thank you Miss V!!

June 12, 2009

The World's a Global village? - I think NOT!

Sigh.. I've recently been attempting the near-impossible - vis-a-vis - finding a USA based supplier of general grocery items that will 1) ship to a US military address [I've made some new friends] and 2) accept the concept that other countries actually have reputable credit card systems.

So far I'm batting zero. Sure I can buy books and toys* from Amazon.com and ship it where-ever the heck I like - but not anything considered a standard grocery item (including non-perishible items like soap & razors). Netgrocers.com were kind enough to direct me to a "pay us to give you a false US address" company [ergh.. can we say potential scam?.. oh yes we can!]. Sure I could ship stuff from Australia - at 4 times the delivery cost; 6 weeks in the shipping and still be likely to have it confiscated by the US customs group but yeah.. I deal badly with failure.

Oh and I can actually buy US stuff for myself via Expat.com - excect they don't ship to the US itself (strangely enough they're based over there - just don't do domestic shipping).

Sigh.. guess the guys downrange are doomed to receiving the weird tea-tree shampoos & stuff that the Aussie supply companies have [I'm sure it cleans great but the smell is kind of a bit umm...]

So if any of you know of a friendly we-like-your-money-regardless-of-your-country type suppliers could you let me know?


**in about 4 weeks I'll tell you about the dastardly toy shipped out to the unsuspecting and unaware (wicked grin)