Advice about Probemaster delivery times if ordering in the UK (updated)

[Microdoser]

I recently went to the Probemaster website and found their probes to be quite reasonably priced for the quality. They have good reviews so I ordered a set of probes from them to be delivered to the UK.

On their website at the time there was no mention of delivery times. I ordered with no problem and a day or two later received an email telling me they had been shipped and had left the originating country (the US).

All good so far.

After a couple of days I thought I would email them to see how long delivery to the UK would likely take expecting it to be similar to other US sellers, on the order of 2-5 days possibly a week after shipping.

The email I got back told me that it could be up to 6 weeks until I saw my probes...

So, this post isn't a complaint about Probemaster, it's to give a little warning to others about ordering direct from them if you are in the UK. It seems the place to order from is Welectron if you want delivery faster than 3-6 weeks. Had there been any indication of delivery time on their website, I would have reconsidered ordering direct and searched for an alternative.

Frustratingly, I ordered a Brymen BM967s from Welectron at the same time as I ordered the probes. I didn't think to get the leads from them although after checking whilst writing this, they don't have the exact set I ordered anyway.

Update:
2021-4-4
I have still not yet had my probes. From what I can tell from the tracking information it took 2 days to move from San Diego to Los Angeles where they languished for another couple of days. Then for some unknown reason they decided to go to Vancouver, Canada! They liked it there so they sat for 10 days in Customs. After their holiday in Canada they missed California so went back and ended up in San Francisco.  At that point it had taken them 2 weeks to travel just 120 miles, although the actual journey was more like 2700 miles. I can only assume they fancied seeing some scenery.

Things have moved rapidly since then, and it took only two days to get to Washington and just 24 hours to get to London, which is where they are right now.

At some point I suspect I will get my probes. Now they are in the UK I foresee things moving much more sanely.

[Microdoser]

*bump*

[Tom45]

What carrier did they use to ship the probes?

[artag]

This is not unusual, I'm afraid.
I had just as long to wait for a Teensy order at the end of last year (before the Brexit awfulness) - no fault of PJRC who dispatched quickly and used a well known carrier. I don't think it went as far adrift as Canada but it certainly visited a selection of states.

[Microdoser]

What carrier did they use to ship the probes?

From the packet, USPS first class package intl. I now get why people in the US slate USPS.

I now have the probes in my grubby hands. The probes themselves are, as expected, very good.

Once they left the west coast they gained a lot of speed, and it only took 4 days from the time they arrived in Washington to get to my door.

Like I said above, this is not a complaint about Probemaster, they shipped in good time and so on. It is more a tale of woe and caution and checking tracking for weeks that I could have avoided by ordering to the UK from Welectric...

[wizard69]

It would be interesting to know more about your orders strange trip to Canada but you are not likely to ever find out.   Sometimes things just get screwed up.   In any event think of it this way you have well rounded probes that have seen a bit of the world.

As for me I don't do international orders much but I did buy an EEVBlog meter recently and it arrived surprisingly fast all the way from down under.   Good service all around so a big thank you to everyone pulling that off.

As for the shipping companies in the USA, one thing that people in Europe might not know is that the shipping companies have hubs located in various locations in the USA.  So a package will travel from the originating state to another state where the companies hub might be.   That could be 1000's of miles so often the routes don't look very direct.    The trip this package took though is unusual.

What carrier did they use to ship the probes?

From the packet, USPS first class package intl. I now get why people in the US slate USPS.

I now have the probes in my grubby hands. The probes themselves are, as expected, very good.

Once they left the west coast they gained a lot of speed, and it only took 4 days from the time they arrived in Washington to get to my door.

Like I said above, this is not a complaint about Probemaster, they shipped in good time and so on. It is more a tale of woe and caution and checking tracking for weeks that I could have avoided by ordering to the UK from Welectric...