Categories
Information

Edfa3ly Update – I won’t Retract My Post

package1

I’ve never retracted a review since I started blogging over a decade ago. The most I’ve done was go back to a review and add a little note at the bottom mentioning what has changed about the place and thats about it. But, the amount of backlash I’ve gotten over my review of the US forwarding mailbox service Edfa3ly has been like no other which has made me consider retracting my original review. But I won’t and here is why.

Back in August I posted about how Edfa3ly was the cheapest way to ship lightweight packages from the States to Kuwait. Some of the advantages were the fact that they charged per 100grams, that you wouldn’t pay any US sales tax and you wouldn’t pay any local customs clearance fee. I had ordered an item from Amazon and had just paid around 500fils to have it shipped to me and it took 10 days to arrive. Two days later I posted a coupon that my readers could use to waive the international shipping fee and thats when things started going downhill.

First sign of trouble was when a reader left a message saying that once the package arrived to Kuwait he had to pay KD2 to have it delivered to his door and that he also had to pay KD5 for custom clearance. Then two more readers left messages stating the same thing. That turned out to be a temporary fuck up on Edfa3ly part but they fixed the issue.

More signs of trouble kept coming in though. A lot of readers were complaining that they couldn’t get hold of customer support. Some spent days trying to get a hold of someone to no avail. It seems people had more luck getting a response back from Edfa3ly by leaving a comment on the blog then trying to reach support through the proper channels.

Another problem was also brought to my attention. I had originally stated that you wouldn’t have to pay any US sales tax but Edfa3ly changed their policy and started charging a US sales tax. I also posted packages would take around 10 days to be delivered since thats how long it had taken mine to arrive but people started complaining how shipping was taking over 3 weeks with many going missing.

I couldn’t retract or update the review without trying the service out again myself, so I placed an order for another cheap lightweight item, a USB charging cable for my Game Boy Advance. These were the charges:

Item Price: $4.99
Sales Tax Inside US: $0.35
Customs: $0.25
Clearance Fees: $3.32
Edfa3ly Kuwait Fees: $0.05
International Shipping Fees (1.33 dollar(s) per 100gm): $6.65 (0.5KG)

Total: $15.61
Free Shipping Discount Coupon: – $6.95

Final Amount: $8.66

25grams

Item order was placed on September 9, it arrived in my mailbox September 19, it then shipped out on September 23 and I finally got it October 6. So I ended up paying around KD1 to have the item delivered to me in Kuwait and it took 17 days to be delivered to me after shipping from the States. Thats not bad, it wasn’t an important item so I wasn’t in a rush and shipping was still much cheaper than the alternatives. If I had ordered using PostaPlus, the same item would have cost me at least KD3.5 to have it delivered to Kuwait while with Aramex it would have cost me KD4.25. Now true I had used a free shipping coupon with this order but it seems they constantly have a free shipping coupon listed on their website. One confusing aspect is why they marked my package as weighing 500grams when the item weighs just 25grams as you can see in the picture above. But since I had the coupon for free shipping I didn’t care or contact them to find out. If I was paying for shipping I would have definitely made an issue about this.

package2

Now one final comparison. In my original review I posted a breakdown of how much it cost me to ship a Nikon Rubber Eyecup for my camera from Amazon (pictured above). The breakdown was as follows:

Item Price: $10.7
Customs Fee: $0.54
Edfa3ly Fees: $0.54
International Shipping Fees: $1.33

Total Price: $13.11

If I was to place the exact same order today and not use a free shipping coupon, the breakdown would be as following:

Item Price $10.4 (it’s 30cents cheaper now on Amazon)
Sales Tax Inside US: $0.73
Customs Fee: $0.56
Edfa3ly Fees: $0.1
Clearance Fees: $3.32
International shipping fees: $1.33

Total Price: $16.43

So while previously it cost me $2.41 on top of the item to have it shipped to Kuwait, this time around it would have cost me $6.03 which clearly isn’t as cheap but still cheaper than PostaPlus or Aramex.

So will I continue to use Edfa3ly? Yes like I have been… for really cheap small and light items that wouldn’t be worth shipping with PostaPlus or Aramex. They’re also items I don’t need urgently. For everything else I’ll continue to use PostaPlus like I have been doing. Someone emailed me telling me they ordered a Kindle with Edfa3ly, I personally wouldn’t order a Kindle with Edfa3ly. It’s more reliable to order a Kindle to my PostaPlus account and PostaPlus would also most likely be cheaper. People tend to skim through my posts no matter how short or long they are. I only recommended Edfa3ly specificaly for “tiny cheap stuff”, packages that weigh under 1/2kg. Look at what I ordered as a perfect example, a rubber eye cup for my camera that costs $10 and a tiny custom USB cable for my Game Boy that cost $5. I didn’t order a MacBook or an Xbox.

I will be placing an update under my original review mentioning the fact they now charge a US sales tax and a clearance fee, but I will not be retracting my original post since I still stand with what I originally stated. Edfa3ly are the cheapest way to ship light packages from the US to Kuwait. They are just no longer as cheap as they originally were.

UPDATE: There have been major changes to the service since this post. Edfa3ly are no longer the cheapest option to ship, they no longer charge by the 100grams and they are now more expensive than PostaPlus so I have retracted my review.

60 replies on “Edfa3ly Update – I won’t Retract My Post”

Edfa3ly is garbage. I’ve used them about 4 times so far, and each time has been a really horrible experience.

I had an order that was cancelled by them (reason stated was that the item was banned). Fair enough. But I had already paid. Just a few KD, no big deal. Website has an option to have the money paid back to my bank (I paid through K-Net). The money never came through, after a very lengthy process of having to type in my bank info, which for some reason had to be typed ALL in Arabic. That was a first. Ended up just asking them to refund me cash when they delivered my next order. They said no problem. Next order comes, I have to pay KD1 delivery fee, which they initially said I didn’t have to pay, and no refund money. Expected. Get in touch with them again, through the website, ask them about the refund money. They say it will come with the next order. Next order arrives, no refund money. To top it off, delivery driver demands that I pay KD 8 for shipping and customs, which I already paid for through the website. I tell him no way. Ask him about my refund money. He says, “OK fine, we’ll just deduct it from the KD 8 and now you owe me KD 5.” This is a circus. I tell him to call whoever is in charge and clear this up. His pregnant wife is in the car, yelling at him to hurry up. He tries to make a call, but his phone is out of money. He asks to come inside and use the phone. What on earth?! Give him my phone, he calls, tries to clear everything up, says no I have to pay. I take the phone and explain the situation. Obviously Edfa3ly is in WAY over their heads and cannot even organize basic channels of communication with their delivery company, which is outsourced. By the way, my order took over a month to get here. When I checked the website, it finally said it was in Kuwait. I asked them why it wasn’t delivered? They were waiting for me to pick it up. I asked them why I would have paid the delivery charges in advance if I was going to pick it up?

Get your shit together Edfa3ly. You still owe me money but I’d rather take a loss than deal with your shit again. Amateurs.

Edfa3ly is true the worst order web, I tried to buy 3 collective items, it should cost me 73.69$, half hour later they sent notification said: We informed you that your order number #…… will be ordered for amount 101.83$
Yet I asked why, they said their policy for not confirming the order.
Many people didn’t recommended me for their payment method, I didn’t believe them until I tried today

Thanks for this.

I used the coupon you posted initially offering free shipping for items less than 50$ (I asked what was the catch then).
I ordered something worth $49. I paid the exact USD>KWD conversion. I received the item after about 17 days. Well not received actually, I got a call from their office saying that I had to pick it up from there, or I could have it delivered to me at an additional cost of KD 1. I simply went over and picked it up. A friend of mine ordered something even smaller and of lower value and had it delivered to him at home at no extra cost about a week later. I guess you could say they had a bit of a starting trouble, but I’m happy with the deal I got. I guess it is the next best thing to having a friend bring over something from the US. Will use them again for non rush items.

They are not clear in billing, I ended up paying 45$ for my 30$ Items. + They didn’t even shipped it in one delivery; If I made one order with them; they should combine my items and ship it once.

But they delivered it separately:

Here was my order below:
Online Price: $29.99
Domestic shipping: $5
Customs: $1.75
Edfa3ly Kuwait Fees: $1.75
International shipping fees: $7.98 ( 0.6 kg )
Edfa3ly Kuwait Total: $45.81
Paid: $43.82
Unpaid: 1.98 $ ≈ 0.594 KWD
Total: $45.80

Depends. Sometimes you can ship heavy items from the US to Kuwait for ridiculously cheap. So cheap in fact I’ve ordered 5 steel wheels for my wrangler before, I order 4 aluminum wheels for the Z4 I used to have an I’ve order 5 really large 33″ mudd-terrain tires for my FJ and had all these shipped directly to Kuwait. But in these cases the company I was ordering from had a good deal with Fedex.

If you order from Amazon UK a lot of times shipping is very cheap. A friend made me realize this just recently. For example a coffee machine costs KD200 on Amazon UK including VAT. When you choose to ship the item to Kuwait they remove the VAT and add shipping and you end up with a total of KD210. Which is amazing and arrives in 2 to 4 days.

Thanks to 248am I could reap benefits from Edfa3ly three times so far. Truly, they did charge KD 1 for delivery for the first one but there’s been no additional charges on the later packages. To top it all, I got a free shipment offer for my last order and therefore got a heavier item (approx. 2kg) shipped. The delivery times were also as expected 10-15 days.

I’ve used them 4 times since your original review and been pretty happy. There have been a couple of glitches on the website and I wish their tracking capability was better but no real complaints. I go and pick my shipments up to avoid the 2 kd delivery charge

there shouldn’t be a KD2 delivery charge anymore, that was a fuck up for only 1 week or so. are u still being asked to pay kd2 to pick up a shipment?

I was asked to pay it (and did) by their driver on the first shipment I received about 3 weeks ago. since then I have picked everything up at their location. I didn’t know until I read this article that the 2 KD fee was an error.

Well I also ordered using 248am coupon. About 20 days later I received a call to pickup or pay 2KD for delivery. When I asked the reason for the charge, the lady on the other side said you have to pay 2KD if you want delivery today otherwise your package would be delivered after two to three days. I told her I am not in a hurry but they delivered it the same day without any charge.

hi all, i tried the service 2 times, used the free coupon for free shipping charges & free customs charges, first time every thing ok and they asking me to paid KD 1 to deliver to home or free pickup? so i went there to pickup the shipment done, second shipment they add US ax charges & clearance charges as this is new charges applied but they make the delivery free of charges ( as they said) so service ok, and the free coupons OK, the shipping period take little longer than they said on the web site but its acceptable, they need to update the shipment status more accurate, im happy with the service at all but i dont know why they apply US tax charges on items while the other sites dont?

worst experience ever

the customer service when called for the order delivery been calling me “baba” and speaking like i been working for their family or something, very rude

I also think they are in way over their heads. My last order arrived over 3 weeks after order was placed. I received it around a month ago. The tracking on their website still doesn’t show that accurately. I had ordered a couple of games for the PS4 off amazon through them which for some reason arrived in Kuwait over a week after they received it. The tracking showed no update since the time their warehouse in the states received it. The phone number on their website doesn’t work. The customer support on chat told me it would arrive and be delivered by Thursday. Thursday they call me saying its ready for pickup or it would be delivered by saturday. Our driver went to pick it up and they tell him it’s not ready and to come next week. On saturday they called me saying It will be delivered the next day. I told them I was guaranteed delivery on saturday by the person who had called me as well as the customer support on chat. They said but sir the customer support is in Egypt, we don’t know what they told you. I just gave up and went and picked it up myself. Also, they only asked my first name and gave me my package. No ID check or questions like my last name or phone number.

They do need to improve record keeping. On my last 2 shipments they have emailed me telling me my package needs to be picked up – 3 days after I have picked it up.

Hi
i was planning on leaving a comment on your post but thought its just me so i didn’t bother. i have ordered an item mid August and it says delivered in their system but i haven’t received it yet. i have contacted them via e-mail, phone, chat. same response i get they’ll check and get back to me.. and they keep sending lousy e-mail “whats your order number” and its either in the subject or e-mail thread. and on top if that, i already paid for customs within the charge so i don’t get the “Delivery” charge i will be informed of later when they find my package.

Well, I have not used this service before nor did I bother reading all of the long comments here. However, I just wanted to point out something to the masses, you get what you PAID for, PERIOD.

I saw your post a while ago about Edfa3ly while building my PC. I bought all the parts locally except my SSD, which I ordered through Edfa3ly. I ordered nearly a month ago (Sept. 13th) and the order STILL didn’t come.

Seriously, I already finished my PC two weeks ago and now using a HDD bought locally for a bit more than what Edfa3ly charges.

Absolute garbage how I paid 45KD and these guys still didn’t give me a notification or any email to tell me. They did call about a week and a half ago promising my SSD will arrive in a few days.

Where’s my SSD, Edfa3ly?

Let me add by saying they really are awesome at what they do, and they have a really simple yet superbly designed website.
I was so impressed with them, that after my first order, i went ahead with another two, which i received last week, and i have another new order on the way, which im expecting next week.
No complaints from my side, none at all, in fact i highly recommend them.
Much cheaper compared to other delivery sites, when you compare the final cost, once you have the item that you have ordered in your hands i mean.
** Also .. if you pick up the item from their office (which is in Shuwaikh) it is free .. no delivery charges !!

*** Another thing is that you need to read the sellers shipment info .. some do mention the shipping date which affect the delivery date to the warehouse, which in turn the date you receive it here.

The timing of this very good. I’ve been making lots of order through them since I read your post. But I’ve noticed a significant slowing of delivery and slowing of response from customer service. Their website sucks and has caused problems with orders.

I’ll still use them, but hopefully always with a promotional value.

Sounds like a terrible company. Temporary fuckups costing people more money than they claim + lousy customer service + inconsistent service and different payment schemes + LOST SHIPMENTS…If you are going to open for business and start charging people for your services, you need to be able and ready to do it. I dont think there is any excuse for that. And on top of that, bad service is the WORST and is constantly witnessed and perpetuated in the Arab world. I always take a stance against it, because it wont improve if we just accept it, keep giving them business or stay quiet.

I recently ordered an item from amazon using edfa3ly.
the item price was 37$ from amazon, they charged 57$, however i used a promotion code and my order total was 42.86$. (the item is 1 KG)
it was a very good price, but i took 15 days to arrive (keep in mind that when you order to check how many days amazon will deliver to edfa3ly- usually amazon will show the date range of the estimated delivery).
plus they didn’t charge for the home delivery and even offered to give me my 717 fils in cash ( the discounts that i got from the promo code)
it was a good experience overall and its cheaper than mrbabu or shopandship (at least from my experience with them)

I’ve used them once – for a small and inexpensive item (as Mark suggested). No issues as such – it did take longer than some of the other service providers, and i was asked to pickup rather than them delivering.

Would I order from them again? Only if it’s something small and I don’t need in a hurry. I use PostaPlus for the most part. My only wish with them is that they consolidate packages in the US (i generally order from a few different suppliers who deliver within a few days of each other).

HI Mark

same thing happen for me. They were asked me 2 KD for local delivery where aramex is changing 2.250 for international delivery (excluding customs). and the delay from Edfa3ly huge. its taking more than 20 days.

I felt somehow mrbabu is better.

My Experience:

After reading the review on this blog, i tried them out. I ordered 3 things from Amazon, 1 in stock and 2 back ordered. The first item came pretty quickly, just over a week, but i also had that random 2 KD delivery charge. I didnt mind too much.

The other items…what a hassle. Over a month after coming into stock i still hadnt recieved them, and the status on their site said they were in their US warehouse, and then they weren’t, and then they were in kuwait, and then they were back in their US warehouse. After multiple attempts at contacting their customer support, i just asked for a refund in the end. Then one of the items arrived to me last week and i should have got the refund on the other (need to check actually). I made a bit of a fuss so the item last week, i wasnt charged anything when it was delivered.

This experience was enough to put me off using them for now, but on a positive note, someone working there named Nada was very helpful and friendly, when she did reply emails.

Maybe teething issues for them and i hope they can resolve them and become something great.

I ordered from them twice after seeing the post on here and the first order arrived fairly quickly. The second took a little longer, almost 3 weeks after it reached their warehouse in the UK though it was supposed to have arrived within 3-8 business days, but I just put it to the fact that the Eid holidays came in between and their offices here would’ve been closed.

I was told to pick up the items both times from their office to avoid the 2KD charge. I wished I’d known that this was just a glitch, but at least their office was quite accessible and not in some far off location.

The staff were friendly, but the office was quite a mess and looked very disorganized and they had to hunt around a little to locate my parcels.

I think they offer a great service if you’re looking to buy a small item that you don’t require urgently and despite one of the items I had ordered being quite fragile, I received it intact.

Tried them once using the 248am coupon and never had an issue. Took a little less than 2 weeks from the day they received the package in the US to the day they called me for pickup (including Eid holidays in the middle). No hidden fees or anything. I will say the office was a mess and they definitely seemed understaffed for the number of orders they were getting. I’m guessing they didn’t expect that many customers especially for a new business.

I buy a lot from different Japanese site and amazon US, I use OPAS which is WAY better than shit Aramex, OPAS gives u US & Japan address.

you pay 25$ for registration fee, they keep ur items in their warehouse/mail box for one month only and they will charge u 1$ to 2$ later per day, but the good part is that they only take 10$ for their service and you can ask them to combine your diffrent items in one box/package for shipping (shipping price depends on ur item weight,same as other shipping companies )

it saved me a lot of money.

hi Mark
i dont understand why they are charging sales tax especially for items brought from Amazon. bcoz as far as i know for items from Amazon if they are intended for shipping outside the USA you can claim a tax refund once you show them the Kuwait customs document.
i vaguely remember that once you yourself had posted abt how to get a tax refund from Amazon.

I think it’s just a ploy to make more from their customers.. they are incredibly cheap. They have got to make money too. As mentioned earlier in the comments, the lady at their online customer service named nada was very helpful. I had made almost 4 shipments thru them. She sorted out the glitches.. they are cheap but also very slow.
Plus if your total order from Amazon is more than $ 49,but u have items that are add-on items, don’t let them charge you for domestic shipping as all shipments above $49.00 are eligible for free shipping from Amazon. I had to ask them refund the additional charges. They did refund it back to me promptly but.

hello Mark.. just wanted a personal opinion. i wanted to buy a laptop from amazon.it would weigh abt 6 pounds
which service would you recommended for expensive items?
any particular reason? bcoz u had mentioned edfaely to be cheaper.

I have used Edfa3ly for the first time. Yes Mark may be right it is cheap for the cheap items only and if you have patience to wait for longer period to have it delivered on your doorstep.

I have ordered 2 items in single order and despite lots of reminders and followups I received only 1 item mentioning that Edfa3ly did a favor to me to have it delivered earlier…oh really!!!

I ordered on 8th September, items were delivered on 12 Septemper, Eid Holidays in States from 13th – 18th…are you serious…and I received my first item on 29th ..ahh finally.

And as of today I received confirmation from Edfa3ly facebook support page that my 2nd item has been lost…and I then received a call at night around 8PM (I believe Edfa3ly work until 5PM). The guy on the phone end the conversation while I started complaining about their service…I don’t know what will happen, either they will re-order or refund…anyhow I am done with Edfa3ly.

I have not received 2 items of a 3 item order, yet their website shows that my order was “Delivered” !!!, their phone is switched off and they have not replied to my e-mails !!!

Here’s better site…………..mrbabu.com
Though some stuff they cant order (forbidden), but better than edfa3ly (ed…tfoooo “spit”) 😂😂😂😂

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *