Forwarding Services for International Customers
If our checkout process provides carrier rate quote(s) for your country, then we are able to ship to your address and Dive Gear Express guarantees safe arrival of your order. There are a few countries for which we are currently unable to offer insured international shipping service with guaranteed timely safe arrival. Third-party package forwarding services allow consumers outside the United States to purchase from businesses inside the U.S. and have the packages shipped to a U.S. address of the forwarding service. The forwarding service consolidates the various U.S. origin packages from their customers in to a single bulk shipment, provides secure transit to the destination country, clears Customs using their own commercial broker, and then arranges reliable local in-country delivery. Forwarding services overcome bureaucratic difficulties clearing customs and can often be cheaper for high-weight orders that consist of multiple packages.
Our Dive Gear Express guarantee of safe arrival is only to the U.S. address of the package forwarding service, not the ultimate destination. Once carrier tracking indicates the package was securely delivered to the forwarder or commercial mail receiving agency contracted by the forwarder, our responsibility ends and the forwarder assumes responsibility for your package. This also means if the forwarding destination for your order is outside the US, you will be responsible for return shipping should a return be necessary. Return shipping costs to the U.S. from an international destination can be relatively expensive. Your complete satisfaction is our goal, so please consider carefully before purchase.
Dive Gear Express is willing to ship directly to some countries for which we are unable to guarantee safe arrival, upon receipt of non-refundable order payment by international wire transfer. For further information see Non-guaranteed Shipping.
We do not recommend any particular forwarding service, but to help get you started here are some U.S. based forwarding services that seem to be popular and legitimate, without excessive complaints: MyUS, Shipito, ShopFans, and SHIP2ME. There are a great many of these companies, just Google international package forwarding to find more. Rather than hire a U.S. based service that exports to your country, it might be lower cost with shorter transit times to research and find a local package forwarding service hosted in your country that imports from the U.S.
There is wide variation between forwarding services in their guarantees, costs, handling and transit times. When doing your research, be sure to check their pricing structure and identify all fees including who is responsible for damage or loss as well as how returns are handled. In most cases, all you will need to do is register with one of the services and receive their U.S. address plus your customer code which you will enter as the shipping address when placing your order with Dive Gear Express. We are required to collect State of Florida sales taxes when your order ships to most addresses inside Florida, so we recommend asking your forwarder for an address outside Florida (often Delaware or Washington state.) Some larger forwarders have a commercial mail receiving agency address that is located inside an export free-trade zone near the Port of Miami and Miami International Airport, where we also do not have to charge tax.
If the order ship-to domestic address is a package forwarding service or their commercial mail receiving agency, then special circumstances apply to delivery. If carrier tracking indicates the package has been delivered yet the tracking from your forwarder/CMRA does not indicate receipt, immediately contact your service to ask them to search for your package. The carriers carefully document the secure acceptance of packages at forwarder/CMRA addresses and when their records indicate acceptance then the carrier will deny subsequent claims for non-delivery. If your service does not find your package, then we advise you to open a claim with your forwarder/CMRA against their service guarantee for what we can only assume to be their subsequent mishandling.