Comgateway.com - very slow service to Australia

thanks for the review, will be using a forwarder shortly for stuff that amazon wont directly ship to me.

will give shipto a go.

what would a small package generally cost to ship to australia via these forwards , like some watch or maybe bigger like shoes?

Yeah, thanks for the review. Also, I came across this offer for US mail forwarding for amex holders:
http://www.myus.com/en/amexhka/
It says:
Waived set-up fee ($20 savings)
Complimentary Premium Membership (a USD$60 savings per year)
30% off already discounted DHL & FedEx shipping rates

Now I haven't used them myself but might be worth checking out.

Thanks for the review standtall. I have never used Comgateway but wait times seem very excessive. Shipito are a lot more efficient.

@newuseragain - They generally take shoes out of the box but it still might cost around $30 to get them forwarded. The whole idea is to order lots of things and get the packages combined. Usually $1000 worth of shopping (clothes, shoes, accessories) would cost another $100+ in shipping. Given the price differences, I am guilty of literally buying everything that can be shipped over from US sites.

@erd - thanks for sharing AMEX offer. AMEX is great for shopping from US sites. Apparently when you buy using AMEX, your billing address doesn't matter so retailer won't know that you are buying from Australia unless they get your IP. I never had any issues with AMEX at all. Will give MYUS a go next time I order something from US.

I can't believe the savings and so many people who still won't use these forwarders :)

Just signed up for MyUs using the AMEX offer - it is definitely FREE.

One issue - they are based in Florida so you will have to pay 6% sale tax on your purchases. Comgateway are in Oregon so you save that 6%.

KB wrote:

Just signed up for MyUs using the AMEX offer - it is definitely FREE.
One issue - they are based in Florida so you will have to pay 6% sale tax on your purchases. Comgateway are in Oregon so you save that 6%.

Hope they turn out to be a good one, KB.
Shame about the sale tax. :(

Just did a quick cost comparison between shipito, myus and comgateway using 6 packages as an example totaling 15lbs.

- Shipito comes out to be the cheapest but Virtual Box option will cost you $50 a year.
- MyUs Premium (free with AMEX) is slightly cheaper than Comgateway but you will pay extra 6% sales tax which will make it the most expensive option.

Shipito seems to be the best option between the 3 if you are looking to ship frequently otherwise Comgateway will be good (if you are willing to put up with long processing times).

KB wrote:

Just did a quick cost comparison between shipito, myus and comgateway using 6 packages as an example totaling 15lbs.
- Shipito comes out to be the cheapest but Virtual Box option will cost you $50 a year.
- MyUs Premium (free with AMEX) is slightly cheaper than Comgateway but you will pay extra 6% sales tax which will make it the most expensive option.
Shipito seems to be the best option between the 3 if you are looking to ship frequently otherwise Comgateway will be good (if you are willing to put up with long processing times).

Thanks KB. I was considering signing up to MyUS, thought it was cheaper, won't bother with it after your review.

Warning about Shipito:

Shipito shipping calculator advises you of which shipping companies are available based on the weight and dimensions of your parcel and quotes you the price.

Shipito had all the information about my article, which was make-up, including a customs declaration which I filled out before they received the parcel, and photos which they took of the contents. Having received the quote, I paid the money.

They then contacted me and told me that the quotation was no longer valid because the parcel contained make-up, and I would have to choose another shipping method.

My options then were to either pay A LOT more (twice or three times as much) for another shipping method, or to pay less for very slow shipping - BUT they won't refund me the difference between what I paid and the cost of the slow shipping. They are just keeping the money.

They call it a deposit - but this is pure sophistry as I will never do business with the dishonest company - it is a deposit in their pockets.

There are a lot of negative reviews for Shipito, and wish I had seen these before doing business with them.

SukeSingh wrote:

Warning about Shipito:
Shipito shipping calculator advises you of which shipping companies are available based on the weight and dimensions of your parcel and quotes you the price.
Shipito had all the information about my article, which was make-up, including a customs declaration which I filled out before they received the parcel, and photos which they took of the contents. Having received the quote, I paid the money.
They then contacted me and told me that the quotation was no longer valid because the parcel contained make-up, and I would have to choose another shipping method.
My options then were to either pay A LOT more (twice or three times as much) for another shipping method, or to pay less for very slow shipping - BUT they won't refund me the difference between what I paid and the cost of the slow shipping. They are just keeping the money.
They call it a deposit - but this is pure sophistry as I will never do business with the dishonest company - it is a deposit in their pockets.
There are a lot of negative reviews for Shipito, and wish I had seen these before doing business with them.

Sorry to hear about what happened with shipitto SukeSingh and thanks for sharing it. I think you should push back and demand a refund of the difference if you are not happy with the 'store credit' they have offered. It is their mistake that they gave you a wrong quote.

Interesting discussion!

I've used comgateway before and they seemed ok - took a couple of days from them receiving the packages to them sending them to me.... but that was a year or so ago now, so maybe they've gone downhill since then.... I can sort of understand why they might not want to cut open boxes by default in case people accuse them of taking something..... anyhow, just thought I should note that they were ok for me way back when.... plus a nice touch is you get a 'free' unique mail address you can use at the likes of amazon....

ninhursag wrote:

Interesting discussion!
I've used comgateway before and they seemed ok - took a couple of days from them receiving the packages to them sending them to me.... but that was a year or so ago now, so maybe they've gone downhill since then.... I can sort of understand why they might not want to cut open boxes by default in case people accuse them of taking something..... anyhow, just thought I should note that they were ok for me way back when.... plus a nice touch is you get a 'free' unique mail address you can use at the likes of amazon....

Ah, interesting. I didn't know that Amazon checked/cared about if the address was unique.

Good point - not sure if they *do* require a unique address, probably don't, but for whatever reason I had issues purchasing stuff from Amazon even after removing any Aussie reference etc and using services such as "CyberGhost"... until I got the comgateway address.... could have purely been coincidence, of course! *biggrin*.

ninhursag wrote:

Good point - not sure if they *do* require a unique address, probably don't, but for whatever reason I had issues purchasing stuff from Amazon even after removing any Aussie reference etc and using services such as "CyberGhost"... until I got the comgateway address.... could have purely been coincidence, of course! *biggrin*.

oh, I see. thanks for the tip about comgateway then. I wish we had Amazon AU so we could stop jumping through hoops to buy from Amazon US.

comGateway
Despite what they say you can not in most cases request re pack. Their freight to Australia is a total rip off as is their is their response to any emails.
Yesterday at long last I received an email. Not from Gateway but from FedEx telling me they tried to deliver my parcel on 7/3/13 .Sorry 7 days to contact me NOT ON.
Amazon
With in seconds of placing my order I realised I had selected the wrong delivery address. I immediately followed every instruction from Amazon re change delivery address & every other option available on their web site. Not one option worked..
I contacted them re this issue eventually they got back to me sending me links to follow.
Yep you guessed it not one worked & of course by now I am notified my order has been shipped.
This was my second time only the first was just as bad with both company's & will be the last with Amazon & comGateway.

Kerri wrote:

comGateway
Despite what they say you can not in most cases request re pack. Their freight to Australia is a total rip off as is their is their response to any emails.
Yesterday at long last I received an email. Not from Gateway but from FedEx telling me they tried to deliver my parcel on 7/3/13 .Sorry 7 days to contact me NOT ON.
Amazon
With in seconds of placing my order I realised I had selected the wrong delivery address. I immediately followed every instruction from Amazon re change delivery address & every other option available on their web site. Not one option worked..
I contacted them re this issue eventually they got back to me sending me links to follow.
Yep you guessed it not one worked & of course by now I am notified my order has been shipped.
This was my second time only the first was just as bad with both company's & will be the last with Amazon & comGateway.

Wow, that would suck. But I am very surprised to hear that about Amazon. Their customer service is usually second to none. I am saying this by experience as I had so many surprisingly good responses when I had to deal with them. . I think you should send an email to them explaining what has happened and I am sure they would sort it out.

erd wrote:

Kerri wrote:comGateway
Despite what they say you can not in most cases request re pack. Their freight to Australia is a total rip off as is their is their response to any emails.
Yesterday at long last I received an email. Not from Gateway but from FedEx telling me they tried to deliver my parcel on 7/3/13 .Sorry 7 days to contact me NOT ON.
Amazon
With in seconds of placing my order I realised I had selected the wrong delivery address. I immediately followed every instruction from Amazon re change delivery address & every other option available on their web site. Not one option worked..
I contacted them re this issue eventually they got back to me sending me links to follow.
Yep you guessed it not one worked & of course by now I am notified my order has been shipped.
This was my second time only the first was just as bad with both company's & will be the last with Amazon & comGateway.

Wow, that would suck. But I am very surprised to hear that about Amazon. Their customer service is usually second to none. I am saying this by experience as I had so many surprisingly good responses when I had to deal with them. . I think you should send an email to them explaining what has happened and I am sure they would sort it out.

Completely agree. Amazon will go to any context to make sure a customer is happy.

COMGATEWAY RIPOFF
Hi I recently tried comgateway with very dissapointing results. I used their buyit for me function, completed all the relevant forms and waited for an email to confirm the purchase. Nothing arrived and I checked my credit card, the debit was put through the day I made the purchase to Comgateway so I emailed their "customer service" address asking why I had recieved no confirm email and trying to ascertain where my money had gone. What ensued was a farce and in my opinion is fraudulent, the representative responding to my emails, if in fact it was a single person which I doubt, made no attempt to answer any of my questions. Despite supplying then a copy of the card statement page, my name, email address and item details I had ordered, they said that they were unable to help unless I supplied them my order number, which I had already explained I did not have. I got nowhere despite numerous emails. Basically I have had $400 stolen from me and it has been a starck reminder that online is not always safe and secure as much as we might think it is.
I would avoid this company like the plague and wish I had read the many online complaints about them before proceeding.

Craig wrote:

Hi I recently tried comgateway with very dissapointing results. I used their buyit for me function, completed all the relevant forms and waited for an email.....

Wow. That definitely sucks. Sounds like they really aren't doing everything they can - it's perhaps time to contact your credit card company and see if they can do something from that side!

Kerri wrote:

comGateway
Despite what they say you can not in most cases request re pack. Their freight to Australia is a total rip off as is their is their response to any emails.
Yesterday at long last I received an email. Not from Gateway but from FedEx telling me they tried to deliver my parcel on 7/3/13 .Sorry 7 days to contact me NOT ON.
Amazon
With in seconds of placing my order I realised I had selected the wrong delivery address. I immediately followed every instruction from Amazon re change delivery address & every other option available on their web site. Not one option worked..
I contacted them re this issue eventually they got back to me sending me links to follow.
Yep you guessed it not one worked & of course by now I am notified my order has been shipped.
This was my second time only the first was just as bad with both company's & will be the last with Amazon & comGateway.

Did they try to deliver it on a weekend? I've tried the service before, and they arrange for redelivery on weekdays if they've missed out on weekends. They also repacked my stuff pretty well.. keeping the usual packaging, unlike borderlinx who threw away the packaging, resulting in my receiving damaged goods.

As for Amazon, I shipped Kindles, realized I wanted the order cancelled, and got it changed immediately. And this was 2 weeks ago.

You snooze you lose I guess. Think you usually have a half hour window.

I don't think weekend delivery is an option here in Australia. Amazon and US forwarding companies do their bit but once the shipment lands in Australia, local Fedex, DHL or Australia Post make a mess of it. So many times, my deliveries have arrived from the other side of the globe within 48 hours into Australia and then took up to a week for another 20 kilometers from airport to my home.

I just used this site for the first time to buy beauty products from the USA and ship them to Australia.
Amazing experience. I was VERY nervous! I had several packages arrive over a 2 week period and had a total of 30 days to store them. Once each package arrived I would be notified by 6pm USA time.
When it was time for me to send them to Australia my package was sent on within hours.
Yes the postage was a little more than if I could get the products delivered directly to Australia, but I couldn't so I paid.
Thanks

apple_violet wrote:

I just used this site for the first time to buy beauty products from the USA and ship them to Australia.
Amazing experience. I was VERY nervous! I had several packages arrive over a 2 week period and had a total of 30 days to store them. Once each package arrived I would be notified by 6pm USA time.
When it was time for me to send them to Australia my package was sent on within hours.
Yes the postage was a little more than if I could get the products delivered directly to Australia, but I couldn't so I paid.
Thanks

I think it also depends on time of the year. They take a lot longer to notify during peak times (up to 3 days).

I've used MyUs.comin the past and they are very good; especially when it comes to customer service, but just didn't like the high shipping rates. I'm currently using Parcelbound.com and enjoy their service and lower shipping rates. I would have tried Shipito.com since they post really low shipping rates, but the high number of bad reviews from this site is crazy; I guess you get what you pay for.

I am having a nightmare experience with Comgateway currently. My wife ordered a few things (a paid of shoes, 2 pants and a shirt) from JCPENNY and Comgateway wants to charge us 10KG in volumetric shipping while real weight is just 2.5 KG. Their website states that they will repack the items if different between volumetric and real weight is more than 2 kilos. In this case, the difference is more than 7KGs but no repacking option. I emailed them 5 days ago and got a very confusing reply in poor English which said something on the lines that they didn't enough space in their warehouse to cut down boxes and repack them and hence they expect me to pay international shipping for 7KGs of empty space.

I think they purposely don't offer repacking these days because they make a commission from DHL/Fedex in shipping rates and the more weight they can charge, the more money they will be able to make.

I will not use them again and absolutely wouldn't recommend anyone else to consider Comgateway service.

When my parcel arrived, 5 items were missing! I re-checked the invoice that they scanned for me, everything arrived at their warehouse OK. However, they took 5 items, crossed it off the original hard copy invoice before they forward the parcel to me, WITHOUT NOTICE! Basically stealing, do not use them! They are the cheapest, but if you're missing your items, thats a crime!!

Aletheia86 wrote:

When my parcel arrived, 5 items were missing! I re-checked the invoice that they scanned for me, everything arrived at their warehouse OK. However, they took 5 items, crossed it off the original hard copy invoice before they forward the parcel to me, WITHOUT NOTICE!
Basically stealing, do not use them! They are the cheapest, but if you're missing your items, thats a crime!!

Sorry to hear that. A possibility is though, these mail forwarding companies often devide deliveries into multiple packages, simply because it is sometimes cheaper to send three small packages than to send one huge package. Try contacting them I would say,

Nevertheless, they should have send you a notice to expect multiple deliveries.

Aletheia86 wrote:

When my parcel arrived, 5 items were missing! I re-checked the invoice that they scanned for me, everything arrived at their warehouse OK. However, they took 5 items, crossed it off the original hard copy invoice before they forward the parcel to me, WITHOUT NOTICE!
Basically stealing, do not use them! They are the cheapest, but if you're missing your items, thats a crime!!

We're afraid we here, cannot help you. Did you try asking them what went wrong before coming here to talk about it?

I am yet to use these parcel forwarding companies but have always had concerns over the repacking and charging.
This doesn't fill me with confidence to start using freight forwarders.

well have just had to use one of these services this week, and decided to try ustooz.com.after some reading on whirlpool.

hopefully they are better than comgateway. will report back my experience...

newuseragain wrote:

well have just had to use one of these services this week, and decided to try ustooz.com.after some reading on whirlpool.
hopefully they are better than comgateway. will report back my experience...

I am very very interested to know about your experience with ustooz.com. Getting sick of rude customer support from comgateway.