As many of you know, I am living on an overseas military base in Japan. I am also an online shopping maniac and I have been extremely disappointed by the fact that there are tons of awesome websites (and also specific products like [some?] nail polishes, makeup brush cleaners, dry shampoos) that don’t ship to APO/FPO addresses. One thing that I can’t stand is when a website actually has the option to ship to overseas military bases, but once I go to checkout, the website informs me that they currently don’t ship there. What?! You’re breakin’ my heart, website!
Some of the websites that can’t ship to me include
Ulta,
Beautylish,
Inglot,
The Container Store,
Fab,
HSN, and many more. (Don’t get me wrong, I totally love these websites! I’m just bummed that they don’t offer shipping to military bases!) Now, that doesn’t mean that I haven’t bought things from these websites, sent them to my family’s house, and had my family ship things to me (thanks mom and dad!), but it’s a hassle, plus it’s more money. OH! Speaking of more money, there are
so many sites that ship to me, but it costs a fortune! There’s absolutely no reason for me to pay $15 for shipping when I’m only spending $15 on the merchandise!
Sometimes though, there is just that one (or two or three) product(s) that I very much want or the sale that the website is having is just too good to pass up, and I end up caving in, buying something, and having it shipped to the address that
APObox.com gave me. For those of you who don’t know,
APObox is a service for military members that ships things overseas when the websites you shop at don’t give you the option to ship to APO/FPOs. The addresses provided are in the United States. It’s a great service idea and I don’t need to bug my parents every other day to send out the package that I had sent there, but it’s even more costly because
APObox charges $8-10 depending on the packages’ weights and whatever the USPS fees are.
If any of you are military members/spouses and use
APObox, I just want to let you know what happened to me. Luckily it wasn’t awful, but it was super inconvenient. I had ordered a Canon Rebel T3i (with accessories) from
QVC. The money for it comes out of my checking account and then a few days later comes back in. I thought there was an issue with the billing or something, but when I called
QVC they said that there was an issue with the address I had given them.
QVCnormally ships to my FPO address, but this particular item couldn’t so I had given them the address that
APObox provided me. The customer service rep that I was speaking to got everything cleared up (or so I thought). Another five days went by and I still had not been charged for the camera, nor had I received an email from
QVC telling me that my order had shipped so I called one more time. Turns out my
QVC account was cancelled because of fraudulent activity.
Turns out that
QVC has had issues with the
APObox addresses. Now, I don’t know if the problems were with the company
APObox or a customer of
APObox, but I was certainly surprised and pretty bummed that
not only can I not get the camera from them, but I can’t order anything from them at all now because I no longer have a
QVCaccount. I’ve had several packages shipped to me using
APObox with no issues, but now I don’t want to take the chance of losing (expensive) items or having more of my accounts closed. I’m pretty sure I’ll be forced to poke and prod at my parents to send me things now or just not shop at the websites that don’t ship to me. Wompwomp.
xox
