Full Spectrum / Hurricane Lasers

[Nicholas Ferrara]

Many of the US sellers don't even stock lasers, they just ship them direct from the factory to you. They get a price break on the laser, pay a customs agent to do all the work and charge double the price of the laser for some tech support. I am not saying all US sellers do this, but one even states this is their business model on their website! It is not that hard to import products, the customs agent does all the work. We import products for business, but this is the first time importing a large piece of equipment, but the process is not difficult. Like someone said the hardest part is sending off a large sum of money and waiting 5-6 weeks for your laser. That should be easy for me since I send large checks to Australia 3-4 times a year and wait 3-4 months for product delivery.

[Ross Moshinsky]

Many of the US sellers don't even stock lasers, they just ship them direct from the factory to you. They get a price break on the laser, pay a customs agent to do all the work and charge double the price of the laser for some tech support. I am not saying all US sellers do this, but one even states this is their business model on their website! It is not that hard to import products, the customs agent does all the work. We import products for business, but this is the first time importing a large piece of equipment, but the process is not difficult. Like someone said the hardest part is sending off a large sum of money and waiting 5-6 weeks for your laser. That should be easy for me since I send large checks to Australia 3-4 times a year and wait 3-4 months for product delivery.

There is a fairly large risk when importing. You do a wire transfer and once that money is gone, it's gone. If you buy from a seller in the US via credit card, you have protection. Even if you buy via check or wire transfer, at least you can seek some sort of legal action and possibly get your money back. The process of importing isn't that big of a deal. Pay for the item. Contact a custom agent. Wait 8-10 weeks and you'll get your product. It's the lack of security buying directly from China via wire transfer which is the biggest issue.

[Rodne Gold]

Ross , yes buying from any overseas co can be angst filled , especially if they dont speak your lingo
However Shenui and maybe some others do paypal these days..a large measure of protection.
At any rate , I would suggest you investigate the co you buy from , ask to see various certificates, see if they gold alibaba suppliers , most reputable ones will have all their credentials on display. Google earth their factory premises , get references and so on.
For Eg
http://shenhuilaser.en.alibaba.com/company_profile.html
and then
http://shenhuilaser.en.alibaba.com/c...s_profile.html
and
http://shenhuilaser.en.alibaba.com/c...tificates.html

As always , when large sums of money are involved , be careful out there.

[Ross Moshinsky]

There is no doubt there are many reliable sellers from China. I'm just saying there is a risk involved in buying from China and it's not really about the importing. It's about getting what you purchased and if you didn't, what are you going to do about it? Buy from a US seller with a credit card and you have reasonable protection. Wire transfer to China and you're sitting around with your fingers crossed hoping things work out. If you buy a Chinese laser and it just isn't right (which we all know sometimes happens) are they going to send me a brand new machine on their buck? Sending a stepper motor or stepper driver out is one thing. Major issues are a completely different issue.

[Nicholas Ferrara]

There is a fairly large risk when importing. You do a wire transfer and once that money is gone, it's gone. If you buy from a seller in the US via credit card, you have protection. Even if you buy via check or wire transfer, at least you can seek some sort of legal action and possibly get your money back. The process of importing isn't that big of a deal. Pay for the item. Contact a custom agent. Wait 8-10 weeks and you'll get your product. It's the lack of security buying directly from China via wire transfer which is the biggest issue.

My customs broker charges 1% to insure the entire amount of a shipment. It even covers shipping expenses. $40 for insurance, or an extra $4000 for someone else to drop ship the laser to you. My biggest issue now is choosing Gweike or Shenhui, the creek seems to favor Shenhui while the zone favors Gweike (If you can filter out all of the salesman posts over there). I thought Gweike was the bigger company, but according to Alibaba Shenhui is larger.

[Ross Moshinsky]

My customs broker charges 1% to insure the entire amount of a shipment. It even covers shipping expenses. $40 for insurance, or an extra $4000 for someone else to drop ship the laser to you. My biggest issue now is choosing Gweike or Shenhui, the creek seems to favor Shenhui while the zone favors Gweike (If you can filter out all of the salesman posts over there). I thought Gweike was the bigger company, but according to Alibaba Shenhui is larger.

They are insuring the shipment from what I understand. They are not insuring you don't buy a lemon.

Let's be clear, Gweiki and Shenhui both have reasonably good reputations. Your product should be more or less what you want. I just think people should understand that if something goes wrong and you're doing a wire transfer, you're relying 100% on reputation. You have no legal recourse. This is why some people buy from US resellers.

[Mark Smith61]

I can tell you Hurricane lasers has the laser shipped directly to them in Las Vegas. They uncrate it and make sure it's all alligned and working. I was told they also make some of their own modifications to the laser, but I didn't ask exactly what they did. Once they are done with they crate it back up and ship it to you, or in my case I went to them and picked it up.

[Ron Philman]

There is no doubt there are many reliable sellers from China. I'm just saying there is a risk involved in buying from China and it's not really about the importing. It's about getting what you purchased and if you didn't, what are you going to do about it? Buy from a US seller with a credit card and you have reasonable protection. Wire transfer to China and you're sitting around with your fingers crossed hoping things work out. If you buy a Chinese laser and it just isn't right (which we all know sometimes happens) are they going to send me a brand new machine on their buck? Sending a stepper motor or stepper driver out is one thing. Major issues are a completely different issue.

I can tell you from experience that what you see on a Chinese laser site or Alibaba is not indicative if what you might get....if you even get it. I worked with a "reputable FDA" Chinese laser supplier to import a machine early this year. I used a broker that I'd used in other business imports so I felt confident..

First, the post sale communication was bad. And the machine took 9 weeks to import.

Second, once it arrived at the dock my broker informed me that the supplier did not have an up to date FDA accession number so the machine would not pass customs. The chinese supplier said they were currently approved - only in Europe. Besides, FDA approval isn't necessary anyway?! They advised me to simply change the invoice to "engraving machine" and omit CO2 so I wouldn't need FDA approval. Really? I told them forget that and get FDA approved...and Quick. After 5 days storage fees started racking up. They never did get their FDA approval updated in time so after working with an attorney I realized my best way out was to let customs ship it back.

I Kissed off $5,500.

All that to say a good customs broker helps but it can't make up for a bad supplier. I did buy via. US company -not Hurricane, but I do not recommend importing on your own.

[Dan Landrum]

I'm confused ...

If I try to go to: http://HurricaneLasers.com it resolves to: http://fslaser.com/ which is Full Spectrum Laser.

The URLs http://WLasers.com and http://HurricaneLasers.net both resolve to: http://World-Lasers.com which states, "© 2014 World Lasers," but has the contact info as: Hurricane Lasers LLC, 5275 S Arville Rd #328, Las Vegas, NV 89118

At: http://www.worldlasers.com/ there is also a "World Lasers, Inc" in Reading, PA 19607, which appears to have nothing to do with Hurricane Lasers.

Who's who? And why? In this thread I saw that Full Spectrum sued Hurricane Lasers and won and apparently assumed the rights to the HurricaneLasers.com URL. But why is the Hurricane brand now being sold under a pre-existing laser company's name, World Lasers, without identifying the relationship?

[Ron Philman]

I'm confused ...

If I try to go to: http://HurricaneLasers.com it resolves to: http://fslaser.com/ which is Full Spectrum Laser.

The URLs http://WLasers.com and http://HurricaneLasers.net both resolve to: http://World-Lasers.com which states, "© 2014 World Lasers," but has the contact info as: Hurricane Lasers LLC, 5275 S Arville Rd #328, Las Vegas, NV 89118

At: http://www.worldlasers.com/ there is also a "World Lasers, Inc" in Reading, PA 19607, which appears to have nothing to do with Hurricane Lasers.

Who's who? And why? In this thread I saw that Full Spectrum sued Hurricane Lasers and won and apparently assumed the rights to the HurricaneLasers.com URL. But why is the Hurricane brand now being sold under a pre-existing laser company's name, World Lasers, without identifying the relationship?

I was looking at their Storm hobby laser at one point but did a little background check.

In short Hurricane Lasers recently lost a big lawsuit to Full Spectrum. Its public record. I don't know what he did but it must have been pretty serious. The owner worked for FS, quit, then he moved down street to start Hurricane. In the end FSL was awarded a $2.7M judgment and now looking to get paid. Looking at court records it appears judge permitted FS to take a big asset...the hurricanelasers.com site. The owners filed bankruptcy and now Hurricane is working under world-lasers.com (not sure why since worldlasers.com out of PA has been around for years). So, FS is chasing world-lasers.com and looks like one of his kids too? Wish em the best but I think Hurricane will be battling this for years.

[Bill George]

The story I found online and it must be true since its published on the internet The lawsuit was filed and Hurricane lacked the resources to fight it in court and just de-faulted. So FS instead of just saying oh well we will never collect decided to go after the money. Since FS has such a wonderful online reputation to uphold they found yet another way to make money??

[Donovan Smith]

I bought a 100 watt lased from Ruiji. I wanted to import it myself but I decided not to do it and go with the agents. The agent cam to my house to do some personal training and we found that the laser tube got damaged during the transport.They changed it out free. They also gave me a different focal length lens free.

If I imported it I would have been in real trouble

Donovan

[Bill George]

Who is "from Ruiji" a vender or FSL sales person?

[Dave Sheldrake]

Who is "from Ruiji" a vender or FSL sales person?

Jinan Ruijie Mechanical Equipment Co., Ltd.

Another Chinese rebrander Bill

cheers

Dave