Same IP address, an Arabic name and even a link to an Arabic forum post about Viaddress (on ADSLgate, a well known Arabic forum). Where some “new” members joined the forum just to defend Viaddress.

I urge everyone to avoid Viaddress at all costs, hopefully these points will convince you:

• They hired spammers or spam bots to advertise their “service”.
• Viaddress facebook page have over 1600 members and no customer interaction at all. Wall posts have no comments but if you look at the links section you will notice a few comments saying that Viaddress is a fraud.
• Over 72 complaints about Viaddress on “Complaintsboard” and the comments on each one is vicious. Many are accusing Viaddress of hiring people.
• Another example on suspected “hiring” to “get a good word”.
• Viaddress twitter page is also empty, with many followers and no interaction with their followers. Found this tweet talking about Viaddress scam and this tweet about Viaddress hiring people to review them!

I simply won’t trust a company that hires spammers *edited my tone here*.

Update: So I get these messages from a “Misty Sparks”:

Message 1:
Subject: Your offensive comment about http://www.facebook.com/l/38928;Viaddress.com

We have received a comment on our Viaddress Facebook Fan page of an offensive nature, could you please tell us what is the reason behind your offensive comments?

Message 2:
Subject: Your blog about Viaddress

Dear Khaled,

It was brought to our attention that you have posted a an offensive blog about Viaddress where you have made some false accusations about Viaddress and you pointed to complaints on the complaintsboard.

Please note Viaddress has not paid anyone to post on your website and if you read the complaints on the complaintsboard, you can clearly see that they were all posted by http://www.facebook.com/l/38928;Shipito.com, a competitor to Viaddress.

We have served many customers in Saudi Arabia and we have never had a single problem with any customer in Saudi Arabia.

Our goal when start serving a particular country is to accumulate friends and not make any enemies. We certainly want to make you a friend rather than an enemy.

We would like to solve this issue in a timely manner so we ask you to kindly remove the blog that you posted about Viaddress.

Message 3:
Subject: Blog posting about Viaddress

Hi again,

One of your readers informed us that the posting pictures of the comments on your site were posted by IP http://www.facebook.com/l/38928;64.134.232.34 which has no relation to our IP http://www.facebook.com/l/38928;67.20.121.126.

Please remove your offensive blog about Viaddress as it offers misleading information to your readers by making false accusations about http://www.facebook.com/l/38928;Viaddress.com

Message 4:
Subject: Re: Blog posting about Viaddress

Dear Khaled,

I’m still looking forward to hear from you regarding the offensive postings on your website. I have sent you several messages but I still haven’t received your answer.
The comments on your site were posted by IP http://www.facebook.com/l/38928;64.134.232.34 which has no relation to our IP http://www.facebook.com/l/38928;67.20.121.126.
Please note that posting misleading and offensive information about an Individual or an organization is against WordPress Section 5 of Terms of Service (http://www.facebook.com/l/38928;en.wordpress.com/tos) and may lead to the suspension of your WordPress account.

Message 5:
Subject: The blog posting about Viaddress.

Please delete your blog posting about Viaddress because it is falsely accusing Viaddress of spam. Please understand that we have no control of what someone else posts on your website.

We will also delete our posting on Myus fan page accordingly since we don’t want to create any tension between Myus & Viaddress.

I would like to see proof to that. My Facebook page comments were deleted instead of answering them publicly.

I should note that we received spam comments from Myuspostoffice.com as well.

Saying it one last time, THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH MYUS, DHL, ARAMEX or ANY OTHER COMPANY. This is about using spam bots.

No related posts.

DHL EasyShop is another US forwarding services similar to MyUS. I didn’t get the chance to try it but if you’re interested read this first impressions post on 2:48am and this site dedicated to comment about how bad it really is.

With my many MyUS shipments I noticed that some shipments stay idle in DHL Bahrain for a long time (2 or more days some times). There was no reason for that delay, they simply chill out in Bahrain. I call it “the DHL black hole in Bahrain”.

I talked about it a lot on twitter, but what happened to me can’t be matched by what Yraffah experienced. He complained about it on twitter (here, here, here, here and here). Basically his shipment went from the US to Bahrain then went to his city Jeddah, stayed there for a week then shipped to Bahrain, stayed there for a few days, currently it is in Riyadh!

So here’s the theory: DHL is deliberately stalling shipments from MyUS to discourage MyUS customers and promoted their own EasyShop service. A historian friend suggested this theory and I agree with him.

Please remember that this is a Conspiracy theory with no evidence to prove it except user experiences.

Related posts:

1. Buy online and ship to Saudi Arabia using MyUS
2. How to buy from websites using MyUS personal shopper
3. Track your shipments using Twitter

My experience with Shop Gates has been quite extensive. I’ve ordered many items during the 6 months I’ve been a subscriber. Here’s an overview of what you should expect from the service in general:

Shop Gates offers consumers two separate subscriptions for their shopping needs: World Ship Basic (SR 112) and World Ship Plus (SR 225 annually). Both options guarantee your shipment will arrive within 3-5 days but the pricing structure differs slightly. For both services, you pay $12 US (SR 45) for the first pound. For each pound that follows, you’ll pay $8 (Basic) or $7 (Plus). Other options include holding your shipment, requesting a photo, or repackaging your shipment to reduce overall weight.

How it works is you sign up and receive an email containing your US mailbox address in Ohio (tax-free). Once you’ve placed an order, you have to visit their website and inform them of your recently shipped item by providing a tracking number (found in the ‘package shipped’ email) and the contents of the shipment. Once they receive it, they will contact you and before your shipment can be sent, you are obliged to pay via Bank Deposit (from any Saudi bank), credit card, or PayPal. Once your payment is processed, they will immediately send the shipment and provide you with a UPS tracking number so that you can track the shipment’s progress.

After testing the service a couple of times on several different occasions, I can safely come to the conclusion that this is by far the cheapest solution to forward your packages from the US to KSA – and it doesn’t hurt that it’s also extremely fast. However, the service does come with its kinks. Customer service (or lack thereof) is extremely slow and lazy; I mean Saudi-style. When your package is sent to them it can take upwards of 9-14 hours for them to send you an e-mail and receipt for immediate payment. Also, informing them of an upcoming shipment isn’t necessarily convenient as their site is somewhat clunky. On a side note, while some may not view it as a bad thing, their website is entirely in Arabic. An English option wouldn’t hurt.

To conclude, should you switch from Aramex to World Ship? Well, considering its downfalls, it’s still a faster, cheaper solution than Aramex or most other shipping companies out there.

Visit their website at shopgates.com/world-ship (Arabic) for more information.

Related posts:

1. Myusabox review, another mail forwarding service
2. Buy online and ship to Saudi Arabia using MyUS
3. DHL slowing myus shipments to push DHL EasyShop?

What I believe stands out of the services of My USA Box compared to other similar outlets, is the user friendly account page. This includes pictures of your items and their description, in which you can select to ship separately or together. Combining also saves you money and the valuable matter is that when you combine, it shows you how much you saved in each shipment!

And that’s not all, when you choose to be a ‘Premium’ member, you get a %60 discount on shipping, and those rates beat all services globally.

Also, everything is re-invoiced by choice to avoid any unnecessary duties by local customs, I know I have been there, it’s a headache.

Their friendly team of live support is always there to answer my questions and there is also a local support office in Saudi Arabia which they can give more details in YOUR OWN LANGUAGE! And they will soon launch an Arabic interface. How great is that!

And haven’t we all faced the email notification of the “unacceptable material” which must be returned to sender or a local third party? When it’s only a couple of perfumes or essential oils? Well you don’t have to worry when you join My USA Box. Liquids, supplements, creams, coffee, tea and chocolates are ok. Though I don’t advise the shipping of chocolate in the summer.

As soon as your items ship, it takes 2 – 4 days for them to arrive to your door and you can choose your carrier between DHL and FedEx as advised best local carriers. Tracking numbers appear a while after shipping beside each package in the shipment tab of the account page.

Another service is “Buy for Me” which they buy for you like when some online shops refuse to charge non- US credit cards or if you simply don’t want to bother buying your self. Simply fill in the order form.

There are many more but I don’t want to bore my readers, so you can simply contact them. I know, for me, I’m remaining a loyal customer for My USA Box, and even more

Written by Reem on Jul 29, 2009.

Related posts:

1. ShopGates mail forwarding service

I have talked about MyUS before. Now I will explain in detail one of their services “MyUS Personal Shopper“. Which is designed to “overcome several common obstacles encountered when shopping online in the US, and to provide our members with the convenience of a concierge-style shopping experience.”

Visit the site that you want to buy from (in this case Newegg) and have a list ready of the items that you want to buy. The list should include: item’s URL, full name, identification number and the price.

When logged in MyUS’s main page click on Personal Shopper. Choose Online Store if you want to buy from an online retail store. The other choice is Auction Site such as ebay.

Enter the details for the first item that you want to purchase.

After you finished entering the data click Add to Shopping Cart.

Now you can add another item until you are done. Then click Checkout.

Now you can review your items here. Click Checkout to proceed or edit the items that you have added.

Choose the method you want to pay MyUS with. You can use a credit card, PayPal or money order.

Enter the shipping method here. This is an optional process since you might not know the shipping price given by Newegg.

If you are in a hurry then check the rush processing checkbox (additional $5). Add sales tax if you know it, otherwise MyUS will do it themselves. Enter any promotional codes (discounts/gift certificates) that you want to use. Finally, write any additional instructions you want MyUS to perform.

Here you can review your order. Remember that “sales tax” and “US domestic shipping” can be calculated later by MyUS when they perform the order. Also “Personal Shopper Fee” mentioned here is the initial estimate and is not final. Click Place Order to complete the order.

Your order is now completed! You will receive an email from MyUS confirming the order. You can monitor the status of your order on MyUS website and as usual you will receive an email when the order arrives to your MyUS box.

Finally, remember to have a bigger order since you will always charge $10 + more on your purchases. If you liked this guide then please do link to it!

Related posts:

1. Buy online and ship to Saudi Arabia using MyUS
2. DHL slowing myus shipments to push DHL EasyShop?

There are a lot of international package forwarding companies that can ship to Saudi Arabia. One of the most common services is Aramex’s Shop&Ship but they have increased their prices many times, from $5 per pound to $10.

It’s been a year since I switched to MyUS‘s services. They offer full control of the mailbox; you can group the shipments the way you want it and ship them to Saudi Arabia whenever you want. You can provide special instructions on how to treat your shipments and you can also set a declared value of your choice for the customs.

They ship using DHL (and sometimes FedEx), the shipments take 3-4 days until they arrive and I had no issue with the Saudi customs unlike Aramex. The support is very responsive and once I received a damaged item and I had an immediate refund for that value.

Another advantage of MyUS is that they can buy for you. For example if you want to buy from Newegg ( a well known hardware store that doesn’t accept Aramex mailbox) you can make a request to MyUS and they will make the order for you. They will take a small percentage as processing fee but it is better than not being able to order.

I am very satisfied with MyUS services after a year and I will renew for a second year with them. No more crappy Aramex for me!

Related posts:

1. DHL slowing myus shipments to push DHL EasyShop?
2. How to buy from websites using MyUS personal shopper
3. Buy the MacBook Pro in Saudi Arabia or online?