E-Global Central: buy from them or not?

[J'écris ce nouvel article en anglais car j'aurai sans doute à le poster sur internet, ailleurs qu'ici. Désolé pour mes lecteurs non-anglophones...]

The E-global central website has very good prices.

Owing to some miracle I sense I better not ask too much about, they sell to you within the EU VAT excluded, and as they ship from the UK, the buyer is not exposed to the risk of import duties.

That's the good part. Well, it has to be weighted with the fact that you do not get any manufacturer's warranty, of course, so you better pray that your item does, and will continue to, work fine, otherwise you're in trouble as you have to go through E-global central’s own warranty system, and when you start down that route, you have no idea when you will see your item again, but your know it’s not going to be any time soon. It’s got nothing to do with E-global central per se, either, as all those discount sites must use the same routine: as they purchase from authorized/official retailers that basically need the money (because they’re overextended on their working capital) but don’t have the right from the original manufacturer  to sell to them, those websites must first return the defective item to that authorized retailer, which in turn will have to make up some story about some imaginary end-user of theirs in order to have the item processed under warranty by the original manufacturer... after which the item has to go all the way back to you again. Not a pretty sight, seen from where you, the actual end-user, stand.

Oh, and don't expect a user manual either: in most cases, it will be absent, as it was in mine. You’ll just have to download one from the internet. Par for the course, as the languages in the manual may betray from which country the item was sent, narrowing down the search for the “traitor” authorized retailer with a shortage of cash...

Furthermore, even though the E-global central in your own country will pretend that the item is in stock, in fact it’s not true. Or rather, at best it IS true that they have it in stock, except that they’re talking about the stock they have... in Hong Kong! They entertain the illusion of a nearby stock from which they will be able to ship the item overnight, whereas, in fact, the reality is not so nice.

Because E-global central is indeed very bad at shipping.
I placed an order for a top-of-the-line, very expensive camera on Saturday, Dec. 16, 2017. I paid via Paypal, which means that the funds were received almost instantly by vendor the vendor. And so, MY MONEY HAS BEEN TAKEN OUT.

Given the fact that the next day was Sunday, I expected the camera to be shipped on Monday, Dec. 18. In fact, I wouldn't have been too surprised if the camera shipped on the Sunday, given that we were just a few days from Christmas and everyone in the retail business is (should be?) rushing around, but that did not happen.

And in fact, not much more happened on the Monday.

Nor on the Tuesday.

On the Wednesday, the DHL tracking website informed me that E-global central had created a DHL label for my shipment, but that’s just a smokescreen to appease the impatient customer who has shelled out several thousand euros: creation of a shipping label just informs DHL of what to expect, but does not actually hand over any package to DHL yet.

On the Thursday, nothing more happens... until in the evening, at last, the mention “shipment picked up” appears on the tracking website!

On the Friday, my package is finally delivered, almost one full week after my order was placed.
So, will you ask, Why all those days with no activity at all? If the item was in the UK, as first shown on the DHL trace, why wasn’t it handed over to that courier company on the Monday, or at the latest on the Tuesday?

The answer is, Well, the item wasn’t in the UK at all on the Monday. In truth, it was most likely in Hong Kong, and probably still in the hands of the authorized dealer. When my order came through on the Saturday before, E-global central probably did the quick telephonic rounds to locate the authorized dealer with a need for ready cash, then rushed across town to get my camera, and then shipped it FROM HONG KONG to the UK. And it took two to three days for it to travel and be processed in the UK upon entry into the EU. Only then could it be handed over to DHL on the Thursday for shipping to France.

So, basically, E-global central lie to you, sort of, by making you believe, without ever actually saying it flat out, that the item you've ordered is, at most, just a couple hundred miles from your home, where in fact it is still half a world away.

Just know this, and be prepared to live with it, and hope nothing goes wrong during this long transit, because, remember, THEY HAVE YOUR MONEY...