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    USPS ban on Lithium-Ion Batteries

    Discussion in 'Alienware 17 and M17x' started by quickie, May 13, 2012.

  1. quickie

    quickie Notebook Evangelist

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    So I read an article today about USPS placing a ban on Lithium Ion batteries, they will not ship anything that has them in it because of safety reasons. It sucks for us overseas, because my wife was going to mail my M17x out to me in Afghanistan.
     
  2. Heihachi88

    Heihachi88 Notebook Deity

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    Yeah it sucks, but we still have UPS and DHL services.
     
  3. troyguitar

    troyguitar Notebook Consultant

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    Which are fine for domestic shipping but are ridiculously expensive compared to USPS for international shipping.

    Kind of a stupid ban IMO, but it's not like they have Li-ion sniffing dogs checking your packages...
     
  4. quickie

    quickie Notebook Evangelist

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    yea, I think I'm going to have her take the battery out of the laptop and ship it Battery-less then the next day pack the battery with some clothes or something to hide it. They don't check it like that.
     
  5. Heihachi88

    Heihachi88 Notebook Deity

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    it might not work, they will scan it through all your clothes...
     
  6. quickie

    quickie Notebook Evangelist

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    Any suggestions? Or should I just rock out without a battery for a few months?
     
  7. Heihachi88

    Heihachi88 Notebook Deity

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    send battery with UPS
     
  8. wild05kid05

    wild05kid05 Cook Free or Die

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    Was gonna say that too


    Sent from my wholly molly new iPad using Tapatalk
     
  9. quickie

    quickie Notebook Evangelist

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    I thought UPS doesn't ship to FPO/AE
     
  10. widezu69

    widezu69 Goodbye Alienware

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    The best idea is to just send the laptop via USPS and use another service for the battery.
     
  11. HopelesslyFaithful

    HopelesslyFaithful Notebook Virtuoso

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    weird i haven't heard of this....i used to work with USPS everyday and this is news to me when did it start? (2 months ago it wasn't that way)
     
  12. quickie

    quickie Notebook Evangelist

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  13. darkdomino

    darkdomino Notebook Deity

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    No offense to the USPS and all the hard work that they do, but I wouldn't trust anything over 30.00 in value to the postal service unless I absolutely had no other choice.

    and from what I'm reading, the USPS's days are numbered anyway. They're facing huge cutbacks, layoffs, and possibly eliminating saturday delivery. Not looking good for them at all.
     
  14. HopelesslyFaithful

    HopelesslyFaithful Notebook Virtuoso

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    called pensions and too high of prices. you should see the wage difference between usps and ups and pension plans
     
  15. michaelf33713

    michaelf33713 Newbie

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  16. leeshjnn

    leeshjnn Notebook Evangelist

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    Hmm I sent a Mamba mouse to my brother like 3 weeks ago just fine. And it has a battery inside...
     
  17. Meaker@Sager

    Meaker@Sager Company Representative

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    It was likely in the terms and conditions that you should not have so if they had found out they would not have shipped it, it's not immediately obvious with a mouse.
     
  18. SlimShady

    SlimShady ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒ&

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    The ban has indeed lifted, I'm in Afghanistan right now and my M18 was just shipped via USPS yesterday, accepted without issue at the Post Office.
     
  19. Meaker@Sager

    Meaker@Sager Company Representative

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    Yeah they probably expected others to follow suit, when they realised their sales were just going to drop and it was very hard to enforce they came to their senses.
     
  20. leeshjnn

    leeshjnn Notebook Evangelist

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    Probably. I use USPS quite a lot but I've never seen them scanning my packages, at least not when I handled the packages to them. I really wonder how people on eBay ship these batteries within Cont US before this ban lifting...
     
  21. SlimShady

    SlimShady ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒ&

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    That was my thought too. UPS wanted well over $300 to ship, DHL was slightly less expensive, $295 or something along those lines and Fed Ex wanted $600+. The issue is that they won't ship to APO addresses though, you have to have a building number for them to deliver it to. Easy enough for a DOD Civilian like myself, or for most of the contractors out here, but the average soldier isn't in a position to receive items shipped that way so they get hosed on it.

    It was a relatively short lived ban too........when I ordered my M17 it was shipped out here via USPS without issue back in Feb.