Sciencemadness Discussion Board - Is it now illegal to buy from chemcraft?

Is it now illegal to buy from chemcraft?

gemar14 - 24-2-2022 at 21:44

Hello everyone! I'm a new hobby chemist and this is one of my first posts on here. Chemcraft is one of the reagent providers I've found on here for the amateur chemist. However, with the recent sanctions on Russia, is it going to be illegal to import things into the US from chemcraft?

[Edited on 25-2-2022 by gemar14]

Admagistr - 24-2-2022 at 21:54

Quote: Originally posted by gemar14

Hello everyone! I'm a new hobby chemist and this is one of my first posts on here. Chemcraft is one of the reagent providers I've found on here for the amateur chemist. However, with the recent sanctions on Russia, is it going to be illegal to import things into the US from chemcraft?

[Edited on 25-2-2022 by gemar14]

I have the same question, I used to buy often from Chemcraft, maybe it's still legal, but it's certainly very risky, because we don't know what other sanctions will come and how the Russian post office will work in deliveries to the West in the war with Ukraine...

Keras - 24-2-2022 at 23:32

Yeah, I suppose the following weeks risk being somewhat bumpy… We’ll have to do with the stocks, guys.

teodor - 25-2-2022 at 05:05

Some of my closest relatives are blocked in a Ukrainian city under shelling. That's why I am also keeping my eye on sanctions. But in this situation, I think it is better to just ask chemcraft. Also, I doubt the sanctions will address small private businesses anyway.

[Edited on 25-2-2022 by teodor]

Mathias94 - 25-2-2022 at 05:42

You may check out onyxmet. I have bookmarked the site for many years, but never ordered from them. Still it looks like they have a lot of useful inorganics.

Herr Haber - 25-2-2022 at 08:33

Why would Chemcraft be targeted by the sanctions ?

I would be more worried about unusual postal delays from Russia but my last order from them arrived 2 weeks ago.
Like Teodor said: Just ask Chemcraft.

delivery

Chemcraft - 27-2-2022 at 13:46

At the moment, international delivery is working as usual. Payment is accepted by credit cards too as always. In general there are no changes in our work so far.

[Editing - worth adding a highlight. j_sum1]

[Edited on 28-2-2022 by j_sum1]

Jenks - 27-2-2022 at 15:07

My order from the 22nd has made it to "Forwarded to the carrier" as of yesterday. I don't know if carriers are working anymore. I will post here is there is progress.

sauveurdumonde - 27-2-2022 at 15:38

Quote: Originally posted by Mathias94

You may check out onyxmet.

Yes, Onyxmet is amazing. No, I won't elaborate further.

madcedar - 28-2-2022 at 00:02

They could resort to a crypto currency payment option as well. China has given Russia a life-line so they should be able to source material from there if they aren't sourcing material locally.

Chemcraft - 28-2-2022 at 02:10

We do not take materials from China. All our products are Russian-made. Some of the reagents are produced by us. We have many buyers from China.
When Western banks block payments, we will switch to payments in cryptocurrency.

Keras - 28-2-2022 at 04:32

If Chemcraft buys in Russian roubles, as far as payments are possible, this might be the right time to buy some materials, given than the Russian currency is on the skids?

Also, thanks for reminding us you don’t sell Chinese products.

Admagistr - 28-2-2022 at 05:40

The point of all these sanctions is that Chemcraft has to pay taxes to the Russian state and thus sponsors it. It is always the ordinary citizen who suffers the most, even though he may have nothing to do with the regime in his country... Chemcraft probably can't even express his opinion freely on the Forum without risking persecution in his own country. If Chemcraft were to set up a branch outside Russia and ship the goods there somehow, that would be the solution. There's already talk of those cryptocurrencies too, so in time payment in them may be blocked as well... What I really appreciate about Chemcraft is that it is not just a dealer, but a chemist too who makes things himself. It's great that his goods don't originate in China! It shows in the quality, I have never found his goods to be any significantly different from what he states about them. It's sometimes worse with Onyxmet and the quality isn't always there, but it's not the owner's fault, it's his suppliers' problem...It must be a tough time for Chemcraft...

Keras - 28-2-2022 at 06:18

With the Russian/European airspace being closed, don’t expect quick deliveries…
Unless folks at Chemcraft can let them cross the border directly at Köningsberg.

Jenks - 4-3-2022 at 15:29

Quote: Originally posted by Jenks

My order from the 22nd has made it to "Forwarded to the carrier" as of yesterday. I don't know if carriers are working anymore. I will post here is there is progress.

As of March 4th, no progress. The status changed to "Uplifted" from Moskva on Feb 26th but no update since.

B(a)P - 4-3-2022 at 21:39

Quote: Originally posted by Jenks

My order from the 22nd has made it to "Forwarded to the carrier" as of yesterday. I don't know if carriers are working anymore. I will post here is there is progress.

As of March 4th, no progress. The status changed to "Uplifted" from Moskva on Feb 26th but no update since.

That is not unusual though. That has happen with every order I have made. It sits like that until days after it is delivered.

Keras - 5-3-2022 at 02:54

Quote: Originally posted by B(a)P

Quote: Originally posted by Jenks

My order from the 22nd has made it to "Forwarded to the carrier" as of yesterday. I don't know if carriers are working anymore. I will post here is there is progress.

As of March 4th, no progress. The status changed to "Uplifted" from Moskva on Feb 26th but no update since.

That is not unusual though. That has happen with every order I have made. It sits like that until days after it is delivered.

This is probably caused by Covid quarantines.

Tsjerk - 5-3-2022 at 04:00

Although Chemcraft is not directly targeted by the sanctions, I would expect a severe delay in shipping. I read articles about goods going from and to Russia all being delayed because they have to be checked by customs to verify they are not violating the sanctions. Now we all know how fast customs usually are, let alone when they get a ton extra work.

Xanax - 6-3-2022 at 04:48

I bought from another russin company; https://en.chemical-elements.ru/

Two gas disarge ampules, fluorine an chlorine, for my element collection. The rubel is low now, and the price was 2000 rubel for the fluorine and 1200 rubel for the chlorine.

2000 rubel is about $20,82 and 1200 rubel is about $12,49. A fluorine gas ampoule goes for over $100 on eBay.

But it sems like thera are no larger quantities of nobel metals...

j_sum1 - 6-3-2022 at 16:57

I expect some difficulties in payment with cc companies pulling out.
Paypal will be ok as far as I know.

macckone - 6-3-2022 at 23:41

With aeroflot suspending international flights and other international airlines not flying into russia and ships not being allowed to dock or not being unloaded if they do, ordering anything from russia at the moment is likely to be a problem unless you are in someplace like turkey that is on friendly terms and less enforcing of sanctions. Belarus is a russian ally and unlikely to sanction russia.

This is in addition to the payment difficulties that likely require using crypto at this point.

Chemcraft - 7-3-2022 at 02:43

At the moment, parcels to the EU are delivered by AirSerbia lines. In the USA and Canada, delivery is carried out through Turkey and the UAE (Dubai). Shipping to Japan and Australia is done by China Airways.
In fact, only European and American companies have stopped flights to Russia, all the rest fly as before.
From March 10, we start accepting payments in cryptocurrency (BTC). Customers from China can still pay via AliPay. We also accept UnionPay and MIR credit cards.

j_sum1 - 7-3-2022 at 04:55

All the best, Chemcraft. You deserve it.

pantone159 - 7-3-2022 at 07:47

Quote: Originally posted by j_sum1

All the best, Chemcraft. You deserve it.

Seconded. I am sure all of this will cause lots of complications which you do not in any way deserve.

B(a)P - 7-3-2022 at 11:05

Quote: Originally posted by pantone159

Quote: Originally posted by j_sum1

All the best, Chemcraft. You deserve it.

Seconded. I am sure all of this will cause lots of complications which you do not in any way deserve.

Totally agree, Chemcraft are a great company that allow the amateur to source many very interesting chemicals at a very reasonable price. I will be placing an 'in support of their business' order.

Jenks - 22-3-2022 at 07:50

Quote: Originally posted by Jenks

My order from the 22nd has made it to "Forwarded to the carrier" as of yesterday. I don't know if carriers are working anymore. I will post here is there is progress.

As of March 4th, no progress. The status changed to "Uplifted" from Moskva on Feb 26th but no update since.

It has been over a month since this shipped and still no change in status. I don't want to bump this thread again, so I promise to post an update if I ever see this expensive package or a refund. Until then you can safely assume that nothing has changed.

Thanks for the suggestion to try Onyxmet - very nice experience!

katyushaslab - 23-3-2022 at 09:45

Jenks: I had this happen before the war/sanctions began with a package from CC, the package basically went missing for over a month "somewhere in the postal system" due to someone forgetting to scan it.

It later showed up out of the blue, after almost 2 months. I had given up and was preparing to re-order or request a refund.

It seems some of the intermediary carriers can be a bit less than fastidious.

Jenks - 23-3-2022 at 13:02

Perhaps I will be lucky. So far I have made eight purchases from ChemCraft over the past 12 months. The first seven were all delivered 11 to 23 calendar days after payment, but this last one has taken 34 so far. I hope it arrives someday.

[Edited on 24-3-2022 by Jenks]

Crazy_Chemist - 24-3-2022 at 23:06

I have an order from Chemcraft and now the swedish postservice, PostNord, says they are going to stop all post from Russia and Belarus. But I've got a SMS that the package have reach Sweden, so I think I had the time.

Fantasma4500 - 29-3-2022 at 23:25

cryptocurrency? well- smoke em (while) you got em
buying anything from china is just a mistake, i was promised the brilliant arrival time of... 2 months, for a substance i needed asap. and because of that i can vouch for onyx, arrived well fast, great price etc
my crystal ball does suggest that if any of you have some chemical wishes, you wanna go through with that before we hit winter time as there will be, well a little something we have all seen before that for some reason ties in with increased border control.

Herr Haber - 31-3-2022 at 20:25

All my orders from eastern countries (Russia, Ukraine) seem to go in a black hole for 3-6 weeks before popping up one day in the mail.
It seems to me that the carrier informs your local post / carrier that the package is in transit the moment they get it, not when the package gets out of customs which can take significantly longer.

katyushaslab - 7-4-2022 at 00:03

I've found with orders from Russia, the 17track service gives the best information on the tracking numbers btw.

The Russian postal service seems to be extremely diligent at scanning every step of the way (and updating the tracking), though it usually takes ages (the packages I ordered always got routed from Kaliningrad to "mother Russia" for presumably customs?) for them to get *out* of Russia. This would usually take a number of weeks.

I guess with the current state of affairs (routing through third countries to avoid sanctions), there is probably another few weeks wait. I have no idea how good Serbian postal services are.

Once the packages hit PostNL or Deutche Post (usually one of those two) they tended to disappear into a black hole for a week or two (probably more customs? but no updates or scans), before being passed off to another carrier. Another week delay with no scans, and then the usual "you weren't in" delivery slip (despite always being home!) and a search for which postal depot had the package.

Anything sent via China Post, especially with the new EU customs rules, seems to just show up at some random point in the next 2-6 months, followed by a customs duty bill a month after.

Jenks - 7-4-2022 at 09:15

Today I found that tracking had updated last night for my Chemcraft package. It was scheduled to leave Russia on February 26th, and passed though New Jersey, USA last night, April 6th. I was shocked to see that it made it, and had written it off as having no way out of Russia.

katyushaslab - 7-4-2022 at 10:38

Success! Did the tracking give any information about what route it took? Genuinely curious what the hell kind of adventure it had.

Jenks - 8-4-2022 at 07:44

No, the two latest tracking entries are:

2022-04-06 20:58

JERSEY CITY NJ NETWORK DISTRIBUTION CENTER, Arrived at USPS Regional Facility -> Your item arrived at our USPS facility in JERSEY CITY NJ NETWORK DISTRIBUTION CENTER on April 6, 2022 at 8:58 pm. The item is currently in transit to the destination.

2022-02-26 20:10

Russian Federation, Moskva-Kazanskij Vkz. PZhDP MMPO 102900, Carrier processing, Uplifted

When the package arrives I will post again.

Jenks - 11-4-2022 at 15:59

The package was delivered today - two boxes inside a sturdy plastic bag. No damage and no sign that the package was opened. There is a prepaid shipping label rather than the usual beautiful array of stamps, with the sender as the Russian Federation. The only error in the items delivered was that I was accidentally given 50 grams of copper (I) phosphide rather than 25 grams. Delivery took 44 calendar days from date of purchase.

[Edited on 11-4-2022 by Jenks]

Herr Haber - 11-4-2022 at 17:18

So more or less exactly the same time as 2 years ago when Covid hit

A couple more crisis and we'll be making statistics...

Anyway, pleasant surprise on your part I guess.
I too was surprised in my last order. I ordered 500g and got 5x100g. I dont know if Chemcraft was out of bigger bottles, I could have waited but... Hey, I now have pre-weighted reagents which is nice for what I have in mind.
Another was in very nice reagent bottles with a cap that couldnt withstand the chemical. A lot of effort was made though to make it as leak proof with some self amalgamating tape so I'm a bit sad to have to repackage it.
The effort was there and the reagents are intact.
I thought several times it would be nice if the platforms Chemcraft and Onyxmet use allowed to add paying options such as "Ampoule" "PTFE lined cap" or whatever is relevant to the chemical.
I'd happily pay a bit more for ampoules in some cases. specially considering Chemcraft is really good at making great looking ones!

Chemcraft - 24-5-2022 at 05:10

The situation with the delivery of parcels has stabilized.
According to our latest observations (May 2022), these are the arrival dates of parcels:
China - 3-5 days
USA - 10-12 days
UK - 10-12 days
Canada - 12-15 days
Italy - 8-10 days
France - 8-10 days
Currently there is no postal delivery to Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Denmark, Poland and Finland.
Now we accept payments in cryptocurrencies - bitcoin BTC and ethereum ETH. To pay, you need to create an order on our website, after which we will send the crypto wallet ID and the amount for the payment to your email. There are no problems with passing customs control in these countries.

[Edited on 24-5-2022 by Chemcraft]