Good point...I have an all plastic case similar to the metal one in the link. That'll do.

I wonder if the laser is legal in the US? I read the item description and unless I misunderstood it sounded like they couldn't ship to the USA?

Did DX charge a fee for international money exchange without asking you?

They charged me a small fee. If they're going to do stuff like that, then I'll give my business elsewhere. The whole point of using DX is too get stuff dirt cheap even though there's zero customer service, but the transactions have to be dirt cheap and honest.

The exchange rate on the invoice using PayPal for UK Sterling for the date I ordered the kit was $1.52 to the £1.00 but looking back at the exchange rate using XE.com for the same date was $1.56 to the £1.00. As always there will be someone creaming off the top of the transaction, but I was not charged for a International Money exchange by DX except for a $0.01 shipping charge. The $0.04 on the dollar more than compensates for basically free shipping especially on small difficult to get items in the UK such as 18650 cells for example.

At the end of the day a $4 Firesteel delivered to your door from China beats a trip into the town (you can easily pay $4 for just a car parking space for 2hrs) and paying $18 for an equivalent Swedish firesteel at the local outdoor store (although saying that I was there yesterday voting for which Monstrous Carbuncle at one of the local Universities the town will have to endure when they build it next the the RSS Discovery ).

Oh, yes, the deal was good, but I'm annoyed about a fee of $1.89 that was charged to my credit card outside of the original transaction. The fee showed up 4 days after the original purchase. The overall transaction was still less expensive than competitors, but that's not the point. The additional fee was abnormal and dishonest, frankly. A customer should be informed of such fees while they're about to buy. I did not find any mention of an exchange rate fee in the original transaction paperwork.

Agreed. That only happens once before I will stop doing business with a company. I'd also be very likely to dispute the charges in your shoes.

Was the credit card itemised entry for $1.89 actually charged by DX or by the credit card company for the currency exchange transaction?



Yes, I'm in complete agreement. If the $1.89 does not appear on the DX online statement then it looks like it was either the bank performing the currency transaction billing your credit card company or the credit card company itself.

Unaccounted for fees on credit cards are usually the credit card companies themselves trying to rake in a few more bucks.

OK, it does look like the credit card company (or other middleman) made the charge. Anyway, I'm still keeping DX on a short leash. Once I get the products in my hands, I'll probably be less annoyed.

By the way, I also ordered extra O-rings for the pill-shaped containers.
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.5694
The best size is either 25mm, 24mm, or 23mm. I'm starting with 25mm.

I confess I didn't pay that close of attention to see if I was billed extra fees. If I was I'd be annoyed but I'd probably still buy from them since the stuff if mega-cheap.

Regarding Phaedrus' question on legality of pen lasers: Perfectly legal, unless you happen to blind a pilot with one.

"Interfering with a flight crew is a federal crime, interfering with aviation. So, the FBI has looked into many of these laser incidents over the last several years. We've located some of them, arrested some and several have been prosecuted," Richard Kolko, FBI Supervisory Special Agent, said. http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/local&id=7392021

Such devices are great for pointing out stars during astronomy events, and I call tell you from experience that a 5 mllliwatt laser is plenty bright: Reflection off a metal surface half a mile away is painful; shining it at the ground at your feet is flat-out dumb.

In a survival situation, a laser certainly is a useful tool. However, shining a laser into a cockpit could cause temporary blindness, which could create a whole new set of problems.