Yeah, the prices are kind of high. This seller plays a "game", he'll list multiple listings of the same item, all with slightly different prices and different shipping costs. If you go through all the listings for that same one item, you can actually find listing that has free shipping for extra items. That is what I did, if you buy several bulbs of the same listing, the prices become more reasonable. He has cool green F40's which are super rare now, so I don't feel his prices are too high for those.
My wife has been working from home due to the pandemic for a while now, and she's been using our F40T12CG daily. I've been thinking to buy an extra set, just in case, for the long term. So, I ordered some F40T12CG and F40T12B blue bulbs for fun. The F40T12CG are "Industrial" brand, and the F40T12B are advertised as "Made in USA" and the stock photo definitely looks like Industrial or NOS Sylvania.
2 weeks prior to making an order, I contacted the seller about other colors. Never received a reply. I went ahead and placed an order anyway (I'm using our biz account, I'm less cheap with that) for the F40T12CG and F40T12B. Took 10 days for the seller to send them out.
I received them VERY WELL packed. So far so good. Unfortunately, he shipped me F40T12G green Industrial bulbs, and even worse, the F40T12B blue bulbs are Chinese Damar bulbs. This was a relatively expensive order, so while I do like the greens, I am not happy about receiving Chinese bulbs at USA pricing!
I contacted the vendor, he replied right away to clarify about the green/cool green mix up. I didn't hear back from him. I reached out to him again. No reply. 7 days, 168 hours went by, no reply. I tried to shake him with a request to send back the lamps, which he immediately approved in less than 2 hours.
I'm in a pickle here. I really need the cool greens, but I can't trust this jerk to send them! And, I loath sending F40's back, I don't want to hassle with repacking them and taking them to a shipper!
For the amount I paid, he could send me the cool greens gratis and still have made a profit. What an a-hole
