Quality Sai

Thank you for the phone info. I don't know if it applies to me, since I'm dialup. (I know it's lame, but I go online mostly for text, not for graphics and videos.)

It turns out that Shureido Okinawa (at least I hope it was them) contacted me about an hour after I made the last post. They knew, approximately, the order I had tried to make, however, I had already ordered through other suppliers and did not want to cancel orders taken in good faith, since the orders to Shureido had long gone unconfirmed and could be considered cancelled by default. (Besides, they got the size wrong on the sai and did not mention the size of the tonfa; any other information they had could have been known from my post or deduced easily.)

One strange thing: they wanted my credit card info by email or fax, which I did not think was too secure. As I said, I went with my previous suppliers. I will report on the other suppliers when they deliver.

The Shureido emails, when they got to me, seemed very responsive and polite. However, it is hard to tell when you have the real thing and when you have someone who has made his email address look like Shureido. I've gotten emails with forged addresses before, even emails forged to be from me.

I'm not saying they were fake. The fax number they offered was very similar to the Shureido fax number. I'm just saying that no legitimate business has ever asked me for credit card information by email before. Anyone who has ordered from them before can correct me. Please correct me. I would not want to slander what I know to be a great provider of authentic Okinawan Karate supplies.

I deal directly with Shureido in the USA, and I've never had a problem. I call them in California (I seem to call to recall that they are closed on Mondays). I put my order in over the phone (I like chit chat with people). And the item always arrives on time.

Sorry you are having such a problem.

I'm not trying to slam Shureido. I would not be trying to buy weapons from them if I did not think that they were reputible and skilled. I'm saying that I am concerned that the person emailing me was not from Shureido. I started emailing in 1988, and I know that it is not a secure system of transfer. It relays through dozens of places domestically. I can't imagine how many relays there are internationally. I had no way of knowing the transaction was secure, and I can't imagine such a respected company uses so dangerous a system.

I'm on the other coast and don't know if it is better to order from ShureidoUSA or from Shureido Okinawa, since exchange rates change every day and shipping charges were never disclosed. The person emailing me seemed to have no idea, which seemed odd to me, since they should be shipping to the US every day. I had already ordered through domestic suppliers when I got no response from either company.

Then, after two weeks of no response, I post to a public forum. Then, in hours, I get someone who wants my credit card number almost immediately. Does that not seem shady? My opinion is that there is Shureido Okinawa trying the best it can and not knowing its online order form does not work. There is also an outside phisher who sees that someone wants to make payment. He sends me an email.

The scam I am talking about has nothing to do with Shureido. I've used their weapons, and they have my respect. My issue is that I have no way of knowing if someone with Shureido as his address is really the real thing.

Wow, some of those prices are wild. I paid $65 CDN in 1994 and they are still going strong. I even learned to throw them, and they are still good after hitting each other and being in the mud / rain / grass.

I still have not seen the sai I ordered from a CA dojo distibuting Shureido weapons. I've spoken on the phone with him several times and he seems to be a nice guy, but seriously, I almost could have had the things custom made by this time. Carbone custom-makes better sai in 10 weeks. This place takes seven weeks to deliver something off the shelf. After a couple broken promises, I was promised (3rd strike) the sai by the end of the weekend. I'll be watching my mailbox for the next couple days, but if I do not see it soon I will post the name and link to this non-distributor.

He refuses to send me a tracking number for something he claims to have sent weeks ago. I suspect that he intends to send it on a quick delivery to cover up for his own delays, but with no tracking number and no sai, I have no reason to believe he is even in the business of selling weapons. So far, all I know is that he is in the business of charging credit card numbers.

For those of you thinking of ordering immediately, he is in pinot noir wine country, not Napa.

Time to get your money back from the dojo. Sounds like consumer fraud from someone capitalizing on the good name of Shureido.

Anybody here from California who might be able to research this a bit?

I've never had a problem...and like I said...I called the company directly (using the site I listed earlier and cutting out any middleman profiteers)...and had the weapons within a week.

You might want to call Shureido in California...and give them a head's up about this distributer...as it is giving them a bad name.

If I were you I would tell the guy you're going to have your credit card company remove the charges. They will take the matter up with him for you, but you will get your money back. The one good thing about credit cards!

My take on this guy is that he is a decent man who is trying to run a dojo part time and helping paying the rent by selling these things at a marginal profit. He's just not doing it very well. Maybe I'm wrong, but my credit card records have not yet shown up with anything wierd. I've been paying attention and it expires soon. Because I am a nice guy, so I called him up and let him promise that I would have either have the order or proof that the order was sent when he said it was when I get home tomorrow.

I'm not a vengeful person, so the phone numbers to ShureidoUSA, the Better Business Bureau, Visa, and the US Postal Inspector fraud division are just waiting on the legal pad on my desk until I get home tomorrow. There's no point in making a big deal about nothing, until tomorrow.

I have no intention of threatening him with these actions. A threat is a gift. If the situation warrants, then I will do as necessary.

A note for anyone facing internet fraud: if it involves a shipment, it is mail fraud. The Postal Inspector is the oldest federal police force in the nation (some customs agents disagree). I'm sure they will know what to do, and they love to respond to mail fraud, especially when there is an email record of the transaction. They live for this. You can even report dumb chain letters. https://www.usps.com/postalinspectors/fraud/MailFraudComplaint.htm

I'll decide tomorrow.

Thanks for the info, IRKguy. I hope your situaton gets resolved without any more messiness.

You would not believe this. As the guy said, ShureidoUSA was backordered by two weeks. This guy added a week of delay by not getting back to me, and Fedex has been incapable of delivering for a month. It amazes me. The last entry on my tracking says "unable to find address." I don't live in the Amazon Jungle. I live one block from the post office in a major metropolitan city, on a numbered street. How is it hard to figure out that 14th street is between 13th and 15th street?

I tried three times to have them just leave it at the station so I could pick it up myself, but they can't seem to manage that either. What does it mean when a shipping company cannot find your address? If I said that to my boss, I would be fired on the spot. I can find my address on GoogleMaps, complete with the tree next to my front porch. The degree of incompetence I am dealing with baffles me. The stupidity is baffling.

I will pass on the names and URLs of every business involved when the transaction is done.

So now, after two weeks of delays due to customs, a week of delay due to the vendor, a week of confusion on ShureidoUSA's part, and over a month of FedEx screwing up and not being able to adapt to ShureidoUSA having given them the wrong address, I have the sai in hand. The sai seem to be very well-made, but there is no Shureido mark on the sai themselves, though they were sent from Ryukyu Enterprises (the only authorized US importer) and I can't imagine anyone would take the trouble to make forgeries that are this well-made. Is there usually a trademark on the weapons?

I also wonder why Shureido would make such a balanced weapon so light. My mass-produced sai were heavier, and if sai are a bludgeon, why not make it more point-heavy? I also wonder about the width of the grip. In the point-back grip, I can barely catch a bo. My hand gets in the way. Maybe Okinawans have smaller hands or smaller bo?

I'm sorry if I sound paranoid, but I have been jerked around for two months, and I want to make sure I have what I paid for and have been waiting for before I contact the vendor and close the transaction.

Why don't you post the dimensions and weight of the sai...for comparison? (What type did you get, BTW?)

Don't know your size, but my sai were the small, natural ones and my hands are less than 4" at the widest and wrist to fingertip 7"....and it seems to be a good fit. (Sai at home...dont' have those specs to post right now.)

I was used to larger, heavier Tokkiedo (sp?) sai...and initially unhappy about the sai size...but felt it would be a bother to exchange them. Besides...one should get used to different sizes/weights/brands.

My shureido have no sort of trademarks on them.

Thank you, Borrek.
As I said, I cannot imagine someone would make forgeries of such high quality. However, after two months of unnecessary delays, I got suspicious. I had nothing to compare them to. Although my sensei's sensei uses these weapons, he is a few states away, and people in my dojo tend to use mass-produced weapons and then make the jump to much more expensive custom made stuff (3 times the price). I just wanted to be sure the whole thing was over.
Since the delay was due to Fedex and Ryukyu Enterprises (ShureidoUSA) not being able to get their acts togther, I am leaving out the name of the third party vendor except to say that whoever was quoted 170 by ShureidoUSA was being played. There are third part vendors who charge less, so ShureidoUSA could have done a lot better.

I don't know who caused the whole debacle, but my Fedex tracking information says that Fedex caused most of the debacle. I paid 135 from the third party vendor, but I have heard of people getting all kinds of prices from ShureidoUSA, depending on how they like you over the phone. It doesn't matter too much because my school will be setting up its own wholesale account after this mess.

As for the initial order, I was willing to pay the extra five bucks to avoid taking the time to talk with someone long distance. I'm more than a bit of an introvert, and half of my 5 bucks of savings would be lost in long distance charges anyway, provided the salesman liked me and I was at home at the right time to make the call. It turned out that I ended up losing more in time talking to FedEx's worthless customer service

I sent the third party guy an email yesterday, and I figure that if he is a good guy, he will try to make things right. Otherwise, his link goes up. So far, I have said that I was talking about a Shorinryu dojo in California wine country that is not Napa. Someone about to order would know who I was talking about and think twice.

By no means was I recommending this guy or anyone else. I was saying that anyone talking to ShureidoUSA and getting a quote of 170 should say that he knew of places where he could get it for a lot less. He should not order from those places. He should use those places as bargaining points. As Eric Cartman says, you use the breaking my balls technique.

You didn't miss anything. I've just, out of an abundance of caution, delayed giving the link to someone no one should ever think of order from because ths might be an isolated incident. In any case, the service was awful, and I would definitely work directly with ShureidoUSA or even Shureido Okinawa in the future. A boat across the ocean could not be slower.

I want to be absolutely clear. When you deal with a third party, you are just inviting new markups and new delays, since you have added another moving part to the transaction. However, you should shop third party providors so Shureido does not give you unreasonable prices.