Hardware Value Deluxe legit?

[SS01]

Hey, sorry if this is in the wrong section, I'm a noob here. I just bought an R4i 3DS from ValueDeluxe.com, and while everything seems to have gone OK, I just want to know others' experiences with this place. I got sent there from Deveno.com because their payment system was down apparently..

 

[Janthran]

I've never heard of it.

 

[Fear Zoa]

I've also never heard of it and the shoptemp page for them has no ratings or reviews.
When your done you should leave a rating or a review, it would be helpful and appreciated.
http://shoptemp.net/shop/valuedeluxe-com-free-shipping-worldwide.html

 

[Rydian]

Never heard of it either, but... it seems to be a US-based shop (and by that I don't just mean a .com domain, I mean it seems to be staffed by native or very fluent English speakers). It marks flash carts as "adapters" (a neat way of putting it) and has a wide variety, though I find it odd it doesn't seem to charge a chunk more, like lots of US-based shops do, so this shop might just be a US-front and order/ship the materials from China on-demand.

However it doesn't looke like they update their carts very far before shipping them out, from the descriptions it looks like they're just relying on what the factories have them updated to.

 

[SS01]

The (empty) shoptemp states China. Hmm... What's the chance of this being a scam? :s I was paranoid and bought myself an $15 Amex gift card to make the purchase (Google Checkout) with so not too worried about that, just wondering if my card's gonna show up, lol.

Offtopic: can I update a R4i 3DS w/ R4i Gold 3DS firmware?

 

[Rydian]

Firmwares are cart-specific, so unless both carts are direct hardware clones of each other (not just the name), no.

 

[SS01]

Google Wallet sent me an email yesterday, it's been shipped apparently. Rydian was correct, the store is located in America, but they order the carts on-demand from China. Not too sure how long shipping from Hong Kong usually takes, (I'm in Canada) but I'll report back when it gets here.

 

[Whipple]

We will be waiting for your report.
The situation with stores that sell flashcarts appears very unstable at the moment.

All of my regular sources have apparently gone offline.
I placed a couple of orders from PocketDS and while I got everthing I ordered, their site was up and then down many times. It appears they have gone offline for good.

 

[Jarathaxe]

Google Wallet sent me an email yesterday, it's been shipped apparently. Rydian was correct, the store is located in America, but they order the carts on-demand from China. Not too sure how long shipping from Hong Kong usually takes, (I'm in Canada) but I'll report back when it gets here.

As to your question of shipping. Sometimes I've waited 7 weeks for stuff to come in. Other times I've had it in hand in less that 4 all seems to depend on the time of year and how slow the boats are. I'm in the US though, so Canada may be a bit longer.

 

[Rydian]

Shipping from China can heavily vary. During some seasons with a normal shipping method it can take many weeks, but in general if you order decent shipping it can arrive within 1-2 weeks.