Thread: How is this for being bombastic

Good Day,

I would like to take a moment to respond to the originator of this thread and his rant against my company.

Arizona Silhouette Inc. began in 2000 so we are not the ‘new kids on the block’. We originally shipped our products overseas but after 9/11/2001 the restrictions placed upon us became unworkable. Yuma, AZ is located where Arizona, California and Mexico meet. We are right on the border. I don’t know what the local Australian news tells you folks about this area but we are in the middle of a war zone. Drugs and illegal aliens are an everyday occurrence here and, as a result, there are greater restrictions placed on businesses shipping product outside of the United States.

Each and every order leaving the US from Yuma, sent by any form of mail (Parcel Post, Priority or Express Mail), must be presented to a postal employee at the main post office here in Yuma for processing. We are a city of 90,000 plus inhabitants and that number doubles during the winter months with the influx of ‘snowbirds’ (people from Canada and the other northern colder states of the US) who temporarily move into our community to enjoy the warmer weather. A one hour wait to mail a package at the main post office during the summer months easily becomes a two + hour wait during the winter months.

In December 2005 we decided that we could not absorb the extra costs associated with overseas shipping.As clearly stated in our Frequently Asked Questions page (if someone takes the time to read it):

Do we ship orders outside of the United States?
Effective December 1, 2005, we will no longer accept nor will we be shipping orders outside of the United States. We will continue to ship to APO and FPO addresses. The $7.95 out-of-country charge continues to apply to APO and FPO orders.


Then again, when someone uses our Checkout feature the only country that shows up is the United States. That alone would give most folks a hint that we only ship to U.S. addresses.

My message to Roger Waskow suggested a method of having a friend or relative here in the US forward his order to him. Maybe he doesn’t have any friends or relatives here in the US.

As an aside: Fifty+ years ago, when I was a participant in the Southeast Asia War Games (Vietnam), I had the pleasure of meeting up with some Australian troops who were fighting alongside us. What a great bunch of guys who really loved their beer! Twenty-five+ years later I had the pleasure of meeting Vic Wood and his wife Beverly on numerous occasions here in the U.S. as well as the iconic Gianfranco Angelino and Richard Raffan in Provo, Utah and then again at numerous AAW Symposiums in Los Angeles, CA and Orlando, FL. All of my interactions with Australian turners have been positive …. until now. I’m certainly not going to let one bad apple to spoil the whole barrel.


When subscribing to this forum one of the rules that was to be adhered to was that no one was to ‘flame’ or ‘bad mouth’ an individual and/or business. Waskow definitely broke this established rule all because I don’t ship internationally. Could it be that Roger Waskow thinks he is more important than he actually is?

Thank you for your time.

Bill Baumbeck
Arizona Silhouette Inc.