The customs odyssey...

[silversolitaire]

I just had, like, the weirdest experience of my life! o.o

Let me elaborate. I was awaiting a parcel from a friend from the Czech Republic who promised to send me around 50 CDs with anime! Naturally, I was all bouncy and excited, waiting for it to arrive. Today, there was this slip of paper in my mailbox that said that I had received a parcel of "dubious content" and I was to show up at the local customs office for clarification! Note, the "local" office is about 30 miles away! WAH! Needless to say, I was kinda miffed and worried! I called them and they said I had received a package from the Czech Republic and since it wasn't member of the EU they wanted to check it! They asked me what's in it. I said

"Uhm... dunno. Gifts. Uh... CDs..."
"Music CDs?"
"Uh, rather like... burnt CDs..."
*inhales sharply* "CD-Rs? Not good. You know that you're not supposed to send those?"
"Really? Not even data CDs?"
"Oh, data CDs. That's something else. We're talking about pirated music CDs here."
"Nah, officer, no danger here."
"Okay. Please show up at our office personally as soon as possible and bring your ID."

Aaaall right. So, I went to the office. Needless to say, I was quite nervous. Then, this guy came along, kinda geekish look, reminded me of my brother. He was really nice. He led me into the building, took out this HUGE key and opened the door to a room that was bursting with parcels. He asked me the same questions again and I gave the same answers. As explanation I offered, "You see, I study Japanese and these are data CDs to help me learn vocabulary and diction." He was all interested, wanting to know how it was to study Japanese and so on. We chatted a bit, he made me open the parcel, I showed him the CDs. Then he said "Since it's a gift you can just take it with you." I said "Thanks", signed a paper and zoomed off.

Man, this WAS scary! HahaHah. This never happened to me before! Either, they have the Czech Republic on their black list, or it was a spot check, or they picked that parcel because it was poorly declared (which it was). I mean, it can't be the shipment in general, since I've received TONS of stuff before in much larger packages and nobody ever raised as much as an eyebrow at it!

Weird, weird, weird...

On the other hand, I now have SO much anime to watch, it'll take weeks! It's amazing! Wow... I'm so happy. I'm gonna watch some right now! yaaaaay! *_*

Comments

[silversolitaire.livejournal.com]

International packages ALWAYS get taxed everywhere when they're obviously merchandise. Especially amazon works with the customs. They declare your package and thus ASK for them to tax you! I once got a shipment for free from them because a DVD that I had ordered was broken and I STILL had to pay around $ 15 tax because those morons sent it with UPS and the costs for the UPS service was taxed as well!!!

If you want to avoid such costs, have it sent to American friends and they send it to you. The shipping costs are less usually and then it's counted as gift and depending on where you live gifts betweent $ 50 and $ 100 are alright without tax.

[gareon.livejournal.com]

yes thats wehat ive had to be doing, it ends up costing less in the long run,. i stockpile stuff in a friends house in the states and then they ship it to me as a present.

grr.

[silversolitaire.livejournal.com]

I know it sucks. Countless times that I've been pissed off big time by them. Suckers, all of them! If I think about it! I once got a MEGA huge package from StarWars.com and there was NO tax. And then I got a weeeeeeh eeny weeny tiny one from amazon and had to pay $ 30! I'm convinced they role a dice, or something.

[gareon.livejournal.com]

well heres its a science... to get a package and NOTY have it opened you pay a dollar, if they feel like opening it they tax it 100% then say you can pay em unofficialy 25% and you will get your package.

grr.