(RANT) I hate Customs...

Marking it as gift, to Europe anyway, gives you a small concession - but it's only to the value of £32, IIRC (as opposed to about £15 for commercial goods).

Marking it as less valuable as it is - that's fraud. If you get caught, you are in trouble. They can open the parcel and assess the value of the items. You also won't be able to claim for anything more than the value you marked should you need to, of course.

In the UK, they will charge tax at our rate on the goods AND the shipping. So yes, if you choose an expensive shipping method, they'll tax you on that, too.

 

That's only partially true. They do make you open the parcel and assess the value of the items if they think it might be way too low (or if it's obvious, i.e. new PS Vitas for $20 each). But you're not in trouble if the value on the label was way lower, but you let them assess it and pay the taxes on a higher value as estimated by the customs. This happened to me several times and since I cannot influence the actions of the sender, I'm not the one who can be confronted with consequences.

Of course it's fraud, but it only becomes illegal if you try to confirm the $20 PS Vita with a fake invoice after they inquired about it.

 

I have never had an issue with customs in the UK, when marking the value down and as a "gift", and the parcels have always been sent with EMS and often are worth over £250. I know that you may say that this is risky, but I have never had an issue with it. Even when the shipping cost itself was well over £100, I never had an issue. I just get the seller to describe the item(s) as stuff that I left behind on holiday by accident (lol), and customs don't even seem to bother to open it up, even though some parcels have been very large. It always gets through without a penny extra charged to me.

Also, I once imported a PS3 as soon as it was released, and told the sender to mark it as a $20 DVD player. I did not hear anything more from customs and the console was delivered to me immediately. I have saved thousands over the years with these tricks and that is what I call "sticking it to the man"

 

15+ years and hundreds of international packages later I've only had:

a) two that didn't make it to me (one from China, another Malaysia)
b) two that were opened and inspected by US customs/boarder patrol (again one from China, another Malaysia)

Neither of the lost packages were registered or had tracking numbers associated with them so it's untelling at what point they vanished. Which leads me to ask this; what does customs do (specifically US customs) if they inspect your package and deem that it is illegal or whatever shouldn't be delivered? Obviously if it's toys stuffed with cocaine or spindles of kiddie porn your ass will be greeted by law enforcement, but what if it's a counterfeit product or something less threatening of that nature?

Do they notify you that what you ordered is being seized and destroyed? Write you a dirty letter? Put your shitty camcorder DVD's in the break room while you sit on your thumb wondering where the hell they are?

 

Haha yeah, I remember when I was in south america for work and my laptop broke down, so my GF sent me a replacement.

Mind people there gave me all the advise they could so I wouldnt get robbed or something, but post offices there are really shifty, and because nobody controls them the fuckers get to do whatever they want.

I had to wait in line for 2 hours just to get to this really dirty room where some asshole dropped the box on his grimy desk: it was already opened and they didnt let me check the contents until I signed the receipt.

Now mind my GF took a lot of precautions besides marking it as GIFT like including a note from her (so its obviously a gift). It was ALL missing! both the gift label and the note! fuckers took it out so they could charge me anyway.

Fortunately I could pass that as travel expenses (not my fault they sent me to a place every laptop costs more than a macbook pro!) and my company gave me my money back, but for the locals? its the same hell over and over, and for literally ANYTHING: some kid there had to go through the same shit for a $50 toy!

 

BTW, if my friends there made something abundantly clear is that you should NEVER EVER USE EMS

Why? because the fuckers at customs ALWAYS overcharge EMS parcels, no exceptions!

 

Horay to the Country of High Tax!!
Thats why I try to import everything nowadays. Heres almost a no men land. People just want to screw over each other, no one want to feel like have been passed behind.

Im getting to a point of boil with the people in this country, I would move right away to someplace else if I could afford at the moment.

 

Which country did you go to? Here in Argentina the customs are a pain in the ass, I had to go many times, but they always opened the packages in front of me.

 

I feel you Padoca, I've ranted tons of times about this here.

Customs suck, almost everywhere in South America.