posted on May 28, 2003 02:23:08 AM new
Classicrock asked "This might sound like a silly question, but how can a customs offical tell if it's a gift or you're selling merchandise?"
In my case, they would be able to tell from the packing slip I enclose with the item. It has both our addresses, eBay #, item description, purchase price, and shipping amount, etc.
posted on May 28, 2003 07:53:04 AM new put the retail price
Just mark down what they paid for the item, nothing more or less. Do not count postage in with the item value.
As others have stated, bidpay, payingfast etc. are the only way to go for overseas deals.
Sometimes its better not to combine shipping due to higher costs as you may be getting a lower cost factor by mailing two instead of one.
Just check it out and make up your own mind as which is the better way to go.
posted on May 28, 2003 08:08:40 AM new
For one thing ...putting gift on a Customs form is not mail fraud. You are not breaking any USA laws. It has nothing to do with USPS or US Customs.
If your post office clerks say anything ask them when they started working for the Customs of the country you are sending it to...its none of their business!!
posted on May 28, 2003 08:24:09 AM new
customs employees can tell if they are gifts or merchandise,dont ask me how,they just know.
may be the shipper label said something like I AM BRIAN'S MOTHER.
THESE ARE MY HOMEMADE COOKIES ,BRIAN USED TO EAT SO MUCH OF THESE COOKIES HE GOT SICK!!
posted on May 28, 2003 08:34:50 AM new
Here's a question - if you are selling a used item, the actual value may not be what it sold for, right? So, what would you put on the customs form? The book value, the price you paid for it (good idea, ebayauctionguy, or the price you sold it for? Isn't the value of some of the used items subjective? What's the difference between the value you put on a customs form and the value you put on a car title (come on, most people are dishonest about that one)?
I've sold things clearly not worth the amount bid on them. Seems to me, you should put on the customs form what you originally paid for the item, or the amount it sold for, whichever is the lower of the two, IMO.
Cheryl
My religion is simple, my religion is kindness.
--Dalai Llama
posted on May 28, 2003 09:01:28 AM new
I emailed the buyer and ask how much he has to pay for customs. He said 40% of what is written on the customs form. That is very high! On $38 that would be $15.20 so that would add quite a bit to his cost.
If I have time today I am going to do some checking on the internet and see if I can find anything about the customs charges.
If anyone else finds anything please post it here.
posted on May 28, 2003 02:33:54 PM new
If a buyer from another country asks me to reduce the value and to put it as a gift, I will. Even when they DON'T ask, I will ask THEM. My postal clerk told me that the customs form has nothing to do with our Post Office...they couldn't care less. The buyer may be taking a risk if he buys multiple packages, but if he's willing to take a chance, so be it.
I sold some books once to a man in Holland. He asked me to write his name on each inside cover to make it look like I was returning his books. I did it..along with adding a thank-you note for letting me use his books.
[ edited by annekila on May 28, 2003 02:38 PM ]
posted on May 28, 2003 02:47:11 PM new
From the USPS website:
123.712 Acceptance by Postal Employee (PS Form 2976)
The Postal Service acceptance employee must:
a. Instruct the sender how to complete, legibly and accurately, the customs declaration form, as required. Failure to complete the form properly can delay delivery of the item or inconvenience the sender and addressee. Moreover, a false, misleading, or incomplete declaration can result in the seizure or return of the item and/or in criminal or civil penalties. The United States Postal Service assumes no responsibility for the accuracy of information that the sender enters on PS Form 2976.
---------------------------------------------
The buyer isn't taking any risk at all but the seller is. I have said this before, each of us should conduct our business as we wish but all newbies should be aware of the law. I run a real business, I'm not going to jeopardize it for a complete stranger in another country.
What if the buyer doesn't like the item you sent? He may figure if you lied about the Customs form perhaps you lied about the description also?
posted on May 28, 2003 02:47:43 PM new
Hey, everybody. I just had a verrrry interesting experience. Went to ship a package to Italy from our little mountain town post office. The clerk handed me the customs form and instructed (!) me to check the "gift" box. I said it's not a gift. He said but this way your buyer won't have to pay duty on it. I said I thought I could get into trouble for that, but you're my witness here. He then told me to do whatever I liked. I did as he'd instructed me. First time ever, and I now am wondering if this is common practice.
posted on May 28, 2003 02:51:29 PM new
roadsmith, I posted at the same time as you did and I just copied the info from the USPS website. I doubt that all the postal clerks are even aware of the laws or if some of them even care.
Besides, you marked the form so it would be your problem and not his if the package was flagged at Customs.
posted on May 28, 2003 02:59:04 PM new
My post office breaks almost every rule in the book. Size requirements go out the window, they tell people to select Media Mail for everything not going Priority Mail, I've seen clerks use the Tylek Priority envelopes as padding for the stuff people put in Priority Mail boxes on the counter, etc. Before 9-11 they were very lax on the customs forms. Some post offices are run like a boot camp and some are not.
posted on May 28, 2003 05:29:52 PM newThis might sound like a silly question,but how can a customs offical tell if its a gift or your selling merchandise?
Technically, any package shipped can be subject to open search. If a customs agent suspects there maybe some illegal items or mislabeled items, that package can be opened by the customs agent for inspection. If the form is labeled gift and the customs agent find a receipt inside, you can be in very hot water. Now the chances are your packages will never be subject to search, but is it worth the risk? Not in my book.
posted on May 28, 2003 05:38:55 PM new
Do you REALLY think the customs police are going to travel here from Holland to arrest me because I said some books are a gift????
[ edited by annekila on May 28, 2003 05:40 PM ]
Lets get serious here. The custom police as you put it are not going to travel anywhere. If the custom people even think that your item is under valued they will and have charged a higher tax rate on the item. This should make your buyer one happy camper...not!
stonecold613 has it right. What will happen is that if they flag you which means that every parcel you send will be held up for inspection. Now there is more time delay for your buyer.
If you mail enough stuff to a certain country and you play games with this 'gift' crap you could wind up having your parcels siezed by customs and they may not bother to even tell you.
If they find that you are not up front they can file a complaint with the U.S. custom service and they will pay you a visit not to mention heavy fines and or jail time.
Never screw around with this, these people are not stupid and they have no sense of humor whatsoever.
Its a crap shoot here. You might get away with this for a long time or your world can crash in on you real fast.
Bottom line is why should you risk your azz for a total stranger just to save them a couple of bucks? Not worth it! Either you are running a business or you are just a wannabe. Treat it as such.
posted on May 29, 2003 10:35:19 AM new
I used to participate in a few international "swapping" programs where people exchanged books, jewelry and other items through the mail. Technically, these items are not subject to import duties in most countries and can be legally marked as gifts -- but more than once, I've still had problems.
More than once, someone (usually the foreign Customs department) decided that the merchandise is dutiable. Even when the law is on your side (as it was in my case) there's not much grounds to appeal.
If that happens to you, they'll either charge your buyer - for a usually inflated "value" set by them - or just confiscate the merchandise. Less frequently, you can be prosecuted. (Thanks, kiara, for finding the law. I knew I'd read it before but couldn't find it again.)
As an eBay seller, the other likely problem is that your local post office folks will notice a pattern and either call it to a postal inspector's attention or start giving your packages more "attention."
posted on May 29, 2003 11:07:43 AM new
::stonecold613 has it right. What will happen is that if they flag you which means that every parcel you send will be held up for inspection. Now there is more time delay for your buyer. ::
Oh good lord please tell me you did not just agree with that pompous know NOTHING Stone. US Customs does not check outgoing packages much less flag shippers because they mark packages as "Gifts".
Foreign customs flags shippers that they feel may be shipping ILLEGAL ITEMS such as drugs, weapons, etc. If they feel that a RECIPIENT may be violating customs with an unusual degree of foreign gifts they may flag the RECIPIENTS, the do not flag the senders. I'm not sure how much time you think customs officials have but its not enough that they can be bothered with $20 items from ebay.
posted on May 29, 2003 11:19:19 AM new
neonmania
What am I going to do with you? HA,In this one case, stone is right.
Foreign customs flags shippers that they feel may be shipping ILLEGAL ITEMS such as drugs, weapons, etc. If they feel that a RECIPIENT may be violating customs with an unusual degree of foreign gifts they may flag the RECIPIENTS,
Thats what I said, but never count it out that they can not come back on the seller because they can.
but its not enough that they can be bothered with $20 items from ebay.
This is true up to a point. Most small sellers can whip their goods right by them without a problem, but all it takes is only once or twice and now you have a problem.
Bottom line is the same, why bother with all this for a stranger. Its not worth my time to bs for someone else.
posted on May 29, 2003 12:42:18 PM new
[i]neonmania
What am I going to do with you?[/i]
Spank me lightly and tell me I'm naughty?
But seriously...I have shipped internationally for years, the only time I have ever marked a package as merchandise was when the customer pissed me off.. (I just did it last week with a customer that ignored my quote on international shipping and paid domestic via MO after I refunded his paypal order which included domestic. I did ship the item... it's on a leaky row boat to Australia, he'll get it in another 6 weeks), I have never once had a problem with one of my shipmens being held in customs.
I have a friend that imports from Mexico - his address is flagged with US Customs for reasons we have yet to figure out - his shipments usually sit about 3 weeks in customs however despite that known flagging his export packages go thru without a hitch.
I have a circle of friends who all run mail and e-commerce businesses, all of us ship routinely out of the country, all of us routinely mark shipments as gifts and not one of us have ever had a problem. Given Stones remarkable run of inaccurate postings, until I come in contact with someone that has actually encountered problems such as he described, I'm not buying it.
US Customs does not check outgoing packages.
[ edited by neonmania on May 29, 2003 01:09 PM ]
posted on May 29, 2003 01:36:41 PM newneon, I have (see above post.} I've personally had a legitimately non-dutiable package marked "gift" held by customs until the recipient showed up and paid the duty. In discussions on swapping-related boards, I've also heard of customs making packages "disappear." U.S. customs wasn't doing it, but Canada is apparently particularly bad about holding packages, even those that should not be subject to a fee.
Like you, I find it unlikely that U.S. customs agents or postal inspectors will break down my door and haul me off to jail. But that doesn't change the fact that lying on a customs form is illegal.
The other problem is that if your package does get stopped and your customer is required to come down and pay the duty, they're stuck with whatever value the customs agent decides to place on your merchandise (absent an invoice inside.) In my case, the item that was being held was a bracelet I'd made for a swap between jewelry artists. The customs agent decided the bracelet was worth $100 (Lord, I wish!) and demanded nearly $40 in duty from my swap partner.
If I sold those bracelets - which I never did - I doubt the price tag would be more than $20. Since I don't sell that style of bracelet (and I don't even sell bracelets at all any more) I had no "documentation" to prove it was worth less. We did finally get the customs agent to relent after sending her copious documentation. But it took a lot of time and effort.
posted on May 29, 2003 02:06:32 PM new
MS - I don't doubt that these types of things happen. What is was argueing above was the concept of having your address flagged by foreign customs.
As for situations where items are held by customs... If a customer requests that their package be marked as gift and it is held in customs as a result - it is a risk the customer takes.
As for situations where items are held by customs... If a customer requests that their package be marked as gift and it is held in customs as a result, it is a risk the customer takes.
Problem is if that happens you are the one who has to "listen" to the buyer whining in your ear because of this.
I prefer to just keep everything aboveboard as it makes life a lot easier in the long run.
posted on May 29, 2003 06:54:46 PM new
Sometimes I wonder why I bother adding to these boards. Most of what has been written here is worthless, and poatentially dangerous..
.
.
.Some have it right though. In this case it's very simple. If you're running a business, treat it as such. There are some laws that we all break routinely. Like going 38 in a 35MPH zone, or maybe even runing a red light(barely). These crimes? will get you in a little monetary problem. There are some crimes that you just do not want to mess with, and filling out a false customs declaration for a stranger is just asking for trouble. Even if it's a 1 in a 10000 chance, do you really want to get a letter from Germany and/or US customs asking for documentation on your declared gift? Do you think that these people have never heard of Ebay. Do you think that they're not aware of the International commerce going on. Don't you think that they want their piece of the action. This is money. Do you want to be the test case over a $40 item shipped to a stranger.
posted on May 29, 2003 08:15:48 PM new
Good for you ace....why don't you go bungee jump somewhere and leave this topic as a business discussion for the adults.
[ edited by pointy on May 29, 2003 08:17 PM ]
posted on May 29, 2003 08:43:45 PM new
Hey neon,
Why don't you tell us what post office you go to so we can let them know about your dishonest practices.
Time to put your money were your mouth isn't.
posted on May 29, 2003 09:53:52 PM new
Hey Stone - Do the research - it's at a local mall - oh yeah, they couldn't care less - me and the clerk were talking about it last week. Now - don't you have some inaccurate information to give somewhere else?
[ edited by neonmania on May 29, 2003 10:04 PM ]
[ edited by neonmania on May 29, 2003 10:04 PM ]
posted on May 29, 2003 10:23:13 PM new
Hi all,
Despite the overwhelming lack of response. I have decided to do the page anyway. All it needs is input from Vendio users. As I said previously simply post the info here in the format;
Country, Maximum non taxable value in $, date, additional comments.
Hi Ace,
"I'd love to see a site that had the customs limits for various countries."
posted on May 29, 2003 11:47:30 PM new
If If US mail customs is the same as customs when re-entering the country the limit before taxation is $400.
One of the Canadian on the board may correct me or at least let us know if these charges are regularly applied but from what I have found, thanks to NAFTA, if the items was made in Mexico or the US there is no customs charge however there is a 7% GST tax plus PST or QST plus Canada Post automatically applies a $5.00 processing fee ($8.00 for Priority Post) for each package to clear Canada Customs.
posted on May 30, 2003 10:19:20 AM new
I've been told by my local postal clerks that you break no United States laws when you declare an item a gift. If you are breaking a law it is of the country you are sending it to. I have found that they generally know what they are talking about.
But that doesn't change the fact that lying on a customs form is illegal.
