Anyone buy anything internationally lately? - US Customs

[LateNight72]

Anyone have anything shipped to them from overseas lately?

I have a package on it's way from Singapore, and it's been stuck in US Customs in San Francisco for the last 6 days. I've bought from all over the globe and every other package has been straight through customs, in no more than an hour.

Just wondering if anyone has bought anything lately and experienced a similar delay lately? I realize the Printer Bombs have everything screwed up, but I can't imagine it takes six days to open a box, look at it and send it on its merry way.

[neki67]

I buy int'l all the time . . . . :)

[BLT2DRIVE]

I just bought some Tillet seats from UK.... took four weeks through customs..... Carbon fiber has military uses, though I'd think raw material... Can't do much else with it once it's kicked-off into product???

[wmhjr]

Consider yourself lucky. Other customs are even worse. A number of times I've had shipments going to places like Hong Kong get stuck in customs jail - sometimes for over 6 months. A few times we've actually written off the equipment because it's almost impossible to get it back.

[LateNight72]

Interestingly enough, the package actually just showed up, unopened. USPS and Speedpost still show it in Customs however. Though all the various customs forms had been yanked, so I guess they did a better job atleast looking over the invoices/forms.

[LateNight72]

Consider yourself lucky. Other customs are even worse. A number of times I've had shipments going to places like Hong Kong get stuck in customs jail - sometimes for over 6 months. A few times we've actually written off the equipment because it's almost impossible to get it back.
Crazy. I just shipped a package to Australia and one to France, and both got there and cleared foreign customs in minutes. I guess I was lucky...

[wmhjr]

Australia and France aren't bad. The EU countries in general are mostly OK. It's the security crazy countries like China, India, etc that usually create issues. Plus there's more that's export controlled in those areas than people think.

[85GPLEf41]

I had participated in a pay it forward thread on G body forum a while back....Anyways i had posted a few items i was willing to give away. It was a fine until i received a pm from a guy from Iran who wanted my parts. I looked into sending him the parts but couldn't get a definite answer from anybody including most of the major shipping companies! I felt bad for not sending him the part he needed but i wasn't willing to get on a "watch" list and end up in Guantanamo bay......

[novaderrik]

one of my friends bought a few old Anthrax cd's on ebay from a guy in Hong Kong a few years ago. when the guy packaged them, he wrote "anthrax" on the box and sent it off.. a USPS sorting center somewhere on the west coast got shut down because of it...
my friend got a few calls from a few different government agencies, and had police cars driving by his house more than normal for a few weeks after the cd's showed up. the box had obviously been opened and resealed.
he was very proud of that and kept the box that the cds came in...

[wmhjr]

one of my friends bought a few old Anthrax cd's on ebay from a guy in Hong Kong a few years ago. when the guy packaged them, he wrote "anthrax" on the box and sent it off.. a USPS sorting center somewhere on the west coast got shut down because of it...
my friend got a few calls from a few different government agencies, and had police cars driving by his house more than normal for a few weeks after the cd's showed up. the box had obviously been opened and resealed.
he was very proud of that and kept the box that the cds came in...

Wow! I'm guessing that the guy who packed those CDs does not spend his days as a rocket scientist.

[Mathius]

I've never had any issues except that it seems to take 3X as long to get your package. I was more discouraged with the senders. For example I bought a cheap webcam (mostly because I bought it to try and I have NEVER used it outside of that one time) and the sender sent it in a soft padded envelop. How are you gonna send a webcam from east asia to the midwest usa in an envelop and expect it to not get damaged?

Mathius

[novaderrik]

Wow! I'm guessing that the guy who packed those CDs does not spend his days as a rocket scientist.

well, to be fair,the guy was in Hong Kong and Anthrax might not be a big deal over there or the bad kind might be called something else in their language.

[wmhjr]

well, to be fair,the guy was in Hong Kong and Anthrax might not be a big deal over there or the bad kind might be called something else in their language.

Nah, maybe that argument flies in mainland China. Not in HK. HK is an amazing place. Unbelievable money over there. You can't believe all the really high dollar cars you see driving around. Rolls, Maybachs, Bentleys, Ferraris, Aston Martins, etc.... English is spoken in HK pretty much as much as anything else.