Dutch customs nailed me big time

[Riverkilt]

Sometimes, you can ask to speak to a supervisor. You may have a kid in training or an old hard line geek. Its just a kilt for God's sake, cultural apparel. If they're gonna charge you so much (afraid to ask the conversion rate damages in USD) then dang well make them work for it...by keeping them busy with phone calls and paperwork flying back at them.

A sad situation.

Ron

[Robin]

Visa won't help me...next payment summary I'll get half July, then I'm on vacation until early August...they'll return it to sender after 30 days.
Nothing I can do about...no invoice in/on the box, and I can't prove I payed for it...big problems

My XMarks kilt will be returned to Barb end of July.

Not happy

[bubba]

Robin, try to email Barb about it. Perhaps she can send an invoice

[Robin]

I did...and I now have the invoice, but when it's not in/on the box I have to prove I payed the amount on the invoice. Customs say...I can come up with anything (fake) now. They won't accept it anymore without a payment summary.

Tough luck...

[starbkjrus]

I assume you've covered all your bases but it makes no sense to me that you cannot simply logon to your bank's website and print the current months charges in statement form. Three days after I make a charge this is available to me.

Sorry for your troubles. :confused:

[Robin]

Visa is not a bank (overhere)...they send a monthly summary/bill and won't provide anything in between.

I'll go the the airport tomorrow...see what I can do there.

[efer]

Sorry to hear about your problem with customs.

Would you still be liable for the fees if they "return to sender"? If not, I suggest sending back to Barb.

I wonder if re-sending to you would cause "red-flags" with customs...
It's no fun waiting extra time, but saving over €236,61 - that a chunk of change.
For that much money, you & your wife could spend a weekend at P1m's place. Have Barb send it there.

Best of luck

[Valencian Kilted]

Well,... I just ordered to Starrynight records the sending of the e-bay Black Watch, and it will be here, as they said, in +/- 10-14 days... I asked him about all this and he told me that he used to ship everything to europe with a cost of 10$ or just as a gift, so I hope I can avoid all this kind of troubles!!

I'm really sorry to hear all the problems u have Robin,... I know that all these rules are made to protect our products (fruits, industrial products in general) from imported ones, as well as it's done all over the world, and surely you would not find that problem in any product coming from Europe, but for me it's a pity that this kind of items are not measured by a different code.... after all it's handcraft and art, not a tone of oranges going from Valencia to New York, or a container full of Haagen Dasz coming on the opposite way!!

Sometimes this world is quite unpersonalised! ... luckily we still have Xmarks to find some human little reducts!

¡Salud!

T O N O

[Barb T]

Oh, god, what a mess.

And all of this happened because I was trying to get Robin his kilt as fast as possible. I was leaving town for 10 days to teach two workshops, and I left the package with my husband to mail it to Robin, and I was going to take care of the billing when I got back, mostly because I didn't know how much the shipping was going to be.

I was completely unaware that the invoice had to be on the outside of the box. I listed the full contents plus the valuation statement on the customs form and figured that was enough. I sent him an invoice today (I got back last night) and have also sent him the credit card receipt, but apparently that isn't good enough for Customs.

As far as sending a package of commercial goods as a "gift" or a "sample", I can't do that. Maybe others feel they can, but it's illegal for me to do that as a business practice.

However, I should have looked into the costs to Robin of ordering a kilt from me from outside the EU and advised him ahead of time. I will refund him the cost of labor on the kilt and hope that he eventually gets it from Customs. That way, the customs fees will balance out what I would charge to make a kilt. What a mess. I guess you live and learn.

Barb

[Robin]

I will refund him the cost of labor on the kilt

No way!!!!!!!

Please, please, please don't....I took the risk and that's not your fault. I will feel terrible when you do this.
It's just tough luck...I'll get the kilt one way or another, and it will be more expensive as I hoped for.

Not nice, but not your fault our customs like to do their job.

I'll go to the airport and try to sort it out.