Customs delaying orders...

[Griffin]

Too funny, my package from Huang came today and spent 15mins with customs than released. Still boggles my mind how some days things spend 1min in customs and others well you know.

[TokyoSeven]

Originally Posted by KEVORKIAN

Just got confirmation that my parcel has left customs & is on its way...

Anyone else have good news???

I just saved a buncha money to switching my car insurance to geico.
No not really. I just thought I would throw somthing in cause I didnt wanna be left out.

[rockafella]

Ok, so yesterday I got this letter from customs stateing:

"Replica Firearms Parts - please fax recipt for purchase, if not recieved within 30days items will be retuned to sender."

So i PM'd Huang to send me some 'receipt', can i just send these idiots a copy of my bank statement that shows how much I paid eventhough it does' nt say who i paid it to? Any advice on how to proceed from here?

-I'm getting way to impatient, so i actually baought another SIR handgaurd just now, so when may package finally gets here it may be up for sale. I hope this does not become a regular occurence cuz I want to buy alot more things off of Huang.

[Styrak]

Originally Posted by rockafella

Ok, so yesterday I got this letter from customs stateing:

"Replica Firearms Parts - please fax recipt for purchase, if not recieved within 30days items will be retuned to sender.".

Lol, huang sold it to you, so get him to whip up some receipt that says you paid $5 or $10 for them.

[ILLusion]

Originally Posted by Styrak

Lol, huang sold it to you, so get him to whip up some receipt that says you paid $5 or $10 for them.

Just hope that the customs officer doesn't follow up on the invoice and looks up the actual listed price for the goods...

Or you could just do it legit with an invoice that shows ACTUAL amounts and then pay the tax. Even if the item costed you $100, you're paying SIX DOLLARS in GST. That's a very very tiny price to pay in comparison to the headaches and cost of dealing with criminal charges for misdeclaration of imported goods and possibly being red-flagged for future imports.

You may have to explain why the goods were declared with such a lower amount, but I can't see that being difficult to get out of - most exporters put low amounts as a courtesy for the importer with no input or control by the importer. Just say you didn't know they'd do that and you fully expected them to put the full amount.

[rockafella]

Finally after 14days at Customs my stuff is finally getting sent out to me today.

Huang sent me an invoice that said I paid $20USD for 4 items; CTR stock, Front and rear BUIS and SIR handguard -- $20 yeah right! I faxed it over, called them to make sure that they got it.

They agent started grilling me, what kind of gun do i have, (I said I have a clearsoft gun from Walmart) She asked me if I have bank statement reflecting what i paint for it, I said I do have an EMT record for $20 (I'm lying ofcourse) but that is does not show who the recipient is other than an email address. She asked, me several times what I paid for it, I always stayed consitent with the invoice amount. Siad that i bought it off a guy from a forum who knew a guy and because it was from China that is why it was so cheap and that it is used stuff. She asked me if i will be buying more stuff from there. She asked me again how much it's worth, again gave the same answer. Finally she said ok, I will send it out today.

Things I learned from this, if you're going to lie stick with it no matter what. Don't be fooled by thier intimidation tactics they have no clue.

Good luck to the rest of you guys!


PS. we should start a task force to make fake receipts and bank tansactions as proof to make sure that everyone is able to get their stuff.

[Griffin]

Wow I find odd she would ask you what kind of gun you owned. I assumed really its none of her/agents business. The CASV I ordered from Huang spent 15mins with customs and is now out for delivery. My order from Uncompany though has been sent to customs for processing as of yesterday, so I expect its going to be delayed.

[Endymion]

Originally Posted by rockafella

PS. we should start a task force to make fake receipts and bank tansactions as proof to make sure that everyone is able to get their stuff.

It's one thing to rejoice in your good fortune, but it's another altogether to suggest openly organizing a movement to defraud the government.

[Styrak]

Originally Posted by rockafella

They agent started grilling me, what kind of gun do i have, (I said I have a clearsoft gun from Walmart) She asked me if I have bank statement reflecting what i paint for it, I said I do have an EMT record for $20 (I'm lying ofcourse) but that is does not show who the recipient is other than an email address.

Why didn't you just say that what gun you have and what you paid for it is none of their fucking business? It had nothing to do with the matter at hand, what the customs officer had to deal with.

[Griffin]

Well this is now the first item ordered from Huang, that I got ding with taxes. The CASV has the good old yellow tape on it and a CBSA invoice as well. The item value was listed at $15, CBSA listed it as $50 than charged me PST/GST plus handling fee. I am curious though on how they determined the item to be worth $50.

[rockafella]

You do know I was joking right?

Originally Posted by Endymion

It's one thing to rejoice in your good fortune, but it's another altogether to suggest openly organizing a movement to defraud the government.

[Endymion]

Originally Posted by rockafella

You do know I was joking right?

Sorry, jumped the gun on that one - my sarcasmeter has been broken by all of the boneheaded posts lately. Good to hear you're getting your stuff soon though. Hopefully my package will be released by next week - it entered customs on the 20th.

[Jugglez]

Originally Posted by Griffin

Well this is now the first item ordered from Huang, that I got ding with taxes. The CASV has the good old yellow tape on it and a CBSA invoice as well. The item value was listed at $15, CBSA listed it as $50 than charged me PST/GST plus handling fee. I am curious though on how they determined the item to be worth $50.

They probably just pulled the figure out of thin air.

What they usually do with replica and knockoff goods is lookup the value of the authentic item, and use that as the value for taxes/duties. A real VLTOR CASV goes for about $250-300 USD

Consider yourself lucky.

[Griffin]

Thats what I was thinking, "Hmmm how much you really think its worth! Lets say $50!". Oh I don't mid the $15 dollar charge, just would love to know how they assessed the value.

[ILLusion]

Originally Posted by Styrak

Why didn't you just say that what gun you have and what you paid for it is none of their fucking business? It had nothing to do with the matter at hand, what the customs officer had to deal with.

Because it's totally their business as it is an officer's job as assigned by the Canadian government to determine admissibility of goods in to country and to assess and collect the duties and taxes on the imported goods as required.

You, as the importer has entered in to the duty and understanding that you are to answer all of the officer's questions that they require to perform their job. Anything beyond that, you CAN be charged with a criminal offense of tax evasion.

An officer would have to be in a pretty bad mood to hit you with that criminal charge, but they have every right to. Would the hassles of trying to fight off that charge plus the potential of carrying a criminal record for the rest of your life be worth saving $15? In my opinion, not worth it.

As a high volume importer, I personally wouldn't think it's worth it, especially when most of the goods I import aren't for myself anyways. I'm not screwing up my life for someone else's toys.

My personal suggestion is to be honest - but that's only because I tried the lying bit once and was not only threatened with the criminal charge, but I AM red-flagged for the 7 years following my bust (6 years left to go...) and was charged not only full GST and PST on the FULL MSRP of the goods (the officer looked it up, because I failed to produce an invoice for it), but was also hit with a 30% penalty fee PLUS an additional 3.5% in duties for the classification of those particular goods.

I went through all that crap - why? Because I wanted to save $80 in taxes. The final price I paid for everything ended up being several hundred dollars more than if I'd bought it locally and even more than that if I'd just declared the goods and paid the taxes.

Ultimately, I could've saved myself all that grief by declaring the goods and paying just $80 in taxes. Yup... just $80. The crap that I have to go through now, every time I cross the border or import an item was totally not worth saving that $80... This was on goods worth about $1200. I ended up paying almost $1700 PLUS an account red-flag when all was said and done, when I could've come clean and paid less than $1300.