Hello, I suppose to receive a Parcel and this is first time I get parcel from other country in usa. I did not have any tracking number but guy who sent parcel said it's delivered and I asked him for tracking number and he gave me usps tracking number and when I track it it says that Inbound Into Customs - what that mean?

-- (foo@bar.com), August 20, 2003

Answers

The parcel is headed to your government's customs for inspection and to see if they can impose a duty or tax on it.

-- (!@!.!), August 20, 2003.

This brings up a point I have made many times in this forum. If you are ordering VCDs or DVDs from another country, even if they are legal, I strongly suggest you order in very small quantities. US Customs operates on a "guilty until proven innocent" basis and this forum has had many posts in the past from guys who ordered large quantities of VCDs or DVDs and had them seized by US Customs for being "bootlegs". The reality is that if your package is seized, you will not get it back. You will not go to jail, but your merchandise will be gone forever. Yes, you could fight it, but it will cost you a lot of money and it will be an uphill battle as you will have to prove that what you bought is not a bootleg and you will have to prove it to judges who know nothing about identifying legitimate merchandise from bootlegs.

My personal recommendation is that you NEVER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES order more than 3 discs of whatever kind, VCD and/or DVD, in any single package. If you order more than 3 discs, you are running the risk of it being seized by customs. The larger your order, the more likely customs will look it and sieze it. You may hear from guys who bought 5, 10 or 20 discs and once and got it past US Customs, but I can assure you that the larger your order, the more interested US Customs will be in it. The small orders they let go through because there are no duties to attach, but if you order 100 VCDs or DVDs, you are going to have to pay duties and you risk seizure. US Customs simply assumes any large orders are bootlegs and it's up to you to prove them wrong. The law is not supposed to work that way, but that is the reality of the situation. I don't want to scare you, but the fact that tracking says it's Inbound Into Customs probably means you placed a large order and you are at risk of seizure. Finally, buying from foreign sellers on Ebay is a very bad idea as I've read that certain sellers are known to US Customs as bootleg dealers and if they see a package coming from them, they will seize it.

As always, Caveat Emptor.

-- Root (root@yahoo.moc), August 21, 2003.

Well, I received pakcage today which is a good thing BUT worst is they had opened up Everything! My dvds were without cases, and sealed in lot of 25 just like cd-r are sealed when you buy it from store. They opened up those packs so all were scrached!! It's like no use of them.

-- (foo@bar.com), August 21, 2003.

You are very very lucky that you received your package. Most of the orders as large as yours get seized by US Customs. I guess the paperwork with the package convinced them that you were not buying bootlegs. You learned a hard lesson though - large orders ALWAYS attract the attention of US Customs and you never want that to happen.

-- Root (root@yahoo.moc), August 22, 2003.

Yeh, But I learn that never ship through courier or regular mail. Ship through DHL or FedEx - I received before and no worries at all.

-- (foo@bar.com), August 22, 2003.

Hello, Even my post is under the status "INBOUND INTO CUSTOMS". It contains nothing but a few documents and I need them to be sent urgently. Since it contains only documents, customs won't find anything interesting to them.

My question is, generally how much time does customs take to check the post? Is there a way I can contact anyone and expedite the process explaining them the situation?

-- Ganesh Prabhu (alevooru@yahoo.com), November 10, 2003.