4. October 2021, 17:57
There have now been 2 cases of goods getting lost due to time limits exceeded that customs sets for collecting incoming items. One in Italy - a pretty expensive spare part that apparently after not being collected for 4 weeks from Italian customs got lost - it was never returned to India (or to me at least).
Now a second such incident happened in France - the French customs announced that they returned the item (a 477 set) but even if that is so it will usually take months (plural) to reach back to me, I may or may not be available at the time of the return and although if things work out the way they are set up that should not be a problem (this is a hotel and things get dropped at the reception) I can and will NOT take responsibility if these items are lost.
Every receiver of shipments from us gets a picture of his package with a tracking code and a link to the tracking site sent via email. It is the sole responsibility of the receiver to make sure he tracks it and knows when it reaches his home country and is ready to be picked up from customs.
Do NOT rely on customs officials to inform you, call you or send you a letter - they may, or they may not. In Germany they never do and if you are not checking it yourself then the item is sent back after 2 weeks - no exceptions. Sometimes the mailman will deliver the item to the door and collect customs duty at that time but you can not rely on this service.
At the same time the question of how to declare that value is an issue. We always automatically declare a customs CN22 form which is part of the address label. This form is the normal way to declare the value and nature of the item and its country of origin. But sometimes customs wants a more detailed invoice which we will provide if requested BY YOU - you can either request it before we ship (it will be attached to the parcel outside) or you can get it as pdf sent to you any time after shipping has been done. The choice is yours.
In some cases customs of the receiver country does not accept the value we state (which is always the value the item has in its natural unmodified form in India) - but customs got smarter, they know there is a markup - they may not know how much but having them guess it can delay the delivery substantially or even lead to rejection and the sending back (or impounding!) of the package.
Of course I will help to the limits of what I can do in such cases - but it may not be enough to retrieve what was lost and you must realize that ultimately the responsibility lies with you.
I also want to point out that in all the years of shipping stuff via EMS or even the normal postal parcel service not a single package has not reached its destination. And some have even been retuned to me. So the postal service itself is inherently reliable. But not picking it up in time can easily wreck that statistic!
Dealing with your countries customs is your responsibility
There have now been 2 cases of goods getting lost due to time limits exceeded that customs sets for collecting incoming items. One in Italy - a pretty expensive spare part that apparently after not being collected for 4 weeks from Italian customs got lost - it was never returned to India (or to me at least).
Now a second such incident happened in France - the French customs announced that they returned the item (a 477 set) but even if that is so it will usually take months (plural) to reach back to me, I may or may not be available at the time of the return and although if things work out the way they are set up that should not be a problem (this is a hotel and things get dropped at the reception) I can and will NOT take responsibility if these items are lost.
Every receiver of shipments from us gets a picture of his package with a tracking code and a link to the tracking site sent via email. It is the sole responsibility of the receiver to make sure he tracks it and knows when it reaches his home country and is ready to be picked up from customs.
Do NOT rely on customs officials to inform you, call you or send you a letter - they may, or they may not. In Germany they never do and if you are not checking it yourself then the item is sent back after 2 weeks - no exceptions. Sometimes the mailman will deliver the item to the door and collect customs duty at that time but you can not rely on this service.
At the same time the question of how to declare that value is an issue. We always automatically declare a customs CN22 form which is part of the address label. This form is the normal way to declare the value and nature of the item and its country of origin. But sometimes customs wants a more detailed invoice which we will provide if requested BY YOU - you can either request it before we ship (it will be attached to the parcel outside) or you can get it as pdf sent to you any time after shipping has been done. The choice is yours.
In some cases customs of the receiver country does not accept the value we state (which is always the value the item has in its natural unmodified form in India) - but customs got smarter, they know there is a markup - they may not know how much but having them guess it can delay the delivery substantially or even lead to rejection and the sending back (or impounding!) of the package.
Of course I will help to the limits of what I can do in such cases - but it may not be enough to retrieve what was lost and you must realize that ultimately the responsibility lies with you.
I also want to point out that in all the years of shipping stuff via EMS or even the normal postal parcel service not a single package has not reached its destination. And some have even been retuned to me. So the postal service itself is inherently reliable. But not picking it up in time can easily wreck that statistic!