Sending cars to the US
I have been trying to send cars out to Chaos Canyon in New Zealand and have been told by USPS that toys cant go, something about "lead paint" . I'm pretty sure it's not that but more along the lines of tarriffs.Anyway I'm still trying to get my entry out to the races..
- Any excuses are being used by the looks of things…unbelievable…what if you classified it as a collectible and not a toy? — Crazy_Canuck
- I say custom diecast car, and say it's worth $2. I have found, but not confirmed that "educational artwork" has it's own exemption # but still digging — dr_dodge
- Um. Crap. I need to send cars to him as well.... — JBlotner42
- Why would they care about lead paint when the car itself is stuffed full of actual lead. — AbbyNormal
- Pretty sure i remember that on one of the first races at Chaos Canyon that they were inviting racers from the US - they were very clear that you had to do things exactly as they told you on the customs forms or there would be issues. Might want to check with them — AbbyNormal
- my postal gals said file a customs complaint, tempted to send bait — dr_dodge
I've got an entry on the way to EPVideos from UK. The process remained same as usual. I normally book the postage online with royal mail, fill out the form and it prints the customs label to attatch. I checked the "gift" box, categorized it as a toy car with a value of £5. There was a small "handling charge" that wasn't there before but no extra to pay for the seperate "customs charge". I think the price had gone up a little too but with the handling fee I think I paid about £1 more than usual. I dropped it off on 3rd September, I've had a notification to say it has been processed through US customs and expected to be delivered by 11th. When I dropped it off the people at the post office didn't have a clue about any of it either they said they'd just been told that there was changes but that was about it. Seems like not much changed here.
Hope it all gets sorted soon.
I tryed to send to Georgio... from Germany.. not even that works for the moment. I have payed.... a lot more than before... no! I became my parcel back.... under 100$ and gift....
If countries stop all shipments regardless of documents, then this is all for nought.
However, when I was a Purchasing Manager at companies in the past, I would receive items shipped from out of the country receiving here in the USA. Yes, some would say 'unsolicited gift', and many would say 'samples'. These would mostly be from business entities to our company to gain business.
For personal shipments, filling out the correct documents is all that should be required if nothing has changed drastically over the past few years. You can ship personal gifts and placee a dollar value of $5 for a Hot Wheels car. Use the special wording such as "Gift", "Not for Resale", "Value is $5"; or whatever flavor of wording is needed by the shipping company to get through customs unecumbered.
We know what the intentions of these tarriffs and shipping across borders are trying to do; but it will and has hurt the little guy just trying to send small packages with no business commencement between the shipper or the recipient.
Someone did touch on an area that may be of concern, and that is when sending to what may look as a company in a clerk's eye while scanning for delivery; but in reality is just a person with a track name. A work around as another pointed out was instead of sending to XYZ Motor Speedway, send to John Jones. A small package as a gift to a friend in another country should not have the trouble folks are seeing right now.
I am sure it will pass, and I hope those who ship Internationally get help on how best to write their documents up so they will pass through customers unhindered. It may be beneficial if those that are sending and getting packages through, to post here the shipper used, and what paperwork was used to process the shipment. Noting of course any special wording that was used.
Thoughts I had while reading quite a few of these issues lately with some just trying to have a little fun with no business intentions related to their shipment to the end person.