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Customs fraud??
Ok, kind of an update to my Brastop bad quality debacle... I'm getting the two bras that were made weirdly packaged up to go back for a return/refund, and I notice something highly suspicious on the customs label from when they sent it to me... It's marked as, "Gift," and the value is at 15 GBP! (I paid $64 total!!!) In descriptions, it says "Gift (1)" rather than listing the products I ordered or even the correct number of items I ordered, nothing for tariff number, and it wasn't signed and dated certifying the info is correct. A quick Google search of "International Customs Fraud" leads me to tons of forums all talking about how labels being filled in untruthfully/incorrectly is indeed fraud and illegal. In the past, international orders always come with labels marked as "goods" and then each line item with product name and number. How did this get approved through customs?? Has anyone else seen this before on their international packages? Does anyone know what I should do, or if I should do anything? Any guides/help/report sites I should know of? Sorry this is a bit off topic, but since everyone here has ordered bras, there's a slight chance someone has had a similar experience and knew what to do?
Filed under Bras ups and downs
6 comments
In my experience brastop does this so the customer does not have to pay custom fees in their country. On my latest orders I noticed that they do it correctly but in the past they often wrote something like 15£ and gift. In my country I have to pay custom fees if an order is over 62CHF. (I usually try to order below that value if possible to avoid it.) One time I had done a brastop order and it was below 62 but they opened the parcel at the customs and asked me to pay a fee because they "had to open the parcel because they were suspicious if the value was not correct". I complained to brastop about that and they refunded me the 9CHF I had to pay because they did the mistake.
I think at the customs they have so many parcels to look through... I mean a small parcel can look like it's only 15£ in value while a bigger parcel looks more suspicious if labelled incorrectly. So it can sneak through.
I would contact brastop about it. Did you have any problems so far? When you return it, write the correct value and the words " returned goods" on the parcel.
It is illegal to mark paid items as gifts but as @alisa stated, many companies do this to clear out the hassles on both ends. Marking value low lessens postal theft (no resale value for the thief ) as well. They aren't trying to be fraudulent, but trying to avoid potential issues.
Just make sure you mark the package clearly as return goods (otherwise they will get charged custom fees which they will refuse) and opt for the insurance to protect you on the returns. Value should be the product only price you paid not including shipping or conversion fees. It is best to put both the USD and GBP amounts to satisfy both custom offices.
USA has a $800 cap on daily import that is free of custom fees so the difference in value on this end isn't of great concern.
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