Well its been awhile since I thought to much about Aduanas, I have aged at least two decades beyond my years and drank massive quantities of alcohol stressing over those thugs, but have decided to just order a jar of vaseline with every purchase of foreign goods I try to bring in to the country and get ready to pay pretty much any arbitrary amount they decide to charge me.
I use EPS and even with that filter in place the following happens:
A month or two ago I ordered a computer chassis, (an empty case, with no power supply) and when it arrived I paid over a hundred dollars in customs fees for my "home theater receiver" whatever. Just paid the money, no stress.
A few weeks later I ordered 5 flat panel monitors for my office, Amazon.com's warehouse staff was on crack that week and they shipped out 1 on Monday, 1 on Wednesday and 3 on Friday.
As a result I got the first two monitors in and out of customs without anyone even blinking an eye, but when the last 3 arrived together I got a huge bill (just for 3 of them) after a 10 day delay so they could check and re-check the value of a computer monitor and make sure the owner of the merchandise had plenty of time to stress over his belongings.
Finally what happenned today convinced me that those guys are basically spinning a roulette wheel with every package that comes in.
I ordered 30 computer headsets for my call center, they cost 15 dollars each and ship in boxes of 10.
All 3 boxes contained the same merchandise, look the same weigh the same and cost the same, shipped together from the same vendor to the same address.
For the first, 1,000 pesos in taxes (~20%)
For the second, nada. (0%)
For the third, 1500 pesos. (~30%)
3 identical boxes on the same plane on the same day. I'm telling you, roulette wheel.
I use EPS and even with that filter in place the following happens:
A month or two ago I ordered a computer chassis, (an empty case, with no power supply) and when it arrived I paid over a hundred dollars in customs fees for my "home theater receiver" whatever. Just paid the money, no stress.
A few weeks later I ordered 5 flat panel monitors for my office, Amazon.com's warehouse staff was on crack that week and they shipped out 1 on Monday, 1 on Wednesday and 3 on Friday.
As a result I got the first two monitors in and out of customs without anyone even blinking an eye, but when the last 3 arrived together I got a huge bill (just for 3 of them) after a 10 day delay so they could check and re-check the value of a computer monitor and make sure the owner of the merchandise had plenty of time to stress over his belongings.
Finally what happenned today convinced me that those guys are basically spinning a roulette wheel with every package that comes in.
I ordered 30 computer headsets for my call center, they cost 15 dollars each and ship in boxes of 10.
All 3 boxes contained the same merchandise, look the same weigh the same and cost the same, shipped together from the same vendor to the same address.
For the first, 1,000 pesos in taxes (~20%)
For the second, nada. (0%)
For the third, 1500 pesos. (~30%)
3 identical boxes on the same plane on the same day. I'm telling you, roulette wheel.