Re: CD + shirts shipping Canada -> Germany = customs to be paid?

[peter@bgnett.no (Peter N. M. Hansteen)]

Alexander.Farber@t-online.de (Alexander Farber) writes:

> my gf fetched the package from the post today -
> the 3.4 CD and 2 T-shirts - and had to pay EUR 21,80
> for the customs.

That happens here, too, sometimes. The law here says anything with a
declared value of NOK 200 or less (about EUR 25) should not be
bothered with, but anyhing worth more than that gets import duties
plus VAT added. Then the customs gnomes&goblins seem to inspect small
packages from abroad more or less at random. For some reason, when I
order OpenBSD CDs and shirts from Canada, they generally get through
without incident, while the packages I got from Wim's company in .be
were taken on the expensive detour by the customs gnomes&goblins at
least three times in four.

> WTF? :-[ This has happened for the first time to me.
> Has anyone in Europe and particularly in Germany had 
> this experience already and is there a way to get 
> the money from the "Hauptzollamt" back?

You're in the EU, buying from the European outfit in Belgium
should work.

- P
-- 
Peter N. M. Hansteen, member of the first RFC 1149 implementation team
http://www.blug.linux.no/rfc1149/	http://www.datadok.no/
"First, we kill all the spammers" The Usenet Bard, "Twice-forwarded tales"