(without offending any third world countries, of course)

Hello, Italy here. Country of pizza, spaghetti and... middle age.

The two units I bought from Carplayer.com are STILL stuck at italian customs - they are there from thursday afternoon!
UPS called me this morning and told me that custom employees wants me to do a declaration (!!!) in what I state:
- the units' conformity to CE regulations;
- what it is (I imagine: "Uh.... what the hell is it?!?")
- what I would do with it (!!!)
- a copy of the web page of where I ordered this, for seeing the value of the item.

I think there's no needs for more words. I prepared a loooong letter to them, and enclosed to it I put the page of the manual with the CE and FCC conformity, a screenshot of the carplayer.com order page and a copy of my order... For greater security, I explained the reason becasue sometimes it is called Empeg and sometimes RioCar...

... isn't it a joke?

Well. At least we know one thing our countries have in common: Deliberately obtuse customs agents.

Speaking of that (and getting off-topic here, feel free to reply in the Off Topic forum), is Italian pizza significantly different than U.S. pizza?

It should be enough for them that it was manufactured in the UK, and that the original point of sale was in the UK.

In any case someone is clearly having a bad day and taking it out on you - I've imported tons of American electronics without any CE mark into Europe before now.

Rob

I think they're playing with it and just stalling you!

Well it IS Italy. Maybe a bribe would come in handy.

I have never thought to the CE logo... I have bought a cordless Panasonic GigaRange phone from Texas a couple years ago and checked out now, it hasn't the CE logo...

However, I wait for the units and, when I have in my hands, I will write a complaint letter to the headmaster of italian customs: if I could get the right person, these agents could have a bad time.

You got the point.
It's a shame, but it's true.

Possibly..

I'd check to see if the local customs agent is now driving around with a new mp3 player in his car [courtesy of Papinist] - they are probably just 'testing it' to make sure it works before they allow it into Italy :-))

Don't be worried about that too much...

I had some experiences with italian customs:

Once I had to dismount my Subwoofer and show them that there are NO drugs in it.
Once me and my friend who were with me had to empty all pockets and bags to show that we didn't smuggle something.
Often I have to show my driver's license and my car-registration cause they seem to think I must have stolen the car....

so don't wonder about things they are doing..

This is incredible. I am so sorry for this, Stefano.
Now, they really are giving you hard time for no reason, since a friend of mine ordered a 10Gb empeg from carplayer as well, and got it in less than a week (he is in Italy as well). On the other hand, don't despair. This also mean that besides giving you more trouble that they should, they will have to eventually give up and send you the empeg.

Yes Tony, we do have dumb customs agents, and I am sorry to hear that those in US aren't any better.
As to the pizza, I've had really good, if not excellent Pizza in some places in NY! I want to mention Arturo's, not far from the Village. Still, I don't think Sbarro's pizza has anything to do with what we call pizza here, except for its shape

Taym

If you are in Italy, I would suggest you have your player sent to a friend in another country, Italian customs does NOT like us at all, and they hold ALL our packages. Please note, this does not effect other countries. If you are in Italy and have no other way to order, go ahead, you will get it, it just may have a few day delay. So much for inspections being "Random".

I was afraid I was going to have the same problem too. I live in Greece, and while EE member, you could say THIRD world. Though the package, which I ordered from US while there were no stock available in Europe, arrived in 4 days after purchase date with UPS. I believe that in your case it was not a country specific policy, it just happened that you fall into a wrong customs' employee!

I can confirm that you'd better let the package be shipped to a friend abroad.
The italian customs search every single package from Carplayer now, since the declared unit value was apparently always lower than the real one. When they receive the package from UPS they inspect it (I got one of the boxes open -the hard paper was broken- and I could see that the player itself had been taken out and put back in the wrong way, by the way) and call to get a copy of the payment bill (but they know already by now the real value). When they get it they say that you tried to fool them around and you get a bad economical "treatment" in return:

For two units that I finally accepted this morning I was charged EUR 255.11!!!

What made me sad is also the fact that I've just made my order, payed my bill and waited for my units to show up at my door...
I did not know (and did not need to know either) about the shipment details, values, etc. But still the customs agents made me feel "guilty" and charged me accordingly this non-sense (to me, at least) sum for two units.

Best regards... and hope the same thing won't happen to others...

Alberto

This is just crazy. Alberto, I am in Italy as well and as I said elsewhere have a friend who got it from Carplayer.com without any problem. Now I am quite sure he has been the lucky one here! I mean, € 250 !! It IS ridiculous!

I'm sure you weren't charged just customs fees though, but sales (= value added) tax as well. There's no way around it. I have packages sent from the U.S. to Germany opened and inspected by customs on a regular basis.

One shipment of Pekan nuts a while back from Georgia my wife had to personally pick up and open in front of the customs personnel. Don't know why they couldn't open it themselves or at least look at the contents list on the outside of the package. She didn't have to pay anything extra on that one though.

It is truly a pain to deal with customs and have to pay surcharges that amount to at least 16% value added tax plus anywhere from 5-15% customs fee on goods worth above $50. And 16% is not even the highest sales tax in Europe. Belgium has 22% and Denmark 25% if I'm not mistaken.

So, I don't know how sending something to a different European country would have changed that much for you in terms of fees and tax to be paid.

Sure, occasionally something slips through customs, but that happens very rarely here.

Georg

Yes, Denmark has something like that, but when ordering from UK, we are only charged the 17.5% UK VAT, I think.
But my carplayer.com ordered player was let through with no TAX added.

Marius (Escort Cab + Mark II)

Initially I had the same experience: no taxes (Holland). Sadly however, 2 weeks after receiving the player from Carplayer.com, UPS send a tax invoice for the VAT amount due (41 Euro)...

Jelle

I also received the invoice from UPS now although i had to pay when the player was delivered. The customs-papers are included also, but i don't understand, how they calculated the amount of € 51,90.
Unit price is $ 89,99, which is € 101,61. VAT would be € 16,26 (16% in Germany)
But they calculated:
€ 159,01 12% € 19,08 Customs
€ 205,10 16% € 32,82 EUSt (Tax)
-------------------------------
...........................€ 51,90

I will call the Customs-Agent later to ask about the amounts.
The country of origin is USA, although they included the original invoice, which says (Made in UK)

I will post the news, if i will get ones...