Warning when importing!

Most of you probably already know but I wish there was someone to warn me before I got bitten... Check the laws in your country about import tax and customs charges on goods.

Bought one tama from an eBayer listed on the UK eBay but was selling from Asia. First one came just fine. So I decided to get another and I got charged a hefty amount on that one! The post man couldn't even deliver I had to go pay my fee and pick it up!

Second time I ordered from HLJ. All came through just fine. Then I got charges from the courier about a week later. Still not worked out how much I can spend before I get charged but daren't order anything else till I do

Sucks.

That's odd. I've never really heard of that. Usually if they don't charge the first go around, then your country is in the clear. Unless, they recently changed the rules on customs for your country to include "electronic toys". I have to ask though, was the customs forms filled out differently before? Like, did it have something different written in the description? Or did it have the same info?

There's been a time or two that a misdeclared customs form has caused frustration for me and I'm even told some countries have it sort of "lottery based" where they randomly pick packages to "check". (Though I doubt it's the US that does this.) I would speak with the post office manager or whoever deals with customs so you can sort out why you were charged this time instead of the last couple times for packages containing almost the same thing.

I've never had any problem with getting things from Asia/Japan and I live in the US.

Any time I've gotten Tama related goods from Japan via ebay they always tend to mark it as "gift" with no more than $5 or $10 value.

Where do you live? This doesn't happen to me.

UK. I think it's because the tamagotchis I bought bypassed the limit I was allowed to spend before I got charged. The one I didn't get charged on was the cheapest.

But it was never something I thought about at the time... Wasn't until after and it was too late!

Well, if you know that your country may put taxes on important goods you can always just calculate how much you would have to pay if they want you to. I did this with every package I got from Japan; I simply googled the amount and simply added it to my bill if I would purchase it. After purchasing something I would always hold back the amount I would need to pay so that I don't have to worry about it.* But I only had to pay taxes for one package, even though another one was much more expensive and I thought I would definitely need to pay. Not that I'm complaining.

I totally forgot about this as well until I read an article description where the seller clearly stated that he cannot account for additional taxes and after that I just looked it up.

*Which is why I will never buy a devilgotchi..