"Medical" device ordered outside Thailand being held by Import Export Inspection Division

[jakow]

I'm wondering if anyone has any experience with this. My wife ordered a small electronic device from Korea called the "Medicube AGE-R Booster Pro Home Skin Care Device" that supposedly makes your skin absorb lotion better. It cost about 8,000 baht. It's being held up with the Import Export Inspection Division because they say it's in the "medical/massage" category and they want a prescription from a doctor. We went to the local hospital, but the doctor said he doesn't know about this product and won't write a prescription. I talked to the seller and they said this is not a medical product, it's just for personal skin care, and they should not be holding it. They're charging us every day that they hold it, and they won't send it back to the shipper. So basically we're about to lose a whole bunch of money. Has anyone dealt with this before?

Edited 1 hour ago by jakow

[Puccini]

Medical devices are covered by Thailand's Medicine Act, aka Drugs Act, and a licence is reqired for their importation.

 

In your wife's case it is possible that a custom's official has tken a shine to the device and plans to keep it.

[jakow]

38 minutes ago, Puccini said:

Medical devices are covered by Thailand's Medicine Act, aka Drugs Act, and a licence is reqired for their importation.

 

In your wife's case it is possible that a custom's official has tken a shine to the device and plans to keep it.

 

That's definitely what my wife is thinking 🙂 Not so much that one particular official wants it, but that this whole thing is set up so all the officials to get a constant flow of free imported products.

 

I guess our only recourse aside from bribing a doctor to write a prescription is to convince them that it's not a medical product. I talked to the seller and he's contacting the shipping company because he says they should not be holding it. He said it's probably because the product's name is "medicube" but that it's not an actual medical product. This is going to be difficult. Plus we're getting charged something like 100+ baht a day while we try to sort it out.