Just Been Denied Duty Free Import Of Personal Household Effects

[tracer]

The text on the Customs website is clearly wrong as immigration do not issue one year Non-Imm visas. But put that to one side. What then follows on the website is options if you don't already hold a one year Non-Imm visa. But you do, so prima facie this section is not applicable to you. So I think needing to show WP is a red herring. I only showed my 1 year Non-B visa when my possessions arrived, albeit a few years back.

The rules, or interpretation thereof, may of course have changed. The only way you are going to bottom this out is by talking to Customs directly. I would cut the agent out of discussions going forwards as any 'deal' would otherwise clearly include a 'fee' for them as well. Good luck.

Years ago I met a guy with a 3 years visum and after that a 5 years visum and it had something to do with exporting jewelry from Thailand. As it means he would have needed a work permit I assume they have rules for non standard circumstances....

Whatever you do keep your calm and stay polite even if the other site is more like a crook as they are the ones with the power to let you in cheap or not...

[rfukata]

Hello Marvo,

I had the same situation with you so I think there is no mis-understanding between you and Customs as much as we both hate it. I worked in corporate Thailand from 2005 - 2008 (3yrs) and entered with a B' and shipped a partial (very small amount of clothe as I was still single) and received full duty exemption.

In short; got married to a Thai national in 2008 and decided to retire here so I shipped my 'old household' goods from US. The value of the household goods were minimal as the shipping charge cost more... It was already a dilemma at this stage but my wife wanted the stuff rather than donate it to the Salvation army back home.

Through the US shipper I was able to get some Customs brokerage contacts in Thailand and this is where I was told about the

'Exemption' policy or rule of 'ONE time' only. As it turned out, by using a brokerage firm I paid a partial duty on the total contents of my household crates. (you know the rest of story; some of the duty money went to the pockets) but I got off much cheaper.

[Marvo]

Yes rfukata, they are reading me the "one time only" rules (which state that you can import personal effects duty free "one time only"). But, they are choosing to twist it and tell me that I can visit Thailand "one time only" before losing entitlement to duty free import of personal effects.

They are just playing games, expecting/hoping the importer who is not 100% clued up to just say "ah well, mai bhen rai, here's the cash you want". I have to admit that being clued up may not in fact get me what the law allows me, but just infuriate the Customs even more and send them bent on making my life hel_l for trying to be a clever dick . I'm expecting to be kept waiting forever, intimidated, made to jump through a few more hoops and then pay port storage for a month or two etc. etc.

[Arkady]

If you came in with an NON-IMM visa and then couldn't get the WP first time, so had to exit and get another NON-IMM, they are probably entitled to do that but, if you first entered on a tourist visa, their position would be hard to justify, as many people come for visits before coming to work and that shouldn't make any difference. Yes, the Finance Ministry has told them to collect as much tax as possible to make up shortfalls and pay for stimulus and customs duty is an important source of revenue in a country where most people don't pay any income tax. There is always something to pay for this case. I remember years ago being told by the shipping agent that I had to pay a small bribe or the Customs would insist on opening every case up and they had a record of damaging the contents, if the owner refused to pay the tea money.

BTW some people allege that the current Fin Min's father enriched himself indecently during a lengthy stint as DG of the Customs Dept. He was eventually dismissed for importing a car duty free but later exonerated (but not re-instated). At any rate the minister is probably well aware of opportunities to increase the government's share of the revenue collected by the Customs Dept.

[ableguy]

Get a Thai fixer to arrange he bung sadly thts the way the cookie crumbles here,the Esan folks are having the same problem trying to re-import a LOSs leader.

Surprising the customs are so flexible condsidering they got you by the nuts.The only ploy I can think of if really mean it says keep it .

However this is high risk strategy as they may

1 Nick

2 Charge a FEE for looking after it

Just think its AliBabas your dealing with and it puts you in the right mindset

Don't stress its a good early lesson of how the pecking order to the trough hereabouts.

you really should get this resolved asap as for sure they will charge you storage fees and that 85000 baht will still have to be paid.

[thaiphoon]

One offtopic post deleted

[Marvo]

Customs are having another look and giving me a taste of their power at the same time. I've just been required to submit a breakdown of the precise contents of every package and exactly how many of every item I have in each of the eighty three packages along with their values. That's one hel_l of a list of 30+ years accumulated memorabilia and artefacts!

It's funny because that's almost what I supplied my agent with in the first instance, but they made me re-format the list and dumb it down and condense it into the format that customs supposedly "wanted" the list in.

I think I'm going to be told tomorrow how much they "really" want. To be honest, I'm getting more bored with this whole thing faster than I imagined I would.

Edited November 17, 2009 by Marvo

[samran]

Customs are having another look and giving me a taste of their power at the same time. I've just been required to submit a breakdown of the precise contents of every package and exactly how many of every item I have in each of the eighty three packages along with their values. That's one hel_l of a list of 30+ years accumulated memorabilia and artefacts!

It's funny because that's almost what I supplied my agent with in the first instance, but they made me re-format the list and dumb it down and condense it into the format that customs supposedly "wanted" the list in.

I think I'm going to be told tomorrow how much they "really" want. To be honest, I'm getting more bored with this whole thing faster than I imagined I would.

record the conversation, make a amature mini-doco, post it on you tube....post in TV. Probably will get some peoples attention.

[phetaroi]

record the conversation, make a amature mini-doco, post it on you tube....post in TV. Probably will get some peoples attention.

What is your evidence that that would make any difference at all?

[ericthai]

Customs are having another look and giving me a taste of their power at the same time. I've just been required to submit a breakdown of the precise contents of every package and exactly how many of every item I have in each of the eighty three packages along with their values. That's one hel_l of a list of 30+ years accumulated memorabilia and artefacts!

It's funny because that's almost what I supplied my agent with in the first instance, but they made me re-format the list and dumb it down and condense it into the format that customs supposedly "wanted" the list in.

I think I'm going to be told tomorrow how much they "really" want. To be honest, I'm getting more bored with this whole thing faster than I imagined I would.

Marvo,

I really suggest you go to customs yourself and speak to the office handling your case, of course bring a thai friend to help. Get some cash ready maybe 2000 or 3000 baht and have your thai friend hand this over at the same time asking them if they could please get this resolved and giving them the phone number of the girl in customs you spoke to that said you are within your rights.

Things are tuff all over, so they might not let this go, best is to do it yourself be nice and give a tip to persuade them to read the rule correctly. Letting you agent handle this for you I dont believe is going to end up how you want it to.

Like I stated in a past comment on this thread I have imported things in the past and speaking to the customs directly not using the agent works the best.

Good luck... sorry you are having such a rough start in Thailand... it will get better (I hope)

[kurnell]

My broker would have cleared your shipment for a very attractive rate. Probably still could!!

[ZenHillbillyPoet22]

Customs are having another look and giving me a taste of their power at the same time. I've just been required to submit a breakdown of the precise contents of every package and exactly how many of every item I have in each of the eighty three packages along with their values. That's one hel_l of a list of 30+ years accumulated memorabilia and artefacts!

It's funny because that's almost what I supplied my agent with in the first instance, but they made me re-format the list and dumb it down and condense it into the format that customs supposedly "wanted" the list in.

I think I'm going to be told tomorrow how much they "really" want. To be honest, I'm getting more bored with this whole thing faster than I imagined I would.

The customs department normally requires a detailed inventory list. At my company we also will sometimes ask customers to simplify the list when we don't expect any hold ups. In this case, as I previously stated, 83 packages, large or small, would be condsidered a lot for 'personal effects' and customs wants to double check that you're not trying to sneak commercial goods past them. Also the reason for wanting to know quantities is that more than one of certain items will be subject to duty (e.g. anything that uses electricity). Don't worry too much about storage charges, although after extended periods of time they can add up, I believe it's only something like 15 THB/cbm/day. I don't know how much information you gave the customs officer you spoke to originally but if you didn't mention the large size of your shipment, that might be the reason for the increased interest now. I am still of the opinion that your original problem was stemming from the company and not customs. From what you've detailed there is no reason you don't qualify for the tax exemption. However, now that it's been stirred up you will probably have to, as a previous poster suggested, make 'friends' with a customs officer. Sometimes that's just the way things go here.

[samran]

record the conversation, make a amature mini-doco, post it on you tube....post in TV. Probably will get some peoples attention.

What is your evidence that that would make any difference at all?

dodgy stories about king power seemed to as I recall.

All I'm saying is you never know the power of the web...

[Marvo]

If you came in with an NON-IMM visa and then couldn't get the WP first time, so had to exit and get another NON-IMM, they are probably entitled to do that but, if you first entered on a tourist visa, their position would be hard to justify, as many people come for visits before coming to work and that shouldn't make any difference. Yes, the Finance Ministry has told them to collect as much tax as possible to make up shortfalls and pay for stimulus and customs duty is an important source of revenue in a country where most people don't pay any income tax. There is always something to pay for this case. I remember years ago being told by the shipping agent that I had to pay a small bribe or the Customs would insist on opening every case up and they had a record of damaging the contents, if the owner refused to pay the tea money.

BTW some people allege that the current Fin Min's father enriched himself indecently during a lengthy stint as DG of the Customs Dept. He was eventually dismissed for importing a car duty free but later exonerated (but not re-instated). At any rate the minister is probably well aware of opportunities to increase the government's share of the revenue collected by the Customs Dept.

Arkady, Customs have actually told me two things. I can get duty free import under the following conditions:

A ) "If you hold work permit since more than 1 year/one time arrival."

B ) "You can get the duty free approval again in case of departure from Thailand and back with the new work permit (more than 1 year) which means the old work permit had already expired and you have made a new work permit."

So in that sentence "A" they are saying I can only get duty free import if I have "one time arrival" in Thailand. But in "B" they are saying that I can come to Thailand get a work permit, live and work for a year, let the work permit expire, leave Thailand, come back to Thailand, get a new work permit (valid for more than 1 year), then I can import my effects duty free .

Back to the plot!

Crucially, the latest to have transpired is that the shipping company, when reformatting my packing list (which had no mention of weight) to "customs format", entered/declared a weight of 11 tons! when in fact the only figure I had given them was 11 cu m! Apparently this 11,000Kg figure is what is, unsurprisingly, attracting Customs attention. The agent is currently trying to get this straight with customs but as a paper has previously been submitted declaring 11,000Kg, I'm not sure how simple it's going to be to rectify that. We have in the meantime submitted a corrected weight estimate of 1,300Kg.

Currently waiting to hear back......... again.

Edited November 19, 2009 by Marvo

[Marvo]

Update:

OK, news from the shippers. Going back to even before my effects had been collected from their point of origin, the shipper's office in Europe didn't have a "weight" figure on the packing list and invoice supplied to them so when they drew up the "Bill of Landing" somebody in their office just "guessed" at 11,000Kg! Now a new Bill of Landing has to be drawn up by the shipper's European office and re-submitted to customs in Bangkok, effectively starting the whole process from scratch - except that someone is going to have to pay some storage and demurage fees .

[mahtin]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_of_lading

OK, spelling police hat off now.

[ZenHillbillyPoet22]

Update:

OK, news from the shippers. Going back to even before my effects had been collected from their point of origin, the shipper's office in Europe didn't have a "weight" figure on the packing list and invoice supplied to them so when they drew up the "Bill of Landing" somebody in their office just "guessed" at 11,000Kg! Now a new Bill of Landing has to be drawn up by the shipper's European office and re-submitted to customs in Bangkok, effectively starting the whole process from scratch - except that someone is going to have to pay some storage and demurage fees .

Yes, when I first saw the documents you posted I thought this was strange. 11 tons of personal effects would most certainly lead the customs department to believe something funny was going on. The documents do need to be reissued from the point of origin, but I would recommend talking to your agents on both sides. Since this was not your fault you shouldn't be held responsible for any charges incurred because of this (or any duty/taxes for that matter). Sorry to hear that you're having all these problems but stay calm and be persistent. Eventually you'll get all your stuff.

[chuenyongman]

sounds like you had some bad advice from your original shipper, as others have said negotiate. I was a couple of weeks over the 6 month window on arrival (most other countries have the same time limit btw) but my shippers view was there was no way Thai customs would accept duty free import, they are very strict on time limits, so i was told.They got the Thai end to negotiate while still at sea. In the end got a reasonably valuable container in for a 36000 bt fee on a "dont open the box basis". The Thai end was Asia Tigers who were first class btw

36,000bt ? Wow. I got my container full in for 5,000bt, no inspection.

These are the stories I read and believed before deciding to go ahead and ship, despite not being given the duty free confirmation I asked for, pre sailing.

Dear Marvo and Sibeymai, My container is on it's way from Australia. I would appreciate some advice on how you acheived your goods with small fee. I live in Surin. Could you please contact me Thank you Gerry.

[hhgz]

"Dear Marvo...My container is on it's way from Australia. I would appreciate some advice on how you acheived your goods with small fee."

You haven't been following this discussion closely enough. Marvo still hasn't received his container, and he's still wringing his hands.

[mahtin]

Maybe ("with small fee" ??) Sibey would respond to a PM?

Edited November 25, 2009 by mahtin

[Marvo]

"Dear Marvo...My container is on it's way from Australia. I would appreciate some advice on how you acheived your goods with small fee."

You haven't been following this discussion closely enough. Marvo still hasn't received his container, and he's still wringing his hands.

New papers from the originating shipper's office (with correct weights, values, descriptions, etc. etc.) are being re-submitted to customs in BKK tomorrow (Thurs). Watch this space.

[AdmiralKen]

A full 40 foot container (just under 400 boxes) just left my home in Sydney bound for Thailand .... I'll advise what happens when it gets there (fingers crossed).

Im using Wridgeways and Asia Tigers as the shippers ....

Cheers 2SS

[Marvo]

Final Update:

Well, my little import saga has finally drawn to a close and all the deals have been done. Here's a quick run-down of how everything unwound on the final day at Customs.

I was expecting fireworks as I had to tell customs that everything had to be sorted Friday as I leave (with my passport) for Europe on Monday. This effectively put me over the proverbial barrel with my pants down. On Customs "decision day" I decided to send the girlfriend on the 8hr round trip to the customs office at the port (UniThai Container Terminal), to see what influence she could achieve, which turned out to be the right move. She was in there for SIX HOURS! would you believe while they shuffled and stamped all of their papers, but she got the result! DUTY FREE IMPORT OF MY HOUSEHOLD GOODS AND PERSONAL EFFECTS.

Another little tell-tale of what I was up against was that the shippers asked me to pay the sum of 9,300 Baht for the 14 days container storage and demurage.

But the port office asked my girlfriend to pay the for the 14 days container storage and demurage. How much? I hear you ask... 4,600 Baht! That says it all I guess. I was being right royally shafted by the shipping company.

The container was opened at the port for inspection and the contents matched my declared packing list exactly, so that was it - no duty thank you very much, at the end of a very long day. My girlfriend left home at 7:00 in the morning and got back 11:00 in the evening but it was the most productive day's work of her (and my) life.

So, to re-cap:

• Shipping agent inserted wrong weight (10x) on paperwork.

• Customs didn't believe that my "11 ton" cargo was household and personal effects (not surprising).

• Shipper just told me they couldn't gain duty free import for spurious reasons already sighted.

• Shipper told me to pay 85,000 baht duty.

• I told shipper where to stick their 85,000 baht.

• Shipper waited until the day before I'm due to leave Thailand before re-submitting corrected Bill of Lading, invoice, packing list etc. to Customs.

• Girlfriend spent 6 hrs re-stating my case at the port Customs office.

• Container opened, inspected, closed, signed off.

• OP climbs off the barrel and pulls his trousers back up - orifice still intact .

• Container delivered to my door 13 hours later.

• Total cost: Whatever my girlfriend wants .

I hope my experience is of some use to someone out there and I thank all those of you who have supported me through my "ordeal". Good luck to those of you moving your stuff to Thailand and don't let the bar stewards grind you down .

[JusMe]

Exceptional Work! Congratulations, Marvo!

Not sure if you mentioned it earlier - several pages in this thread over many days - but it might be a good idea to tell us the name of the shipper who was screwing you over. Others could avoid them.

Again, well done!

[hhgz]

"Well, my little import saga has finally drawn to a close..."

Reading the summary, it's obvious that your SHIPPING COMPANY, not Customs was the source of all of your problems. I think you owe the Customs folks a big apology.

[Marvo]

"Well, my little import saga has finally drawn to a close..."

Reading the summary, it's obvious that your SHIPPING COMPANY, not Customs was the source of all of your problems. I think you owe the Customs folks a big apology.

I'll never truly know "without reasonable doubt" who was at the root of the original misguided "Customs rulings", the shipper or Customs. The shipping company has an employee working IN the customs office at the port so who knows what extortionist shenanigans are concocted between them. For those who want to know, the shippers were DSV. What we know for a fact is that DSV attempted to mark up charges by 100% .

[ericthai]

"Well, my little import saga has finally drawn to a close..."

Reading the summary, it's obvious that your SHIPPING COMPANY, not Customs was the source of all of your problems. I think you owe the Customs folks a big apology.

I'll never truly know "without reasonable doubt" who was at the root of the original misguided "Customs rulings", the shipper or Customs. The shipping company has an employee working IN the customs office at the port so who knows what extortionist shenanigans are concocted between them. For those who want to know, the shippers were DSV. What we know for a fact is that DSV attempted to mark up charges by 100% .

Marvo,

Glad you finally got everything worked out. Anytime you are dealing with importing goods into Thailand it's always best to go to customs yourself, or a have a very good Thai friend that you can trust to go speak to customs. As we all know this is Thailand and most things are negotiable, having a third party in the picture only increases your chances of paying way more than what you should really pay. Guess you owe your GF something big...

[mahtin]

She's a keeper - but you know that.

Thanks for posting.