Designer Handbag Shakedown

[AZBill]

Here's a nice little tidbit from one of my wife's friends who just traveled over to Thailand to visit her family. Apparently customs at Swampy tried to charge a 30% duty to bring her own personal designer handbag in. They negotiated it down but just one more instance of Thailand shooting itself in the foot with its own corruption.

[richard_smith237]

Can you clarify further ?

i.e.

a - Customs wanted to charge her 30% of the value of the handbag she was using?

b - Customs wanted to charge her 30% of the value of a handbag she had in her baggage ?

c - Customs wanted to charge her 30% of the value of a brand new handbag, which was boxed up in her baggage ?

d - Customs wanted to charge her 30% of the value of a 'few' brand new handbags, which were boxed up in her baggage ?

I can't believe ( a ) could happen.

I can't believe ( b ) could happen.

I can believe ( c ) happening, however its quite a stretch.

I can believe ( d ) happening, many people bring in Handbags etc to resell in Thailand, I'm sure customs will charge tax if these ppl are caught.

Are you sure the story has not been adulterated to better suit the bias of someone upset at having been caught out ?

Edited February 22, 2015 by richard_smith237

[Anthony5]

Nothing special there. I paid once almost 60.000 Baht import duties in Schiphol on a my Rolex president, which I wore for many years already, but for which I didn't have receipt.

[uwe_rayong]

Nothing special there. I paid once almost 60.000 Baht import duties in Schiphol on a my Rolex president, which I wore for many years already, but for which I didn't have receipt.

The OP wrote:

Here's a nice little tidbit from one of my wife's friends who just traveled over to Thailand to visit her family.

IMHO if you bring your personal bag(s) stuff or whatever with you for a short visit you are not supposed to pay any duties for it.

On my last visit to Germany I had also some problems with customs, although I can only afford a Casio (model: parking attendant aspirant) the unfriendly customs officer saw my notebook and phone. Both easy to recognize as not bought in the EU because of the keyboard of the notebook and firmware of the phone.

The last 5 years I was one time in Germany for 10 days, and he wanted me to charge for it They even looked for the prices on ebay.com

I had to pay a security deposit and became that money refunded when I flew back to Thailand... Waste of time!

[yermanee]

Every time after my darling wife had a pow wow with her friends I hear similar stories.

Yermanee

[PepeLePew]

#1stworldproblems

[ozyjon]

It's good to be rich but poor people worry less.

[Jai Dee]

This subject is already running as a topic in the News Forum.

See here.

/Closed.