Usa-to-thailand Video Eqpt Shipping Advice

[lsemprini]

Hi,

I need to ship a video projector from San Francisco, CA, USA to

Chiang Mai (actually a small town outside Chiang Mai), Thailand.

The projector is about 17 lb (10 kilo?).

The projector will be used in thailand for only 3-4 months then

it will go back home. The projector is worth about $1500 and

shipping is about $300. Video projectors in thailand are

outrageously, ridiculously overpriced (*business opportunity?*)

so an equivalent one in Thailand would be about $3000-4000--

definitely worth shipping it. I know that the projector works

with 220v 50Hz power and PAL signals, no problem.

The question is -- customs. What kind of documentation do

I need to include to avoid being slapped some ridiculous duty?

This is basically a sample or even a trade show equipment,

so I don't think I owe any duty. But how do I make Thai

customs understand this?

I live up here in the north and would GREATLY prefer not

having to go to Bangkok to deal with customs personally,

especially not during Songkran.

Also, I plan to ship by UPS but could potentially also do DHL

or FedEx with some added inconvenience (they will not

forward the projector to my town).

Does anyone have experience with how any of these 3

companies handle the customs issues? They claim they

will call me if there is any problem at customs or if duties

are due. Sounds iffy - they ship thousands of packages, will

they really call me?

[OldAsiaHand]

All courier services to Thailand are equally useless and I've used them all. Regardless of what duty ought to be charged (or not charged), the courier service simply calls you after customs decides and tells you how much you have to pay them. If you dispute the amount, they say there is nothing they can do and that you must pay or your shipment will not be delivered. Their command of English also begins to deteroriate noticeably at that point.

Presumably, if you refused to pay, your shipment would be sent back to its point of origin, but if it has any real monetary value, I'd doubt that it would ever make it back out of customs.

I've even been charged duty on forwarded mail (!), and there was absolutely no recourse available to me but it pay it or tell them to throw the mail away. I told Fed Ex to toss it and they got very snotty.