Custom Bastards!

thelostdragon · Post by **thelostdragon** » 31 Jan 2006, 16:07

Hey,

yesterday I received notice from customs that they are holding my package of DVDs from Korea hostage. They wanted me to come and pick them up.

So I went... and what happened next destroyed my whole day:

1. Arrival at customs office.
2. A young lady brings the package and asks me to open it.
3. I open the package and my eyes are filled with pride as I take out the 3 disc limited edition of "The Duelist" and the 2-discer of "Welcome to Dongmakgol".
4. Custom lady tells me that there was no invoice and asks whether I have brought one with me.
5. I tell her DVDHeaven doesn't send invoices.
6. She gasps and asks for the approximate price. I lie to her and say 35.98 US Dollars.
7. She calculates a bit and tells me that I'd have to pay around €7.
8. I say, "Fine", reach to my pocket for money as she says, "You can't take the package with you now, though."

This is where all the shit starts happening.

"Why?"
"Because we have to send it to Frankfurt."
"Why?"
"Because they need to check if these DVDs are originals or illegal copies."
"LOL, what?" (I actually said "LOL!") "Don't you see that this is a huge-ass quality boxset? How can this be a bootleg?"
"You won't believe what we have experienced already. Besides, you see, these DVDs have this DVD sign and if the respective companies do not have the rights to use this sign, then we are dealing with illegal DVDs here."
The woman sitting in front of a computer in the back of the room barges in.
"Besides, I doubt that Korea produces original DVDs."
I start to get really angry.
"Excuse me, Korea is the highest movie producing country right after Bollywood and Hollywood and they release thousands of DVDs every year."
Woman remains silent.
I continue my argument with the woman who attended me before.
"So how are they gonna check if these are originals?"
"I don't know."
"How long will it take?"
"I don't know."
"What do you know?"
"That I'll have to send this to Frankfurt."
"So will they send it to me directly or do I have to come all the way again just to pick it up?"
"They'll send it back to us. Had you brought us an invoice, you could have paid the money to the postman."
"But I don't have any invoices. So even when they send the package back here and I come to pick it up, will you give it to me?"
"Well, I'm sure we'll find a way."
"Do these computers here have internet access? I can show you the online store where I bought these DVDs from."
"I'm sorry we don't have access to the internet.", she lies.
I take a deep breath.
"Well, then give me an email address so I can send the pages of each product to you."
"We don't have an email address."
I take a deep breath and start talking really loudly.
"You know what? Send the shit back! I'm fuckin' sick of all this burocracy."
As I am about to walk out of the door, I take another glance at the woman and see her standing there with the DVDs in her hands looking really irritated.
"Why don't you just send us the two pages with the DVDs' prices?"
I scream at her, "You don't even have an email address!"
"You can send it via snail mai..."
I walk out of the door and slam it.
On my way back to the train station I took deep breaths and tried not to stop thinking logically due to my sudden rage. I tried to calm down. As I almost arrived at the station, I turned back to the customs office. I entered the room and saw the woman again. She looked scared as she saw me again (LOL!).
"Hey, just wanted to say that I'm sorry. I know you're simply doing your job and at the moment I'm in a phase of trying to become a better human being. I didn't mean to let my anger go on you."
She starts smiling nicely. The other woman in the back of the room gives me a glance as if she is about to tell me what an insane person I am.
"Oh, that's ok."
"I was just wondering whether I could have the snail mail address so I can send you the pages with the DVDs' prices."
The young lady winks an eye at me and says, "You can send a fax if you like. That makes things faster."
"Cheers, you made my day", I lie. "Can I also have the phone number of the guys who check my DVDs? I'm just interested in how they're going to find out if the DVDs are illegal or not."
She gives me all I have asked for. I apologise again and leave.

As I arrive in my office, I go to DVDHeaven.com, save the pages of the respective DVDs, manually change the prices and send them off as a fax to the customs office. I call the fuckers in Frankfurt who'll check my DVDs. A woman answears the phone and she is quite polite.
"So how do you gonna check if these DVDs are originals?"
"We aren't exactly checking for that. We're just checking whether or not the companies that have produced these discs have the rights to use the DVD logo on their packages."
"And how will you check that?"
"We'll send them to Japan..."
"YOU'RE GONNA SEND MY DVDS TO JAPAN? THEY CAME TO GERMANY ONLY TO BE SENT BACK TO THE FAR EAST?"
The woman laughs.
"No, we'll take pictures and send these via email to Japan!"
"Well, at least they have email in Japan."
"Excuse me?"
"Oh, it's nothing. Thanks and bye."

Man... I have been waiting ages for these films and I really want to review them for my website, especially "The Duelist" as it is temporarily the number one sold Korean DVD at YesAsia which means I'd get more commission, provided I like the film and rate it highly.

tom2681 · Post by **tom2681** » 31 Jan 2006, 16:11

Sorry to hear that, dude.

I'm temporarily putting DVDHeaven.com in my e-tailor black list.

Better to stick to DVDAsian and KoreanDVDs.

thelostdragon · Post by **thelostdragon** » 31 Jan 2006, 16:25

Hmmm... do customs really check packages that are coming from a certain store? I have oredered quite a few times from DVDHeaven and everything has been cool so far, especially their sales.

I have ordered from KoreanDVDs before and they're good, too. As for DVDAsian, I think they're too expensive. How has YeonDVD been recently? I ordered from Darcy quite a few times in the past and never had problems. The same goes for Mr. Kwang.

romerojpg · Post by **romerojpg** » 31 Jan 2006, 16:44

Customs, my good god I thought they were bad over here!

feel for you man

Yi-Long · Post by **Yi-Long** » 31 Jan 2006, 16:58

Since when is it custom's job to check if a certain logo isnt copyright infringement!? Shouldnt they have more important stuff to worry about, like say, drugs, weapons, illegal animals, medicine etc etc.
Nope... somehow, bothering costumers seems to have priority.

I havent had any problems yet since I havent ordered anything above the 22-23 euro limit, but I feel they are just around to annoy people. What I order online has nothing to do with them or my goverment whatsoever, so wtf should I pay them money over it!? it's not like they had a hand in making, shipping or selling the product or anything. Thiefs.

LD: you should spoken a fucking Jihad over them! (Eddie Izzard joke

)

Are all countries this strict and greedy when it comes to importing!? Or just Europe?

grim_tales · Post by **grim_tales** » 31 Jan 2006, 17:33

Sorry to hear that LD, that sucks

Markgway · Post by **Markgway** » 31 Jan 2006, 18:15

Damn, that's baaaad!!

I thought we had it tough.

Customs job to check for legality of DVDs? First I've heard of it.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 31 Jan 2006, 22:08

OMG that's so bad.

Couldn't you have left it at that (i.e - leave the DVDs in the post office) and went home and e-mail DVDsfromKorea asking for an invoice or something similar?

I'm sure they could find something.

It doesn't even make sense these are Korean DVDs so why send them to Japan? What can Japan do Germany can't? Burocracy does my head in. These sorts of rules are made up by complete idiots who put little thought into the real world practicality's of life.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I thought it was Customs job but yes this is WAY over the top. Besides why check with Japan?

Surely that's a completely arse about tit way of checking if the DVD logo is legitimate? Surely it makes much more sense to contact the company instead of bother you?

BiscLimpkit · Post by **BiscLimpkit** » 31 Jan 2006, 23:31

I'm sorry to hear that LD. I really hope you get your discs back soon. Please post back of any progress.

thelostdragon · Post by **thelostdragon** » 01 Feb 2006, 00:07

Man, I was so pissed and still am. The more I think of it the more it annoys me. I even thought that Japan might cospire against me and tell them these discs are fakes, in order to make me buy the over-the-top priced Japanese versions, lol. So I decided to just wait. But the thing is they should write down the companies' names and add it to a list or so, so they can check directly.

Damn them.

gojensen · Post by **gojensen** » 03 Feb 2006, 11:37

What's the problem, you KNOW Korea doesn't produce original DVDs!

Man, when I saw the subject I thought, oh no, someone had to pay a little VAT and exploded - but your story is just ridicilous!

I'm actually not that opposed to paying my VAT's (it's just another tax) even though it's 25% in Norway... what I AM opposed to is having to pay the Postal Office a fee of €10 just to let me pay that Tax. That's REAL funny when you've bought two DVDs at €15 each... An additional €17.50 in VAT and fees... notice how the FEE is larger than the actual VAT? Damn them...

At one point you could do all the paperwork yourself (which in my case took 90 minutes of driving back and forth and filling out forms!) and get away without the fee... but then someone decided that they needed €6.25 for that aswell. Silly buggers.

Only bright point is that IF you stay below €25 you don't need to pay VAT nor fees. That amount has been unchanged for some 20 years... :-/

Anyways... hope you get your DVDs soon...

Markgway · Post by **Markgway** » 03 Feb 2006, 15:14

In the U.K VAT is 17.5% (more than enough) but we too have to pay Post Office "holding fees". As you can imagine the extra cost for the privilage of importing DVDs adds up...

Yi-Long · Post by **Yi-Long** » 03 Feb 2006, 23:36

So, basically, the postoffice receives YOUR DVD's (which you paid for), then 'holds' (read; takes them hostage) them for you (gee thanks(!)

), and then asks for ransom so you can have your dvd's.

That's not a service, that's theft.

You know, the older you get and the more you think about all the things stupid and wrong with this world, stuff like this, and other bureaucratic, unfair stuff with organisations abusing their powers, the more I gain respect for those few people that completely flip and shoot the fuck out of their local post-office or town-hall. Well done! good riddance! Let those greedy worthless fuckers burn in hell! :twisted:

tom2681 · Post by **tom2681** » 03 Feb 2006, 23:42

The same thing happened to me about 3 years ago.

Thankfully my father managed to convince them to let me take the DVDs home.
(He's known as "The axe-wielding maniac" in these parts).

Nowadays I find that all problems can be solved with an axe and a "I'm going to chop you into tiny pieces-look".