Photo by KateMonkey 
You and I need to talk.
No, I don’t care where you sell, if its Amazon, Bonanzle, eCrater, eBay, whatever, this discussion affects us all. Anyone who sells anything online, no matter what the platform, is a part of this if they ship internationally.
Yeah, well, you’d think that, wouldn’t you? It seems like its none of my business how you do things but really, it is. Because your actions set the precedent by which my buyers judge me.
I’m not going to mark my items as gift. I’m not going to lie on the customs form (especially since the USPS ties the value you list on the customs form to the value you get loss coverage for). Not only it is a federal offense and could get me in big trouble or cost me loss protection, it’s not right. Call me a goody-two-shoes if you like but I’m not big on breaking the law. It’s how I roll. I also ship internationally for well over half my sales. It’s too big a risk to have to play law-dodger for all those items.
And I understand why you do lie on your customs forms or mark as gift. Your international buyers don’t want to pay the customs fees and even though the customs fees aren’t your fault, you don’t want them to be mad at you and leave bad feedback. Maybe you figure since you only ship internationally once in a while, it’s not a big deal.
But here’s why I needed to pull you aside for this little chat. Because, after they buy with you, your buyers come to me and start asking me to mark that item they bought for $300 as under $5 or as a gift. And I’m not going to do it because I want the loss coverage and the whole not breaking the law thing and what do they say to me? They start to talk to me about you and your buddies. “Lots of sellers lie on the customs forms,” they tell me, “it’s not a big deal.” Then I have to turn around and explain to them why it is a big deal and they are always shocked, SHOCKED!
“Lots of sellers do it, I thought it was allowed!”
“I ask for this all the time and no on ever told me it wasn’t allowed!”
“I ask for them to lie all the time, I feel so bad that I was asking them to do something wrong and had no idea!”
You have created this situation. If sellers like you weren’t happily lying on forms and marking as gift, buyers wouldn’t expect us to break the law for their convenience. Stop and think of how weird this situation is. So many people are lying on customs forms and marking as gift that it has become the precedent. Many online buyers have an expectation that sellers will do this. They are expecting you to do the dishonest wrong thing instead of the legal, right thing because, inexplicably, some people (like you) are doing it.
But I understand where it comes from. I started on selling online back in the late 90s and had no clue what I was doing just like you. And when that first buyer yelled at me for a customs fee and said, “Why didn’t you mark it as a gift?” I thought, Golly! OK, next one I will mark as a gift. Because I didn’t know any better and there was little info about it online so I genuinely had no idea what I was doing other than honoring the request of a buyer.
But there is no excuse for behavior like that anymore. There is ample verbiage about the practice online. There is even a whole eBay policy to protect sellers against bad feedback resulting from putting the real value on the customs form and I wouldn’t be surprised if other platforms followed suit. There is really no excuse anymore.
So the next time you fudge your customs form and think that you are sticking it to “the man” or harming no one, think about the next seller that buyer purchases from. You’re setting up a dangerous expectation that the next seller is going to be just a willing to help them dodge customs fees and, if that seller is me, I sure as shootin’ am not.
My business is too important to me to risk just so I can fulfill expectations that you and your business set.
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Oo! Oo! I love it. I thought I was the only one who got riled up about this kind of stuff.
From one goody-two-shoes to another,
🙂
Julie
This stuff drives me batty.
Great post! Another reason to be upset about sellers who refuse to play by the rules is that they make it much harder for those of us in libraries to borrow and lend materials overseas. Although we are supposed to be exempt from paying duties, the fact that the system is so easily abused puts the burden of proof on us. Even when we properly mark our items for international shipping we are routinely charged customs fees- especially in Canada, which has a third-party customs brokering service whose charges may not show up for weeks or months after the fact and are extremely difficult to challenge as a result.
I'm sorry that you receive undue pressure from international buyers in this regard, but thank you for trying your best to hold the line!
Thank you very much for your comment, Tom, you bring up a great point!
Great post! Another reason to be upset about sellers who refuse to play by the rules is that they make it much harder for those of us in libraries to borrow and lend materials overseas. Although we are supposed to be exempt from paying duties, the fact that the system is so easily abused puts the burden of proof on us. Even when we properly mark our items for international shipping we are routinely charged customs fees- especially in Canada, which has a third-party customs brokering service whose charges may not show up for weeks or months after the fact and are extremely difficult to challenge as a result. nnI’m sorry that you receive undue pressure from international buyers in this regard, but thank you for trying your best to hold the line!
Thank you very much for your comment, Tom, you bring up a great point!
Calmly explaining to customers that I cannot misrepresent contents of a shipment has been no problem for me. Angry customers are a part of business whom you shall encounter in greater frequency with greater success of your business. Does Amazon whine about their customers? No, and that’s why they are a multi-billion dollar company. You sound like one of those online sellers who has a long list of hostile terms in your auction . . . this tells me you’re probably an unreasonable person whom I don’t need to do business with, even if your complaints are valid. Perhaps you’re simply not cut out to be a professional merchant.
This anonymous comment is clearly just a random troll but I’m leaving it up because it’s hilarious. I mean, if the guy had read literally one other post on the blog maybe he wouldn’t have come off as so lost…
LOL! There are only a few hours left so I think this may win best troll of 2010 unless someone comes up with something in the next 24 hours.
You are not a goody two shoes. You are an ignoramus.
You are the prime example of the small group of individuals making
the tax laws flexing their fear power and you falling right in and actually
supporting their greed. Why should anyone anywhere REPAY
tax on USED FUCKING ITEMS. you have to be out of your mind.
Used items are traditionally exempt from Taxes and duties
but in this new climate of super greed and deceit, a seller
has to deceive the deceiver. Plain and simple. Your article is full of holes
and is a whole pile of shit. Keep being scared, their plan is working on your
sorry ass.
The best part about this comment is that this guy not only took the time to write two crazy-pants curse filled comments on this but… wait for it… he wrote them in another program to spell check them first and then copied them over with the Word Processor tags still present in the HTML. Isn’t that adorable?
I suppose I should be grateful he at least attempted to spell check. Clearly, this guy worries how things look online. You don’t want to look silly by posting a spelling error when you’re writing a unhinged curse filled rant about something you clearly know nothing about to a complete stranger on the internet…
Oh crazy commentors… never change! 🙂
Good catch, thanks!
Oh and I’ve been selling Online since 1996 and love every minute do deceive the tax system. FUCK YOU AND FUCK THEM. GREEDY FUCKS!
I agree with you to some extent. I think inside the same country it shouldn’t be lied about. However, as a UK resident any packages I get from America or Canada, I would love them to put GIFT or lie about the value. This is not so I can avoid the tax but so I can avoid the handling fee from Royal Mail (postage company here). I ordered an item valued at about $40 (£23). When it arrived in the UK £12.12 fees were due. Upon closer inspection £4.12 is tax, £8 is handling fee from Royal Mail. I’d of happily paid the £4 to customs as tax, but the handling fee from the postage service is appalling. We have no choice in the matter, we either pay or it gets returned. There not even an alternate service. So yeah, i’m going to have to pay 50% extra to get my parcel.
Edit: i don’t ever ask them to though. I just chance it and hope i get lucky.
Thank you so much for posting this! We cannot lie on a customs label either – just cannot do it.
Thank you for your nice comment. The one directly above your called me the c-word for my terrible crime… not breaking the law? I guess? so it’s nice to know not everyone on the internet is a drooling troll! 🙂
I know I saw that. Ugly. And I have been advised by several sources not to do this. And – you do have to sign that you are telling the truth on the label!
I left that other troll comment from a few years ago up there because that guy was making enough of a fool of himself, he didn’t deserve protecting. You’d be surprised at how much hate a post like this gets.
My spam filter gets most of the ones that are just pointless personal attacks. Nothing says “intelligent discourse” like just screaming profanity at anyone with a differing opinion.
I am a buyer of an Amazon product, the seller listed the item at 16% of the value I bought it for. They also listed it as a gift. Who would notice right? I did. I called every customs office I was required to and reported them. Then I paid the whopping $7.50 in fees….Do us all a favour and just fill out the paper work right…