Customs & Excise (Importing question)

[wasp_f15ting]

Hello all,

As some of you might know, I am going to India in March of this year, For the trip I want to get a good Digital SLR camera, my budget is around £700. Now I have been looking around here, and most of the cameras in the are Shit, So I went snooping on eBAY and found this baby.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3800548244&category=30020

I am in love with it, and have been looking all the user forums for the quality of the pics, and they are gorgeous. The fovean sensor means that there is no interlace problems as the standard CCD ones have. Now the same camera here averages a price of £900 on its own (body only) without any lenses! With that whole package offered I'd be looking at well over£1700 spending here which I cant afford.  Now I would love to import this in from the US, and this is where I need your help, the amount paid for customs, is it just the standard VAT? Or will it be something else on top of that? I can pay the VAT, but not anymore. I have been spending about 2 months looking at different cameras, and this does look like best deal.

I don't think I'd want anything else, but will have to if it exceeds 17%, Have any of you have imported any semi expensive electronics and been bombed? I checked the customs and excise website, and its no fucking use at all, the codes don't match up to the commodity code for this camera.. Any help is welcomed.


Cheers.

[Pinball]

Buy it cheaply overseas, throw away the box, and post home your receipt, guarantee card, manual. If possible, wear the camera around your neck on your return ;-)

Most likely Customs won't even check you when you return to UK, but if they do and there's a boxed product in your bag plus receipt you'll have to pay VAT & duty on it. It's possible they'll ask for proof of purchase for your shiny new camera if they're suspicious, but given the no. of electronic thingies people carry nowadays, and if it doesn't look too "new", you should be okay.

Edit: Doh, just read the second part of your post. If buying from US, especially if shipping is with a courier, you're likely to have to pay VAT and duty, plus a £10 or so admin charge from the courier (even if sent via regular US Post the Royal Mail will make an admin charge). Are you sure the cheap sources of electronic goods in the UK like www.unbeatable.co.uk, www.qed-uk.com aren't a comparable price?

[DonkeyRods]

Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!
I got all hot and bothered when I read about them there Foveon CCDs, the quality is amazing. I was going to buy one, but reading more about it, I found it had issues with long exposures. The lenses also seemed to cause worse chromatic aberations than other cameras, and had them closer to the centre of the image. Worst of all, it doesn't do JPEG, so you're looking at ~9meg per 3mp image. But you probably know all this already, so Ill shut up.

Pinball is right!

[wasp_f15ting]

Heh yeh I read that DR,

I wondering how much it'll cost now, It says on the DHL site that some products get the VAT and high DUTY charge too :( fuck that then :|  

Any other reccomendations?

EDIT: just to add the cheapest one I have found is a £589 within the UK, and again thats just the body.....

[danielreal2k]

Pity I can't wear 100 pairs of Levi at once, I could make a fortune

[Pinball]

It's our "duty" to give the government all our fucking money..

[Smackhead Kangaroo]

If I remember it's a gamble importing expensive things. sometimes you get caught sometimes you don't.
It'll be VAT and about a tenner on top if your parcel is looked at.

[Rev]

I suppose there's absolutely no chance to the seller stating that the parcel is a gift?

[Pinball]

I suppose there's absolutely no chance to the seller stating that the parcel is a gift?

good idea

[Rev]

It's an even better idea if you monkey around with that post and turn it into a coherent sentence.  Dear god...  

Y'all know what I meant, anyway.

[blue jammer]

I suppose there's absolutely no chance to the seller stating that the parcel is a gift?

good idea

For a DVD or anything small over £18 yeah, BAD IDEA for anything of any worth, as if it's marked "gift" the value will be very low, and if anything should happen on route (drop, kick, bang, smash) and he needs to claim, he'll get nothing like the right amount!!

*Some* shops in the US will send small items to you marked as "gift" by special arrangement (usually if you've dealt with the in the past/build up a relationship with them)

[Pinball]

I suppose there's absolutely no chance to the seller stating that the parcel is a gift?

good idea

For a DVD or anything small over £18 yeah, BAD IDEA for anything of any worth, as if it's marked "gift" the value will be very low, and if anything should happen on route (drop, kick, bang, smash) and he needs to claim, he'll get nothing like the right amount!!

*Some* shops in the US will send small items to you marked as "gift" by special arrangement (usually if you've dealt with the in the past/build up a relationship with them)

You should be able to have the item insured to full value even if marked gift. This would probably only work for individuals rather than companies though. Companies wouldn't want to do it as they could get into trouble, and customs would be more suspicious if it's from a company and marked as gift.

[wasp_f15ting]

well kids, thanks to the ebay thread on using dodgy programmes to bid at the last second I won this brandnew Canon EOS 300D:-



With two lenses :)


It has cost me £560 in total, but the delivery and insurance came to £620 in total,  a far cry from the price here for it at: £700+ just for the body!

They are marking it as value of $250 and then shippig it, so if I have to pay any duty it will be around £25 ish, or so the customers say. Its marked as a gift too, so I hope that goes well :S i'll keep you posted on the developments

[5 Knuckle Shuffle]

well kids, thanks to the ebay thread on using dodgy programmes to bid at the last second I won this brandnew Canon EOS 300D:-



With two lenses :)


It has cost me £560 in total, but the delivery and insurance came to £620 in total,  a far cry from the price here for it at: £700+ just for the body!

They are marking it as value of $250 and then shippig it, so if I have to pay any duty it will be around £25 ish, or so the customers say. Its marked as a gift too, so I hope that goes well :S i'll keep you posted on the developments

You fucking cunt. I was bidding on that and was prepared to pay £555 and you out bid me. What do you think this is, a bloody auction? I would then have taken it on one of the meets and taken photos of you lot so I could post them up for you to mong. Selfish ungrateful bastards the lot of you. I was only doing it for the good of you lot.

[wasp_f15ting]

It arrived today :) great condition brandnew 3 years warranty. And all I payed was a measly £32 for tax vat and surcharge. I happy and have saved well over £590. Gonna get on it in a bit and learn how to use it :p too many options.. will post some pics for your pleasures later.

[Pinball]

It arrived today :) great condition brandnew 3 years warranty. And all I payed was a measly £32 for tax vat and surcharge. I happy and have saved well over £590. Gonna get on it in a bit and learn how to use it :p too many options.. will post some pics for your pleasures later.

Excellent! Have fun!!

[fanny splendid]

There goes another hospital wing.

[wasp_f15ting]

Finally got around to taking some pics.. These are all indoor ones, since outside is fucking horrible, and my shaky hand isn't revealing any good pictures, need a tripod before I attempt that...

Here are some from the surgery.

http://img22.photobucket.com/albums/v66/azariah/marco.jpg?

http://img22.photobucket.com/albums/v66/azariah/bp.jpg?



Self portrait:-
http://img22.photobucket.com/albums/v66/azariah/me1.jpg?

Warning, these are big images... If you have a small screen might need to scroll alot :p


Anyhoo, I am really impressed with the colours, look at the contrast between the blue and red, its gorgeous, the dirt varations on the BP monior, the sharpness of it all makes me very happy. I havent played around with the telefoto USM lens yet, this is just the 18-55m one. I am gonna check that out by going somwhere with trees and grass. I have reduced all these images from 3.1MB superfine jpeg, so you aren't getting the proper quality of what the output is. But they still look pretty good.

I'll keep this place updated on the effects of the telefoto, and ofcource my trip to India coming up. Ta for the help people. I am glad I chose this baby.

[weekender]

I thought you were a p**i?  You look like a n**ger there.

More unfunny racism brought to you by the same company who brought you "I thought all Asians were gooks", "Sorry you ate your baby", and "Where's my dog curry?".

[Pinball]

Impressive pics old boy. Just don't go & get the camera nicked in India, ok? ;-)