Just got back from six weeks in the States and had an AWFUL surprise. For almost two years now I have had no problem mailing packages from the U.S. to Spain on the slow boat to China route. Never lost anything and since I mark everything "household goods," I have never had any problem with getting stopped by Spanish aduanas (after an initial mistake marking something as electronics).

Well, I went to the U.S. post office at the end of August to mail my usual peanut butter, etc. only to find that in its infinite wisdom, the U.S. gov't has DONE AWAY with the slow boat. You can now ONLY mail stuff priority (airmail) internationally.

First of all this means that shipping costs about four times what it did before. AND, as the two in the one-two punch, all this priority stuff DOES attract aduana's notice. Three of the four boxes I sent were searched by Spanish customs (which has never happened before)and on two of them, they have demanded I pay customs (after first estimating the cost of the contents at about three times their actual cost.)

SO, for items I paid a total of $200 to buy in the U.S., and another $150 to ship, aduanas has chosen to charge me another $100. I will go fight it at the airport, as I have my receipts and their estimations of value. But be warned that shipping stuff is no longer a good option.

Of course, considering that the TSA went into all four of our bags and stole stuff, neither is packing it! ARGHHH!!!!

hey Wendy, sorry to hear that.

hmmmmm... 6 weeks in the u.s.a. and not looking at the board eh? shame on ya as you would have saved yourself that surprise since there has been recent discussion on the topic of shipping stuff from u.s.a. to spain at http://spaintalk.multimadrid.org/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/794...781048923#5781048923

papa bajo wrote on august 21st...

quote:

Doing a little research on this thread I found that the USPS has apparently (and sadly) discontinued its international Economy Surface mail service. This was the cheap (slow boat) way for shipping things from the US to Spain. They apparently "restructured," getting rid of the cheap services and making the rest more expensive.

hindsight is 20/20.

good luck fighting customs, let us know if you win. do you have receipts for the stuff in the boxes? they will want to see them if you are going to try and fight the $100 fee.

saludos,
jer...

Hey Wendy, yeah, I just sent stuff back too and it got to my house (I´m back tomorrow) already and my roommate said that it DID make it to our local post office, but on top of the 200 dollars of shipping I paid, I have to pay 85 euros, for what... they could not explain to her exactly why...but yeah, definitely different from the past few years! besos

My dad has just sent us over 4 boxes of sweaters and stuff (our own) that we left at his house that I couldn't have packed over with us when we came in the summer, and they have started arriving Wed nite and today with the extortionist at the door demanding 60 and 85euros respectively for each package claiming customs fees or else! The first one arrived no problem. He did declare socks and sweaters on the boxes and no way am I going to pay those amounts. As I understand it, they've taken them back to our local PO and will hold them for 15days. I can attempt to call the local PO but I think that's a lost cause b/c he declared $300 value on one that I saw (why I don't know)as opposed to gifts,or personal belongings, or some other non descript thing. They tell me they'll return them to him after 15days. Can I honestly expect that that will happen or will they belong to some Spaniard working at either Aduana or the PO? If they return them to him at least our stuff will be back where it belongs. I found out back in May about the dissolution of the 4th class shipping after packaging up the boxes for shipping in accordance with their requirements only to discover that "we don't offer that service anymore as of last wk!" After reading the customs regs it indicates that gifts to non residents are exempt for the levies up to 45euros--does that really happen even tho that's what's supposed to be true, or are there more recent loopholes for that also? any help would be greatly appreciated...