LebGeeks

HzSamer

Member

Anyone had previous experience buying PC monitor from USA?

Hello everyone,

Did anyone try to buy a monitor from USA and ship it to Lebanon?

I am looking to buy this monitor from bhphotovideo since there is no good option in Lebanon. I couldn't find a decent 4K one.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/ … nitor.html

They will charge me 100$ for the shipping fees with DHL which is ok, but I am afraid about the customs fees.

If they will charge me 30% which is 150$ (150$ x 1500 = 225000LL @8200LL = 27$) or 150$ x3500LL = 525000LL @8200 = 64 $) this will be very good but I am not sure if that what will happen.

So I am looking if you tried that before or if you have any advice.

Thank you

Last edited by HzSamer (October 1 2020)

nosense

Member

Re: Anyone had previous experience buying PC monitor from USA?

what's the 3400LL ?

HzSamer

Member

Re: Anyone had previous experience buying PC monitor from USA?

what's the 3400LL ?

Aramex started to charge at a rate of 3500LL instead of 1500LL so this is why I used that.

AVOlio

Member

Re: Anyone had previous experience buying PC monitor from USA?

Check my posts in the Shipping from abroad topic where I talked about my experience when I shipped an ultrawide monitor with S&S.

Basically, make sure there is an invoice in the package.
Customs fees are random.
You have to account for 11tax.
And there's a chance Aramex might also charge you for an extra 100$ for clearance fees, or you if you know a customs clearance agent you can hire them instead. (you still need to pay a small amount for Aramex though).

HzSamer

Member

Re: Anyone had previous experience buying PC monitor from USA?

Check my posts in the Shipping from abroad topic where I talked about my experience when I shipped an ultrawide monitor with S&S.

Basically, make sure there is an invoice in the package.
Customs fees are random.
You have to account for 11tax.
And there's a chance Aramex might also charge you for an extra 100$ for clearance fees, or you if you know a customs clearance agent you can hire them instead. (you still need to pay a small amount for Aramex though).

What a tragedy! This is what I am afraid of because that happend with an nvme SSD and I got a fake one from Amazon.

So the value of the shipment was300$ and then you paid:

Customs Clearance (as "tasfiyeh") : 110$
Customs fees / taxes : 187$

which is very high.

bhphotovideo will use DHL only and there is no option to not include the invoice and send it as a gift. I am thinking the same way you did.

Usually all my shipments with fedex I paid for them around 30% of the vlaue inclduing everything (Clearance, taxes, fees ... etc)

I will try to contact DHL and know what are their rate these days and if they can estimate what I will pay for it.

infiniteloop

Member

Re: Anyone had previous experience buying PC monitor from USA?

So a GPU card by private courrier like DHL and S&S should be charged for VAT only not customs? Because I red the Lebanese customs rules and logically PC parts don't have customs, only VAT so instead of paying 21% it should be 11%

nosense

Member

Re: Anyone had previous experience buying PC monitor from USA?

what's the 3400LL ?

Aramex started to charge at a rate of 3500LL instead of 1500LL so this is why I used that.

that’s only for the shipping not the customs fees, customs fees are in lbp at 1500, unless I’m misunderstanding something.

AVOlio

Member

Re: Anyone had previous experience buying PC monitor from USA?

@Hzsamer
No, you got me wrong.
Im saying you should include an invoice In the shipment and not send it as a gift.
If you send it as a gift (ie without an invoice) S&S employees will value your package, and they will surely value it less than its worth to cover their asses in case of insurance claims.
For ex my monitor was worth 1000$. Because there was no invoice in the package, when I talked to them to claim my insurance for the shipping damage, they said they valued the monitor at 300$ so they will only cover 300$.

And yes, you are right.
I paid 110$ customs clearance (which basically means that Aramex hired a customs agent to clear it from customs).
Customs fees / tax: 187$
And I paid another 200$ for shipping.

Now in your case, youre buying and shipping from b&h
I don't think you will pay shipping price to DHL here because you already paid to B&H.
But what you might pay to DHL here is :
-Customs and taxes, these two are guaranteed to be paid.
-Clearance (tasfiyeh) they might and might not ask to pay for clearance.

And as someone said earlier, customs and taxes are still at 1500!

infiniteloop

Member

Re: Anyone had previous experience buying PC monitor from USA?

You mean VAT not customs unless an lcd monitor is not considered as pc part

specility

Member

Re: Anyone had previous experience buying PC monitor from USA?

1

HzSamer

Member

Re: Anyone had previous experience buying PC monitor from USA?

@AVOlio

Yes, I got your idea. I was thinking to send it as a gift until I read your warning.

I will pay the shipping fees directly to B&H which is 100$ with DHL.

I have a shipment on its way with DHL so I will see how much they will charge me and I will contact them to ask about the fees of the monitor if they know anything useful.

Customs and taxes are a lottery.

HzSamer

Member

Re: Anyone had previous experience buying PC monitor from USA?

what's the 3400LL ?

Aramex started to charge at a rate of 3500LL instead of 1500LL so this is why I used that.

that’s only for the shipping not the customs fees, customs fees are in lbp at 1500, unless I’m misunderstanding something.

That will be great as I missed this point, but I am predicting the worst scenario.

HzSamer

Member

Re: Anyone had previous experience buying PC monitor from USA?

You mean VAT not customs unless an lcd monitor is not considered as pc part

Yes only vat without customs fees, but I think we will pay both of them.

I went back to a friend who shipped multiple times using DHL in 2017. He shipped his PC parts

The first shipment contained parts with a value of 2500$ and he paid 500$ for DHL (clearance, taxes, customs... etc)
The second shipment contained parts with a value of 1600$ and he paid 260$ for DHL
The third shipment contained parts with a value of 2000$ and he paid 270$ for DHL.

So the total fees were between 13-20% of the total value.

infiniteloop

Member

Re: Anyone had previous experience buying PC monitor from USA?

You can tell DHL you won't pay customs as it's a PC part, it's your right to not pay as it's written black on white in the Lebanese customs page

AVOlio

Member

Re: Anyone had previous experience buying PC monitor from USA?

It might not be considered as a PC part as you mentioned.

I just checked my customs clearance paper, they classified the monitor in "أجزاء العاب مجتمعات".
Im not sure about the third word cause of the handwriting.
This is the image

Maybe you can make sense out of the word.

Basically customs valued my monitor at 1,200,000 LBP (back in the old 1$=1500 LBP days).

I have 2 customs paper invoices and one tasfiyeh (clearance) invoice which sums up the entire process. (and costed 110$ by itself).

The first customs invoice has:
معدل الرسم = rate = 5%
رسم جمركي موحد = Customs = 5% x 1,200,000  = 60,000 LBP
رسم خزن = storage = 10,000 LBP
ضريبة على القيمة المضافة = VAT = 11% x 1,270,000 (1.2m + 60k + 10k) = 140,000 LBP
مطبوعات = printing i guess = 1,000 LBP
طابع = stamps = 30,000 LBP

Totals 241,000 LBP

The second customs invoice has:
ت لحين تصديق = i don't know what it is = 36,000 LBP
VAT on the above = 4,000 LBP

Totals 40,000 LBP

So in total i paid
241,000 + 40,000 + 165,000 (clearance) = 446,000 LBP.

And the shipping to S&S (which doesn't apply in your case) about 230$

so 345,000 + 446,000 = 791,000 LBP in total to ship the monitor from amazon US to me.

Hope this gives you an idea.

Last edited by AVOlio (October 3 2020)

HzSamer

Member

Re: Anyone had previous experience buying PC monitor from USA?

Thank you AVOlio!

This information was very helpful.

I will wait until I receive my shipment with DHL this week then I will decide what to do.

HzSamer

Member

Re: Anyone had previous experience buying PC monitor from USA?

I got some information after contacting DHL and FedEx today about the fees and their rate.

DHL
------

For a 500$ package, the clearance fees will be 59$ @7500LL=442500LL
+
Customs fees and VAT which will be @1500LL rate.

FedEx
---------
Broker fees = 240000LL
إذن تسليم = 75000

Clearance will be @3000LL rate and they didn't give me any estimated value for that.

They told me the customs fees will be 3% then there will be the VAT @1500LL, but customs will revalue the shipment. It is 500$ but in LL maybe it will be 750000LL or more.

zizo99

Member

Re: Anyone had previous experience buying PC monitor from USA?

Hello, sorry I'm late for the party.

@Hzsamer did you end up getting the monitor you were looking for?

I'm thinking to get a monitor as all available options in Lebanon are very limited. What is better/more affordable Aramex or DHL for shipping such a heavy item?

@Hzsamer

For ex my monitor was worth 1000$. Because there was no invoice in the package, when I talked to them to claim my insurance for the shipping damage, they said they valued the monitor at 300$ so they will only cover 300$.

Why did you ask for a claim of item insurance? It was damaged?

AVOlio

Member

Re: Anyone had previous experience buying PC monitor from USA?

Yes it was damaged during shipping.
Because it was a physical damage on the screen.

zizo99

Member

Re: Anyone had previous experience buying PC monitor from USA?

Yes it was damaged during shipping.
Because it was a physical damage on the screen.

hmmm I see, what do you prefer DHL or Aramex for the shipping method?

AVOlio

Member

Re: Anyone had previous experience buying PC monitor from USA?

Aramex S&S simply because they will charge you less as they charge per real weight and not volumetric weight like DHL.

As for shipping experience, both are the same. As i have tried both Borderlinx (the service of DHL before) and S&S.

zizo99

Member

Re: Anyone had previous experience buying PC monitor from USA?

Aramex S&S simply because they will charge you less as they charge per real weight and not volumetric weight like DHL.

As for shipping experience, both are the same. As i have tried both Borderlinx (the service of DHL before) and S&S.

DHL charges you per volume? Oh, didn't know that

Plus S&S gives you several addresses around the globe. As I remember last time I used Borderlinx (several years ago) only gives you addresses in the US and UK, I don't know if they change anything nowadays

HzSamer

Member

Re: Anyone had previous experience buying PC monitor from USA?

Hello, sorry I'm late for the party.

@Hzsamer did you end up getting the monitor you were looking for?

I'm thinking to get a monitor as all available options in Lebanon are very limited. What is better/more affordable Aramex or DHL for shipping such a heavy item?

@Hzsamer

For ex my monitor was worth 1000$. Because there was no invoice in the package, when I talked to them to claim my insurance for the shipping damage, they said they valued the monitor at 300$ so they will only cover 300$.

Why did you ask for a claim of item insurance? It was damaged?

I bought ASUS ProArt PA278QV from ASUS official distributor in Syria for 430$ (1 Year Warranty) + 15$ shipping to Lebanon.

It should arrive next week.

If you are looking for any ASUS product, you can preorder it from them.

I didn't take the risk and order the monitor from the USA since there will be no local warranty, and if I want to order the same ASUS monitor from the USA it will cost me at least 500$.

zizo99

Member

Re: Anyone had previous experience buying PC monitor from USA?

Hello, sorry I'm late for the party.

@Hzsamer did you end up getting the monitor you were looking for?

I'm thinking to get a monitor as all available options in Lebanon are very limited. What is better/more affordable Aramex or DHL for shipping such a heavy item?

@Hzsamer

For ex my monitor was worth 1000$. Because there was no invoice in the package, when I talked to them to claim my insurance for the shipping damage, they said they valued the monitor at 300$ so they will only cover 300$.

Why did you ask for a claim of item insurance? It was damaged?

I bought ASUS ProArt PA278QV from ASUS official distributor in Syria for 430$ (1 Year Warranty) + 15$ shipping to Lebanon.

It should arrive next week.

If you are looking for any ASUS product, you can preorder it from them.

I didn't take the risk and order the monitor from the USA since there will be no local warranty, and if I want to order the same ASUS monitor from the USA it will cost me at least 500$.

Oh, great

Looking to buy this monitor "Acer"
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08BG … 0DER&psc=1

Last edited by zizo99 (January 26 2021)

HzSamer

Member

Re: Anyone had previous experience buying PC monitor from USA?

Oh, great

Looking to buy this monitor "Acer"
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08BG … 0DER&psc=1

I think your best option is to order it from B&H.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/ … 4_qhd.html

It will cost you 107$ for shipping which is cheap, and the customs, clearance should be around 100$.