LebGeeks

LifeEngineer

Member

Re: Shipping from abroad (share your experience)

What happens if you don't pay?

Exactly! This is one of the cases where I recommend not paying! This is complete bullshit!

rami80

Member

Re: Shipping from abroad (share your experience)

Quick update: They called back and apologized sincerely. It was handeled very professionally. It seems like someone was attempting to solve this internally to avoid having problems for his/her mistake. But yeah, I take my word back.. they handeled it very well.

Last edited by rami80 (December 20 2016)

Zephyrus

Member

Re: Shipping from abroad (share your experience)

Guys, this is my first time shipping.
I want to buy a Dell Inspiron 7559 from amazon, it costs 799.99$ with free shipping to Borderlinx address.
Now aside from the shipping fee via DHL to lebanon, what is the approximate custom fees i should pay upon delivery or pickup from their office?

Georges00

Member

Re: Shipping from abroad (share your experience)

Guys, this is my first time shipping.
I want to buy a Dell Inspiron 7559 from amazon, it costs 799.99$ with free shipping to Borderlinx address.
Now aside from the shipping fee via DHL to lebanon, what is the approximate custom fees i should pay upon delivery or pickup from their office?

Assuming everything goes according to the law, you should only pay 10% TVA (not customs)

Zephyrus

Member

Re: Shipping from abroad (share your experience)

Guys, this is my first time shipping.
I want to buy a Dell Inspiron 7559 from amazon, it costs 799.99$ with free shipping to Borderlinx address.
Now aside from the shipping fee via DHL to lebanon, what is the approximate custom fees i should pay upon delivery or pickup from their office?

Assuming everything goes according to the law, you should only pay 10% TVA (not customs)

Some of the guys said they paid 20-25% custom fees.
And is it any different if i choose Libanpost instead of DHL?

Georges00

Member

Re: Shipping from abroad (share your experience)

Guys, this is my first time shipping.
I want to buy a Dell Inspiron 7559 from amazon, it costs 799.99$ with free shipping to Borderlinx address.
Now aside from the shipping fee via DHL to lebanon, what is the approximate custom fees i should pay upon delivery or pickup from their office?

Assuming everything goes according to the law, you should only pay 10% TVA (not customs)

Some of the guys said they paid 20-25% custom fees.
And is it any different if i choose Libanpost instead of DHL?

Laptop are subject to 10% TVA. I'm talking about the actual law.
Friend ordered a laptop and another friend's father works with customs.

Zephyrus

Member

Re: Shipping from abroad (share your experience)

Assuming everything goes according to the law, you should only pay 10% TVA (not customs)

Some of the guys said they paid 20-25% custom fees.
And is it any different if i choose Libanpost instead of DHL?

Laptop are subject to 10% TVA. I'm talking about the actual law.
Friend ordered a laptop and another friend's father works with customs.

Oh, ok thanks.

Draguen

Member

Re: Shipping from abroad (share your experience)

hey, a rule of thumb, expect to pay between 2 to 4 dollars for every 10 dol spent.

first you have the VAT, (expect the item to be highly overestimated), then you have to pay something called "clearance fee" which is usually double the VAT value, in addition to that you have small fees that adds up for about 1/2 the VAT value (overstay charge, VAT on overstay charge, ect.)

Banana republic.

i wonder if any lawyer up here could order like 50 items and use the receipts as proof in order to sue the customs for fraud and abuse of trust.

nuclearcat

Member

Re: Shipping from abroad (share your experience)

hey, a rule of thumb, expect to pay between 2 to 4 dollars for every 10 dol spent.

first you have the VAT, (expect the item to be highly overestimated), then you have to pay something called "clearance fee" which is usually double the VAT value, in addition to that you have small fees that adds up for about 1/2 the VAT value (overstay charge, VAT on overstay charge, ect.)

Banana republic.

i wonder if any lawyer up here could order like 50 items and use the receipts as proof in order to sue the customs for fraud and abuse of trust.

Sorry for going to rant, but "banana republic" is very insulting term for Lebanon, i strongly disagree with that.

Whoever is doing business shipping will provide proof of payment, proof of origin, certificates and etc, will use clearance agent and things will go as they are defined at law (probably also pre-notification). Your lawyer will spend much more time and money doing paperwork for proper clearance, and at the end customs will not argue with full paperwork.
I passed few times full clearance procedure for large shipment, and it takes few days to complete, plus few days in country of origin. Also seller has to supply necessary papers(he will spend also some time and pay for his government for stamps/licenses copy/ certificate of quality and etc), for <$1000 items they wont even bother to talk about this.
But one thing you guys don't understand, miniscule private shipments always handled with prohibitive fees , depends how wealthy is country (and depend on VAT payments) and amount of clearance of such items they have to do. It is microtransactions for them, and they don't have capabilities especially in Lebanon for them.
Only thing i hope - that they will do online clearance/payment, to save time of people and customs, as it is done for personal shipments for example in spain. Probably someone lebanese should push for this and make publicity to demand it, since ogero did online payments, custom should do as well.

Draguen

Member

Re: Shipping from abroad (share your experience)

Hey, just to clarify, I'm speaking about single items being shipped through the customs, not containers.

For Christmas i shipped four items of the same category,  all independently and within one week interval. All items were between 100 and 120 dol, however i was charged from 38 to 58 dollars each time, with no apparent logic or reason, even though the items were shipped with the receipt and are easily searchable on google.

Any country that does not abides by its own laws, were the lambda citizen is being abused, cannot be called a state of law and rights, and hence, is a banana republic.

nuclearcat

Member

Re: Shipping from abroad (share your experience)

May i know what (laws) exactly they violated?
Just note: if you didn't include proper documentation for your purchase (at least, and possible as prenotification - proof of payment - notary signed, purchase contract (notary signed as well),  - and they have doubts that your stated price is correct, they are legally allowed to decide real price of goods as they want (e.g. first googled result of similar items).

Last edited by nuclearcat (December 27 2016)

Draguen

Member

Re: Shipping from abroad (share your experience)

Clarification: i bought the items from outside, they were shipped from the US with a detailed itemised list,  original invoices and a certificate of origin (as per mentioned on the costums.Gov.Lb website):
Point C. 6) For common goods and products
http://www.customs.gov.lb/customs/laws_ … guides.asp.
Furthermore, i have not  been able to identify any mention of the "clearance fee" anywhere, nor its applicable value.

In addition, it states that the costums has the right to re-evaluate the item based on the estimated value of the product, however any 2nd grade lawyer could argue that if items are systematically over evaluated regardless of the local market, this is either incompetence or fraud and both should be penalised in any respectable country.

The best argument about that is the fact that you can order X times the same item, you will never pay the same amount of taxes (based on recent  experience as mentioned above, and on an extensive list of comments posted by fellow geeks).

I'm not a lawyer, but the customs rules are not clear and subject to interpretation at best, hence anyone can be subject to the zeal of the customs, without having the right to appeal at a non-prohibitive cost.

My 2 cent, however you can see that I'm not the only one on this forum deeply dissatisfied with the service given by the costums.

nuclearcat

Member

Re: Shipping from abroad (share your experience)

Clarification: i bought the items from outside, they were shipped from the US with a detailed itemised list,  original invoices and a certificate of origin (as per mentioned on the costums.Gov.Lb website):
Point C. 6) For common goods and products
http://www.customs.gov.lb/customs/laws_ … guides.asp.
Furthermore, i have not  been able to identify any mention of the "clearance fee" anywhere, nor its applicable value.

In addition, it states that the costums has the right to re-evaluate the item based on the estimated value of the product, however any 2nd grade lawyer could argue that if items are systematically over evaluated regardless of the local market, this is either incompetence or fraud and both should be penalised in any respectable country.

The best argument about that is the fact that you can order X times the same item, you will never pay the same amount of taxes (based on recent  experience as mentioned above, and on an extensive list of comments posted by fellow geeks).

I'm not a lawyer, but the customs rules are not clear and subject to interpretation at best, hence anyone can be subject to the zeal of the customs, without having the right to appeal at a non-prohibitive cost.

My 2 cent, however you can see that I'm not the only one on this forum deeply dissatisfied with the service given by the costums.

Clearance fee might be fee of authorized clearance agent your shipping company using. Is it in invoice of shipping company?
It is not best argument at all, because market value of same item will not be same.
I'm not happy about customs as well, because such unpredictability makes my business (electronics development) very hard, but at same time i know how it can be much worse, and it is also result of my laziness to study in details procedures and do proper declarations, and lack of regulations for such business in Lebanon. But hopefully soon i will try to do it proper way and will see result.

Sasuke

Member

Re: Shipping from abroad (share your experience)

Has anybody tried ordering from massdrop.
So far, I have been looking at a bunch of items that are priced below a 100$ and all of them don't have any extra tax fees according to their order details, but will I have to spend extra fees regardless of what's stated on the website and considering how things go in Lebanon.
This is the first time I make an online purchase, I just bout an internet card from a bank, but have no idea where to start.
Should I use my work address instead of my home, and what about the state and postal code fields.
I would appreciate any guidance from you guys who seem to order online stuff more than you order food from local restaurants.

NAM

Member

Re: Shipping from abroad (share your experience)

Has anybody tried ordering from massdrop.
So far, I have been looking at a bunch of items that are priced below a 100$ and all of them don't have any extra tax fees according to their order details, but will I have to spend extra fees regardless of what's stated on the website and considering how things go in Lebanon.
This is the first time I make an online purchase, I just bout an internet card from a bank, but have no idea where to start.
Should I use my work address instead of my home, and what about the state and postal code fields.
I would appreciate any guidance from you guys who seem to order online stuff more than you order food from local restaurants.

I got my nixeus screen from massdrop (200$) and my item was held at libanpost until i paid the tax (i guess it was about 20-30%).
I have also got my mionix mouse from massdrop (40$) .. DHL delivery and no tax (they might go with any courier they deem good)
My only advise with massdrop is to keep your eyes open about the tracking number (they have two, one global and one internal for lebanon)
if you don't get your parcel within 10days from libanpost (because of the lack of the proper postal codes in lebanon) they will send it back to the sender, thats how my mouse got lost the first time.

Sebas98619

Member

Re: Shipping from abroad (share your experience)

Hey guys, hope all of you are fine. So I ordered a bunch of stuff from AliExpress. They have arrived but the tracking info has been stuck at "held by custom" for almost 2 weeks. Has this ever happened to anyone ? Should I wait a bit more ?

Mayyad

Member

Re: Shipping from abroad (share your experience)

I am facing the same issue at the moment, i order a lot from AliExpress and most of the packages were released from the custom in relatively short time, i once faced a delay in custom that lasts maybe a month but was only for one package.
But now about 6 packages are stuck in customs for about 3 weeks. I don't know what is taking them that much time.

Sebas98619

Member

Re: Shipping from abroad (share your experience)

I am facing the same issue at the moment, i order a lot from AliExpress and most of the packages were released from the custom in relatively short time, i once faced a delay in custom that lasts maybe a month but was only for one package.
But now about 6 packages are stuck in customs for about 3 weeks. I don't know what is taking them that much time.

Glad to know I'm not the only one. Maybe we should contact them or something ?

solo220

Member

Re: Shipping from abroad (share your experience)

5 items two weeks ago and still in customs maybe it is libanpost overloaded after the chinese hollydays they started to send loads of accumulated orders, it is the last time i order in january .

Draguen

Member

Re: Shipping from abroad (share your experience)

Or, and I've lived enough to know that this is an unfortunate possibility : this is related to the new state budget that our ministers are discussing and maybe someone had the great idea to try to tax aliexpress imports' (again).

This is not based on any fact or source, but it wouldn't surprise me frankly. The coincidence of the two factors deeply worries me.

khanem

Member

Re: Shipping from abroad (share your experience)

Same here. 2 items 10 days ago. One from ebay the other from aliexpress.

HzSamer

Member

Re: Shipping from abroad (share your experience)

any one try to buy a DSLR Camera and ship it with aramex or DHL?

If The Billing invoice was 250$ and the weight is under 1 KG ,how much i will pay to customs ?

rolf

Member

Re: Shipping from abroad (share your experience)

Hi All,

I just received a post from an old friend of mine in Lebanon, he was promoting this site, to order and ship merchandise from the US.
I have no use for it at the moment but I'm sure many might find it good, so check it out!

http://www.iship.me/marque/125/shopping-directory.html

m0ei

Member

Re: Shipping from abroad (share your experience)

I'm looking forward to buy this monitor https://www.massdrop.com/buy/lg-27-4k-f … w-27mu88-w anyone has an idea how much it will cost me for customs and shit here in Lebanon?

Last edited by m0ei (February 20 2017)

Gauner

Member

Re: Shipping from abroad (share your experience)

I tried asking iShip.me, and Borderlinx for a goddamn quotation, none of their representatives know what to tell you. They usually just give you an estimate price then tell you to add ~$20+-  on the given price. Customs fees are a mystery on another level.

Last time I used Borderlinx they gave me a receipt on their website stating that my shipment will cost 15$ I paid 37.10$

Explain that shit lol

Last edited by Gauner (May 2 2017)