Does anyone know what the status is of tariffs on electronics, phones in particular, imported from China?
Were there any a year ago?
Have they been added, or was that cancelled when the tentative partial trade agreement was agreed to?
I was shopping online at Gearbest and I messaged them to see if the virus was interfering with their shipping from Hong Kong to the US, because I hope to go away near the end of march.
"Not affected" was the reply and I said that I have to go out of town before the phone would arrive, but it's 9 business days quicker with their Expedited shipping (which costs under $6 for a $250 phone).
He replies that there may be duties if I use a delivery service like DHL. "you can request an express delivery method such as DHL, however, these types of methods can generate import charges"
Now why would that be? No duty when it comes with one method but tariffs when it comes another way?
Maybe they try to discourage Expedited becuase their changing $5.50 isn't enough to pay for it?
Yes, I knmow that none of these time limits are guaranteed.
Does anyone know what the status is of tariffs on electronics, phones in particular, imported from China?
Were there any a year ago?
Have they been added, or was that cancelled when the tentative partial trade agreement was agreed to?
I was shopping online at Gearbest and I messaged them to see if the virus was interfering with their shipping from Hong Kong to the US, because I hope to go away near the end of march.
"Not affected" was the reply and I said that I have to go out of town before the phone would arrive, but it's 9 business days quicker with their Expedited shipping (which costs under $6 for a $250 phone).
He replies that there may be duties if I use a delivery service like DHL. "you can request an express delivery method such as DHL, however, these types of methods can generate import charges"
Now why would that be? No duty when it comes with one method but tariffs when it comes another way?
Maybe they try to discourage Expedited becuase their changing $5.50 isn't enough to pay for it?
Yes, I knmow that none of these time limits are guaranteed.
There are fees for clearing customs. A common line on quotes I get are: Customer is responsible for the customs clearance + duties and taxes. The fee is often the same for a crate of 500 pcs as it is for a box of
You may want to contact DHL and ask about fees. Usually low to none.
I found a couple sites online that would calculate import duty.
They both wanted, but didn't insist on my giving an email addres.
One said simply that there would be no duty. easyship.com
So the second one was a surprise.
borderbuddy.com said $270.
Dear Customer, Thank you for contacting BorderBuddy regarding your shipment of mobile phone, that is shipping into the US.
Below is your free, no obligation quote. Description of shipment: mobile phone Country of Manufacture: China Value: $270.00 USD Currency: USD Exchange Rate: 1.000 Exchange Rate: 1.000 Value for Duty: $270.00
Borderbuddy Fees: Entry Fee: $200.00 Bond: $50.00 Bond Underwriting Fee: $10.00 ABI Fee: $5.00 Importer Registration Fee: $15.00 Administration Fee: $9.20 Estimated quote total of all fees: $315.99 in addition to the cost of the phone.
Estimate only - Fees are confirmed once Bill of Sale is received. Quote expires in 30 days.
This is when I noticed he said "import charges", not import duties. Sorry for asking you the wrong question.
I guess I can ship more than one phone for this.
Above and below is the email. The same thing appeared on the screen but it had several more lines that were zero. Here are the charges they weren't charging: Customs HMF $0.00 USD Classification Fee $0.00 USD Customs ISF $0.00 USD Duty Disbursement Fee $0.00 USD NAFTA $0.00 USD DOT/EPA $0.00 USD One time PAPS Exemption $0.00 USD E-Manifest $0.00 USD
1) Documents: Please reply to this email advising you wish to proceed and attach the invoice for this shipment. Bill of Sales, Sales Invoice, etc. Must contain FULL DESCRIPTION and where the item (s) were MANUFACTURED - these Canada Customs requirements must be met and they wont release the shipment without it.
2) Invoice: We will send you an invoice with all charges.
3) Payment: You will review all charges and then pay them online via credit card.
4) Broker: You will tell the carrier and shipper thet your customs broker is: BorderBuddy Customs Brokers.
5) Customs Clearance / at the border: We will clear the shipment through customs for the carrier and it will be delivered to you.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Questions? Call us toll free to get your answers from our customs experts 1-855-275-1100
With all the cell phones in the US why mess with getting a China phone direct from China ? I have bought lots of stuff from China off ebay and none of it ever mentiond an inport tax added.
In phones under $250 I couldn't find complete specifications as to bands they use, and 2 phones ago, 3 or 4 years, when I didn't know better, I got stuck with a phone that would only do 2G in Europe. Then the opposite happened, bought a phone in Greece that rarely gets LTE in the US. Now I know, suspect really, that if I looked for and could finda "Global" phone, I might be okay, but Gearbest was good at giving detailed specs for every submodel. In the US they don't say what submodel they are selling.
And normally I'm not in a hurry so waiting 2 or 3 weeks means nothing.
Phones about $300 or 400 probably include LTE bands 1 to 4
An hour or two after I posted this I went looking for Global from an American dealer. 2 years ago either they didn't label anything as Global or I didn't know that it meant a specific sub-model. But I did know a day later it was a specific sub-modal because that's the model I bought, and I didnt' remember seeing it on Amazon for example. I also don't remember the Amazon ad 2.3 years ago specifying the bands it received and it did this time. I saved the webpage of the phone I actually bought, but not any of the ones I didn't buy.
Anyhow, I found the same phone at the same price, though it's green instead of blue**.
So I cancelled the GearBest purchase and that was both easy and hard.
Easy because I've learned that instead of hunting all over a website, it's easier to let google do the work. I googled cancel order Gearbest and got 3 hits, one or all clearly explaining how. Clicked on Service Center, Orders, Cancel, checked box for my order, and it woudl be cancelled within 24 hours and I'd get an email then. Start to finish, including the googling took 5 minutes.
Hard because I didn't get the email, and the status showed no change. Still marked "without invoice yet, Speed-up dispatch" The last two words made me worry that once approved it would be shipped immediately. So I cancelled it again and still nothing changed. So after 36 hours from the first cancel I chatted with someone and he said the order was stopped and about to be cancelled. And he did and he promised me my refund. If they would update their order status based on what the Robo-chat said, it would have been easy all the way through.
Gearbest is a Chinese company, but during the two chats I had, their English was perfect. The hello and good-bye sentences could have been canned, so they just type in a couple chinese characters, but the middle parts were specific to me, I think. It would be surprising that someone who speaks perfect English would have such a low-level job, except I guess in Hong Kong much of the population speaks English well.
Getting the phone from the US will mean it's certain to come before I go see my brother.
**though apparently not including a case, even though in the version from Hong Kong the case is included and in my last phone was right in the box. Since the marginal cost of a case is maybe 10 cents and comes in the same box, it's hard to believe they omit it from the ones they ship to the US.
Most of their reviews were from Europe. Second Brazil, most of which that I saw were in Engilsh (two in Portuguese). So I guess that's part of why they don't know what fees are charged to the USA..
As I say in another post, I ended up cancelling anyhow, and I expect to get the same thing in Green for withing a couple dollars of the same price. It seems now I have to pay for the case, but I get the case I want (if I could make up my mind) and I don't have to pay the delivery guarantee fee of about $6.
I also found a shipping aggregator solution. It is couriermitra.com Courier Mitra is a courier aggregator and multi-carrier shipping software designed for small and medium platforms. With the lowest efforts and seamless integration with courier vendors, you can focus on providing efficient, error-free service to your end customers.
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