Customs Questions

Skidude

Skidude

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After a bunch of problem-free shipments arriving from India, one of my packages went missing not long ago.

From what I gather, that means I'll need to use a different address, or maybe wait 3 months and give it another shot.

What I want to know is: does ordering from China work the same way? Does the flag follow me no matter where the package ships from?
 
No one can say with certainty how any of this works.

A few Chinese suppliers keep quite extensive price lists and stock for their US-based warehouses. HPT and particularly WWB come to mind. HPT charges $30 for US warehouses. WWB charges $50, shipping via FedEx (ground?).

Indian pharma also has domestic resellers on TG. I'm on TG constantly, so if you'd like, DM me there.
 
Appreciate it!

I'll check out those possibilities, and I'll probably send you a message on TG
 
In this situation, when I place an order and the US warehouse has no stock left, will the package be sent to me straight from CN? If so, does that raise the chance I get flagged?
 
Crumplestiltskin said:

In this situation, when I place an order and the US warehouse has no stock left, will the package be sent to me straight from CN? If so, does that raise the chance I get flagged?
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From what I gather, the odds of a package being sent straight to you out of CN are very low. Instead, your order would travel across the Pacific together with many others, and once it clears customs, a freight forwarder (drop shipper) would take everything apart, repackage it, and send each order on to its final address. That means there are surely suburban moms in places like Chino, Fontana, or Fremont, and so on, armed with packing tape and bubble wrap, making trips every day to the UPS Store or Kinko’s to get your items out to you.
 
I once placed an order through a US warehouse, but it ended up being sent from CN straight to my address. There was no reshipper involved. In this space, I don't think anything is guaranteed. The only thing we can do is state our preference and be explicit that when that warehouse runs out, we'd rather hold off until stock comes back than have it go through customs to us directly—assuming that matters more to us than possibly waiting longer.
 
Dos-Dox said:

I once placed an order through a US warehouse, but it ended up being sent from CN straight to my address. There was no reshipper involved. In this space, I don't think anything is guaranteed. The only thing we can do is state our preference and be explicit that when that warehouse runs out, we'd rather hold off until stock comes back than have it go through customs to us directly—assuming that matters more to us than possibly waiting longer.
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Yeah, that would bother me too. It would raise the chance of being flagged.

Or you could simply stick with the vendors known to ship only from US warehouses, such as MIX and JTP.
 
Skidude said:

After a bunch of problem-free shipments arriving from India, one of my packages went missing not long ago.

From what I gather, that means I'll need to use a different address, or maybe wait 3 months and give it another shot.

What I want to know is: does ordering from China work the same way? Does the flag follow me no matter where the package ships from?
Click to expand...
Did they take the package, or did it just go missing? I've had missing ones show up weeks later. If it was confiscated, then yeah, the name and address get flagged. I've suggested this before in other threads, but info tends to vanish around here like a sock in a dryer sometimes.

Open a mailbox at a UPS store. (Not a USPS PO Box). You can tweak your name a bit on the shipper side by having them write something like Mr. Skidude or whatever. You can also link a "business" name to your box at the UPS Store and have packages sent to that. Just invent something like Skidudes Etsy Beans or an eBay store name.

At least in Virginia and Pennsylvania, most UPS stores are foreigner owned and they don't care what name you use, they just want your money and only need your ID for billing. If there were an investigation they would give you up, but we're not seeing that happen yet. If that address gets burned, just go 2 miles down the street to another UPS store. I pay in 3 month increments so if something does go wrong I'm not locked into paying something I have no use for anymore.
 
If Customs mails you a letter, it looks like your address gets flagged, and every incoming foreign package will be checked. A few of my orders have been seized, then reshipped to the same address, and those reships made it. All I was buying was pde5 inhibitors, retinoids, bp meds and statins, so I have no idea why Customs would grab it at all. Some packages even arrived after they had been opened and inspected.
 
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