[time-nuts] Cross border shipping ==> was: GPS receivers W/timing outputs greater than 1PPS

[David Kirkby]

On 27 June 2013 12:30, Robert Atkinson <robert8rpi at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> It actually even easier than ever now. Ebay.com do a global postage programme http://pages.ebay.co.uk/shipping/globalshipping/buyer-tnc.html#paymentsplit
>
> The seller ships it to a US processing center (an item I just won went to Kentucky) and they preprocess the customs. I prepaid which saves the £7.5 "collection charge" that the UK postoffice levies on the receipient to collect the customs fees. OK sometimes an item might miss customs in the UK but you can't count on it.
>
> Robert G8RPI.

I've used that, and would rather not in future. I had an item sent
with insufficient carriage charges, so I had to pay quite a bit to
actually get it. I've never experienced such an issue when items have
come direct, but when they come via that new eBay service, it cost me
quite a bit.

The only other time I paid duty in advance was when buying a VNA from
Agilent. I was a bit suspicious of that, with the seller wanting the
money for the duty up front, but since I knew I was dealing with
Agilent, and they assured me it was OK, I trusted it. There were no
issues there.

The Chinese sellers are helpful. It seems nearly anything shipped from
China has a nominal value, so I never pay much duty. Also carriage
costs from there are very low. I see someone on eBay the other day
selling a PCB with a syntesizer on it. The cost was less than £5
including carriage!!! I don't know how they do it.

Dave