More Shipping Problems - UPS Exception Notification

[Victoria]

My Mariage Frères tea shipment made it to the USA but now has been in Customs for 3 days.
I keep getting - UPS Exception Notifications:

"BROKERAGE RELEASED SHIPMENT. SHIPMENT IS SUBMITTED TO CLEARING AGENCY FOR FURTHER CLEARANCE (RESOLUTION)"

"ADDITIONAL CLEARING AGENCY INFORMATION OR DOCUMENTATION IS REQUIRED FOR CLEARANCE"

"UPS IS PROCESSING SHIPMENT FOR FUTURE SUBMISSION TO THE FOOD/DRUG ADMIN AND/OR DEPT OF AG PPQ"

So it looks like we are having a rash of delivery problems by our TC members. Very frustrating! Especially to think they may be opening my tea!

[Drax]

Ugh, best of luck there, Victoria...!

I still get very sad when I think of what they did to my pu'erh bings from Nadacha...

[Victoria]

Oh no, I didn't read. What did they do?
Ack!

[Drax]

Welllllll..........

Only the strong of heart should check out the horrors described in this link.

I seriously hope your package hasn't suffered this fate!

[Victoria]

ACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That was horrific!!!!!!!!!!
Shocking. How traumatic! Well I don't have bings
to break, just one 200gr bag and three 50 - 100g bags.

But now I am picturing them pouring out the tea
on some germy counter and scooping it back in the
bag with ungloved hands. Ewwwwwwwwwww!!

And why did the vendor not provide proper documentation???
And at their prices!!! Oy.

[betta]

I'm sorry to hear that Victoria. It might not be directly relevant to your case; just want to share how similar people at the other part of the world behave.
Two days ago I received my clay jars in a busted condition after clearance from local custom office in Germany. They didn't even tell me that the jars were already broken WHEN THEY INSPECTED them???
A tong of puerh was sent back to the sender without any notice and specified reason at all.
My gaoshan oolong from teahome was once sent back to sender without notice and at the second shipment the vacuum teabag was literally opened by "slitting" the bag diagonally (with hatred, I guess) and then resealed using packing tape. When I unpacked the tea, many of the rolled oolong adhered to the tape and the tea must be aired out because of the smell of the tape
BTW from my experience, despite proper documentation and price, the parcels still triggered the inspection.

[brandon]

I seem to remember that Yunnan Sourcing or Dragon Tea House listings used to have a disclaimer "No refund for packages held by French customs."

Now we know.

I did just fly a lot of tea in and out of France on my person, though.

[betta]

I think Scott might have been confused by which information he should trust. In some EMS shipments, items held by custom, either later on returned back to sender or literally detained and destroyed, will appear on the tracing website as delivered to the recipient or recipient is out of reach.
In case of the item is sent back to the sender, the sender has to pay quite large amount of fine upon clearance of the parcel.
In any case, it appears as if the fault lies on the recipient and he/she has to cover the loss

[Victoria]

Oh wow, this is all rather discouraging! This smacks of 9-11 and not letting people take lip gloss on the airplanes. I mean come on, one little package of tea? From France?

Betta, that is truly a horror story!! Unbelievable!

Brandon - so you tape kilos of tea to your body and just walk though, huh?

[Victoria]

UNBELIEVABLE!!!! Now I get a UPS slip saying there is COD $26.83

I have already paid over $32 in USD shipping. I have never had a COD notice before, not to mention I won't be home to pay anyway. I don't know what to do. Very upsetting.

[Victoria]

So the saga continues today as I write to Mariage Freres that now I have a UPS COD charge due of $26.83. UPS is basically are holding my tea for ransom.

"We are truly sorry for the inconvience you are encountering with this order. I want to stress firmly that the food and drugs declaraton we made was not missing and was complete, so we cannot guess why the US customs put a hold on the parcel except that it appears that they tend to be overzealous at random. Such ways then lead UPS to ask for extra custom fees, which is the explanation for the extra sum they claim to you.

Plus, nobody at UPS ever contacted us to tell us about this problem, be it by e-mail, fax or phone. As written in our terms of sales, we only take shipping in charge, all extra costs – mainly custom-linked ones – are at the customer’s expense.

As a soothing gesture, we’ll offer you some tea samples with your next order."

Well that was a very nice response, but I am not likely to ever order from them again.

I guess there is nothing to do but pay the charge. I feel like I am in a foreign country not USA.

So customs can just ransack your order, and who know what shape it will be in, then charge you $26.83 for release?

Not to mention, I will have to take off work, in order to be home to sign and PAY. I am really quite LIVID.

[Janine]

It is an outrage.

[Victoria]

Well the good news is, I did come today and it doesn't appear the box was even opened. The bad news, I had to pay $26.83 in addition to the $32.18 I already paid for shipping and handling. I will try to fight it, but I think it's a loosing battle.

Needless to say, they are off my Christmas list.

[ABx]

Nothing is worse than Chinese customs. On my first order from YSLLC they stopped the box and soaked it with water so they could rip it open without bothering with the tape. Luckily Scott seemed to have anticipated this type of thing as he sealed everything in plastic, so nothing was effected, but getting the box as a soggy mass in a clear plastic garbage bag was a bit of a shocker.

On the U.S. side, there's none worse than Homeland Security. They've stopped a couple of packages with larger bags of tea in them. In both cases they crunched up the bag, slashed the bag down the middle length-wise, tossed it back in the package without even pretending to try to contain the contents, and charged me $20 for the privilege on one occasion.

Don't kid yourself; just because it hasn't happened before doesn't mean that it won't happen as long as you avoid this particular vendor. All of these packages from foreign vendors have to go through numerous customs checkpoints, and customs can and will stop them now and again. You just have to hope that when they do they will be courteous enough to open things nicely, seal them properly, get them done quickly, and not charge you. Keep in mind that we're supposed to be paying a tariff (duty, import fee) on any imported packages with a value of ~$30 or more. That's the reason that the vendors from China, Taiwan, etc., all declare the packages as gifts with a value of $10.

[Janine]

Just remember US Customs is Homeland Security these days.