Old 01-13-2009, 09:45 AM
  #179  
jstitch
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Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: Kansas
Posts: 590
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MAILING ALERT!!!

For those of you mailing internationally, you need to be aware of a couple of things...

Customs forms must be filled out properly for the country you are mailing to.. we do not want to pay customs charges on any of these and are justified not to as we are not importing or exporting goods.. only trading services...

I usually mark mine "other"...not gift or merchandise, etc..
I usually mark the contents as "craft fabric"
Mark the package to be returned to the sender in the case that it cannot be delivered.. we dont want tops lost in international mailing bin somewhere..

Also the cost of the item must be considered.. If it is over $50 value, customs charges will be assessed at the receiving end.. I would suggest you estimate a value less than $50. How can we justify this? Well again, we are not importing or exporting goods...just exchanging value for value..

Insurance is another matter.. I think that the US Post Office defaults to $100 insurance without extra fees.. I am going to suggest that we all abide by that and NOT add extra insurance.. gets us back into the customs issue.. how can we value it less than $50 and insure it for more than $100... I would like to have your input on this, but to minumize the impact of chgs, I would like us all to use $50 as the basis for the value of all tops, and take the chance of losing $50 in coverage in the case of one of them getting damaged or lost...

I still dont know what to do about tracking internationally...Ill check on it today.. again.. but to track international adds a tremendous amount to the postage...

I am assuming that the customs form will serve as a tracking device for international packages, Ill check today...

Any other issues, please post them for the benefit of all...

And Im sorry that I didnt think to post this sooner.. before we had a problem..

The international girls might be able to help us out here as some of us are not used to this process. Try not to be judgemental when these things happen..but informative and helpful in finding a solution.

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