I live in Adelaide, Australia and recently purchased some fabric from an online store in the US. This is the second time I have purchased from this store. When I received the first package which consisted of fabric only the package was labelled as "art and craft set". This incorrect labelling meant that when it went through quarantine in Australia it was flagged and checked at a cost to me of $43.70. I was pretty peeved but thought...oh well with all the fabric I have purchased it is probably my turn to have a random check. Then yesterday after receiving another package from the same online store, what do you know it happened again...another bill for $43.70 for the quarantine office to check the package.
I phoned the Quarantine Department and spoke to the Officer who had checked the package to ask why this had happened twice and he said it was because it was labelled "art and craft set" and it may contain insects, bark or some item which would not be allowed into the country. When I asked if it had been Xrayed first he said yes, however they are required by law to site all the contents. He explained that if it had been labelled fabric and sewing thread (which is what was in the package) it would not need to be checked.
So, bottom line is I sent an email to the company, explained what had happened, and asked them to please label all future packages to reflect its contents and not use a default label.
Hope it works. I have ordered yards and yards of fabric and never had an issue. I will make a request in futuere for all packages to be labelled as fabric etc. so I don't continue to incurr this extra cost.