PC Peripherals Cell Shock RMA stuck at Customs

mvajay

Disciple
Hi,

Recently i had to RMA my Cell Shock memory to Germany as one of the sticks had failed. I got the RMA number from Cell Shock and sent the memory through DHL. The shipment went fine and Cell Shock happily replaced the defective stick and sent it back a week ago. On arrival at the Airport it was sent for clerance where it remained for 3 days. I called up DHL to enquire and was informed that Customs has classified the shipment under Cargo & Company Usage. I was asked to provide the IEC number & GATT form. These forms are meant for professional importers or any company which is into importing business. I told the DHL rep that its for personal usage and not for company usage. As i am neither one of them i cannot give Customs these documents.

I blamed DHL for screwing this up as this has never happened to me and i have never heard of this but DHL pushed the blame on Customs. They advised me to pay 5k to the Customs to create a dummy IEC number for one time usage only & get the shipment cleared. This seems to be the only way out as Customs cannot mark the shipment once its already been classified.

Guys, has anybody been in this kind of shitty situation? Need help to get this sorted..
 
Try to get in touch with some senior guy in DHL. I have a friend in this business, he says that the shipping companies some times create such situations to make some money (not the company but just the people there). Im not sure if its such a case, but getting hold of a senior guy might help.
 
get a receipt from cellshock to show that it was rma'd and also show the shipping invoice when you sent it from here . that should be enough proof to show that it was sent from here
 
i thot when stuff get RMA'd the company which is sending the product back attaches a letter stating it was sent to them for repair etc etc.

tht is usually wut helps getting it thru the customs.
 
Hi,

I asked DHL guys if i could talk to Customs directly and prove that its for personal usage but they said its not allowed. After a lot of pleading & blame throwing they agreed to check with Customs regarding the same. Hope things go fine!
 
When you shipped it via DHL for RMA did you send the original invoice and fill out a bunch of forms indicating it was an RMA? Customs will have endorsed those forms and MemoryC should have included them with the new sticks.. this way, you would have had no trouble.
 
No, i didn't do that. I sent it as any other normal shipment. I had Cell Shock's RMA form and also described the shipment as RMA when DHL took it.
 
Oops, you could have saved yourself this trouble had you filled out those RMA forms :/ Anyway, talk to MemoryC about whether they sent any RMA receipt with the shipment... DHL can ask the customs officials to use that for reference.
 
i think he sent directly to cellshock like i did but i didnt face any probs like this.
 
Similar thing happened to me, though it was postal and not a courier company.

I wrote a letter to the customs explaining that I was importing for personal use and no company was involved, as well as the rma documents.

Was cleared in a week.

Sometimes these clearing agents complicate things too much. just write a polite letter with your nobile number so that they can call you.

Don't forget to include the ticket/challan/reference number that was printed on the letter that was sent to you.
This should be written on the cover of the envelope as well as the subject of the letter

The mistake i made, was asking for the item to be shipped to my office address. Never do that. Always use your house address.
 
Thanks for the info :) .

I am going tomorrow to talk to the Customs directly to sort this out. I'll try convincing them its for personal usage. Don't know how long i'll have to wait to get this done with. DHL rep will accompany me to make things easier.
 
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