Thread: Shipping from the US through a mate.

Originally Posted by zimmer

Agree with Kscott's comments. You had best cruise into the Customs website and study the bit about gifts and personal effects and the duties they can attract if they meet the criteria. It is all well covered in their document. All items need to be assigned a value and Customs are well onto artificially low values/bogus warranty repairs labels and so forth.
I now await all the postings about how mates/brothers/cousins have sent stuff from the States successfully to the mates/relatives in NZ without Customs catching on. You may occasionally fluke it but that is probably luck only same as not getting caught for gst sometimes. And the recommendations on forums that you have a mate break the law in USA on your behalf are laughable.

Completely legal to send optics from the US. not asking him to send ar mags or anything. The reason I ask is I often see people send talk about sedning stuff through a mate to get around the customs limit. I wont be sending a 2k scope but it will be over the appreciable limit. I had a good read through the customs website which is about as clear as mud regarding what you will have to pay and which levvies are applicable

^ yup, brass is a no no.

Originally Posted by Nick-D

Completely legal to send optics from the US. not asking him to send ar mags or anything. The reason I ask is I often see people send talk about sedning stuff through a mate to get around the customs limit. I wont be sending a 2k scope but it will be over the appreciable limit. I had a good read through the customs website which is about as clear as mud regarding what you will have to pay and which levvies are applicable

Unfortunately though you've now publicly stated your intent to defraud Customs, and therefore the Govt in earnings. Lol.

If you want to buy something for less than what you pay in a shop in NZ, buy it, ship it over, and pay appropriate duty. If you want something nice and new but aren't prepared to pay for it try shoplifting it instead, you'll save even more money

Originally Posted by Kscott

^ yup, brass is a no no.



Unfortunately though you've now publicly stated your intent to defraud Customs, and therefore the Govt in earnings. Lol.

If you want to buy something for less than what you pay in a shop in NZ, buy it, ship it over, and pay appropriate duty. If you want something nice and new but aren't prepared to pay for it try shoplifting it instead, you'll save even more money

Haha well when you put it that way, now I feel bad about it. I had just heard people talking alot about it so thought I'd ask.

Thats why we have these marvelous forums where you can go and ask silly questions and clever people can dissuade you from your course of action.
Its driven around the frustration of the distributor model that we operate here. Just means everything has an extra 30-40% added on to the price as it goes through an extra set of hands.
Im a US citizen as well, and spend a bit of time there, which frustrates me even more.