paul cally

According to a removals guy we spoke to today,Australian customs unload and inspect every single item and are not to carefull repacking ?
What are your experiences with customs etc.

annqldau

If they felt so inclined they could but they don't tend to. They opened about 20 boxes on our container and it was obvious which ones and nothing was missing.

They did manage to find a snake skin behind an old photo of son from Tenerife that we didn't even know was there and held the container up for one week because of it. Think sniffer dog must have found that. Asked us what we wanted to do as it should have been declared, we said bin it, they released container and gave us snake skin anyway.

Only problem we had was with pickfords who had dismantled our crosstrainer without asking so it was lucky we figured out how to put it back together.

Dorothy

They didn't open a single thing of ours. Our container arrived in port and was delivered to us within 5 days. It only took that long because we had to organise a day off work for me to be home to accept delivery.

yanH

Our container took around 6 weeks to get through customs in Sydney last year When it was delivered only around 20 boxes had been opened and these were easily identifiable as they were resealed with bright orange tape. It appeared that Customs had looked carefully through these boxes as the contents were still neatly packed.

An interesting point is that they only looked into boxes that were labelled 'Garden' or 'Christmas Decorations'. Presumably this is because its where they usually find the majority of offending items. However a few boxes of our garden stuff that had been mistakenly labelled as 'Bedroom' were not opened. It suggests that Customs do not take a very scientific aproach and really largely on the list provided by the shippers. By the way I'm not suggesting that you should mislabel your stuff to get it through as I think if customs noticed this it would lead to long delays.

Poppett44

Seems to me its the luck of the draw,,we only had 2 things opened, my sons guitars, and a large whicker elephant which they surprisingly let through,,, our gas bbq which was only chucked on at the last minute and hadn't been steam cleaned got through no problem.
I cant imagine they would ever open every single box,, they'd be there for days!!

mr mover

Australian customs do not unload any thing, all containers are unloaded by your shippers agent in Australia ,the goods are held in a bond store untill they are inspected by AQIS'.
Should AQIS find any thing that is not declared on your B534 form, only then are customs called in....................MM

bridie

With ours they checked just the obvious things: my bike, hubby's tools, christmas decs and didnt need to clean or destroy anything.

The packers provide a detailed list of the contents of each box so they just open the ones necessary, although by the sounds of it they must also use sniffer dogs (fair enough I suppose).

moneypenny20

None of our boxes were opened

annqldau

You s*d you got a bbq through we gave that away to family along with loads of other stuff the moron from pickfords said wouldn't get through. Others brought a lot of that stuff and got away with it and have heard of others that got stuff stopped and charged for cleaning. Think it just depends if you get the anal customs man (to us normal people even if they work for AQ whatever or the likes they are still the customs representative).

Famous 5

We took advice from our packers as to what was likely to cause a problem and chose to follow their recommendations on what we should leave behind. On the whole, they were spot on and we were pleased with the service they provided.

About 10-12 boxes were opened and the only things that were damaged were a few glass Christmas tree decorations - I assume this was accidental as nothing was withheld or removed from these boxes.

Although our bikes were cleaned in the UK (but not steam cleaned) and the packers thought they were clean enough, they failed the inspection and had to be steam cleaned here followed by a re-inspection. We chose to have them delivered separately at a later date rather than hold up the rest of the delivery. This added to the cost and, given that bikes are so cheap here (especially when Big W, Target or similar have special offers), unless I had really elaborate/expensive bikes, another time I wouldn't bother bringing them.

annqldau

Sometimes it feels like you gave away as much as you brought. We've heard of people like you who got bikes pulled and others got them through there doesn't seem to be any consistency to what is and isn't allowed.

mr mover

yeah but yer boring .......... mm

annqldau

She probably falshed her pussy.

mr mover

Its amazing how sniffer dogs pick up the smell of KY jelly on dildos........ mm

annqldau

Mmm... don't know if pussies use them think they just use scratch poles... .