Hellopaul

Just wondering what people's experiences of US customs were, when bringing in your 'stuff' to USA. And we all like a good poll now and again, don't we!!

Noorah101

I was nervous when my fiance was coming over from Turkey on his K-1 visa. I was with him at the POE, but he had brought over all his tools for oriental rug repair, some of which are quite sharp and dangerous looking. The night before leaving Turkey, he had wrapped everything up in padding and newspaper and tons of tape so the sharp instruments wouldn't poke holes in anything. I tried to tell him they will undo all this at the airport in Istanbul, but he didn't believe me. Sure enough, they made him unwrap EVERYTHING. Once they were satisfied with looking through everything, they gave him a roll of heavy tape to put it all back together again. Ugh. That was one whole suitcase. Then he had another suitcase with some clothes and rugs and personal items in there, plus a carry on.

When we got to JFK customs, the officer was very stern and not friendly at all. He opened the carry on and looked through everything. He opened the suitcase with rugs and personal stuff in there. Thankfully he only asked what was in the 3rd one, and I said rug repair equipment. He seemed satisfied with that and didn't even open the suitcase. Whew. We only had 20 minutes to catch our connecting flight and I could just see us for hours there unwrapping and rewrapping again. Thankfully that didn't happen and we made our flight.

Rene

CitySimon

As 99% of our belongings were shipped over rather than coming into the US with us, I have no idea whether they looked through it. I came into the US in 2003 and expect they were tighter regarding customs after 9/11, so I wouldn't put it past them. But, then again, why would anyone expect that they wouldn't?

Bob

The missus sent a couple small boxes in the mail, shipped on the slow boat...took about 5 months, was searched...she ended up with a couple of shorts and a pair of knickers added to her box that weren't hers...

Zonie

Well that's what she told you.......

avanutria

Our plane luggage wasn't checked. The stuff we shipped by boat was X-rayed (and we were charged $200 for the privilege) but not opened.

lisa67

Stuff shipped over by boat wasn't but this was pre 9/11
Suitcases on various trips over the years, more often than not they haven't been searched, but there has been the odd ocassion.

Ridski

I first came over here with nothing but 2 suitcases, and neither of those were searched. In fact, touch wood, I've never had a problem with customs. I guess it's just my young, youthful, innocent visage that says "he's all right, he is".

SultanOfSwing

When I moved out here, I wanted to take my computer with me so I took it all apart and carefully boxed the various bits and packed it in my carry on bag. When going through the initial security check at the airport in Belfast to get to departures, the bloke on the X-Ray machine had me taken aside so he could see what was in the bag. I guess all the printed circuit boards had him worried. So I took all the bits out, let him see it all, and then put them all back again once he was satisfied I wasn't going to blow up the plane, with the caveat that they'd have a fit at the other end when I tried to connect planes in America.

So, armed with this information, and after discovering it would be $80.00 to check a 3rd bag for the Newark - Chicago leg, I just went through security early in Newark, ready to tell the guy right away 'Hey I have a computer in here, don't shit yourself . . .' As it turned out, the guy was more interested in my DVDs that were in the same bag, and the camera/lenses I was also bringing over with me as a carry on item - so the bloke at Belfast was completely wrong!

Only other thing to note on the same trip was that there was a TSA inspection slip in the case of the electric guitar I had checked, but not my suitcase. My guess is some curious TSA guy wanted to nosey at my guitar, for which I can't really blame him I suppose! Between my last visit before the K1, and my parents/sister coming out for the wedding, I brought out 4 more guitars with no slips in the cases.

Hellopaul

Just thought I'd add my experience to this if anyone's interested...

After we arrived in the US, I emailed our UK shipping agent (Eagle Relocations) to ask for the details of the US receiving agent - they replied with the details, I phoned the US agent, they said they'd phone me when the container is ready for delivery. They did, and gave me the trucking company's number to call and arrange a time for delivery, which I did. It arrived with CUSTOMS SEAL INTACT. No customs inspection, no customs charges. Nice. I'd borrowed a neighbour's Dremel cutter in anticipation - the shipping agent told me that the seal would be intact and the driver would not have any tools, but he had a bolt cropper to chop it off. We'd had a similar experience with a container a couple of years ago - the driver only had a club hammer and all my tools were in the container! So we just attacked the customs seal with the hammer for 10 minutes until it eventually gave up the fight.

So now we have FURNITURE and stuff! What we've unpacked so far (which is the vast majority of our stuff) is all happily perfect and unbroken. Only complaint so far is that one of our beds was loaded on its side directly onto the container floor so was dirty, but my genius wife managed to clean the filth off with about half an hour of elbow grease.

8th April - container loaded at our house in UK
30th April - ship arrived at Charleston Port (SC, USA)
6th May - container arrived at our house

Moral of this rambling story: I would recommend Eagle Relocations (www.eaglerelocations.com). Cost £2000 (Farnborough UK to Charleston US 20ft container) plus £150 for two blokes to load the container (UK) and $100 for two blokes (off craigslist) to help unload this end. Our contact person there was Annette. And no, I don't work for them and I'm not on commission / backhanders!

srefre

Funny you say that about the guitar actually, as my golf club carrier always gets the same treatment. I never really thought why, but now you mention just fancying a nosey, it could be true. Especially as the clubs are all one off custom made jobbies from the manufacturer (I used to be a bit good when I was younger, so have decent contacts), so to anyone into golf they are probably a bit interesting. To anyone else they are just a big *YAWN*

chartreuse

We shipped our stuff in a shared container. It was a day late leaving the UK, because UK customs decided they wanted a look at the other people's stuff. They didn't open any of our boxes and it didn't cost us a penny.

US customs didn't bother inspecting it at all. Whether that was the luck of the draw or because they knew that their colleagues in the UK had already had a shufti, I have no idea.

We brought a shed load of suitcases with us too, one of which had a desktop PC in it and one of our carry ons had a half a dozen hard drives, but US customs were more interested in The Kitten and didn't inspect any of them. They even let us bring her canned cat food through.

Hellopaul

When we flew over with our dog, because we checked in at a different desk at Heathrow, they didn't weigh our full-to-bursting-oh-my-god-I-can-hardly-lift-this-thing-what-is-in-there?-lead?-uranuim? suitcases, which was a bonus. When we got to USA, they made us throw away the dry dog food and expensive (especially over here!) Dentastix dog chews. Which was annoying.

PepsiChic

i packed 2 suitcases, 1 was clothes and the other was full of personal stuff, including computer parts, ornaments, and camera stuff. Customs went through the second suitcase didnt bother with the clothes one!

SultanOfSwing

I think that's what it was - I'd be inclined to have a nosey myself