Customs Incorrect value declarations for customs

I think they are doing you a favor? Because usually people tell the company to declare the items lower so they don't get hit with fees.

Now the thing is... If your product was lost, i am 100% sure the doll companies would also refund you or send you replacement parts if damaged. I don't really see anything wrong with it as long as they are taking responsibility.

 

Yeah, that’s my worry. I never ask them to underdeclare and usually they don’t. I get hit by a fee, but at least I can rest assured everything’s legal and fair. I don’t know about NZ, but in the UK it is an offence, albeit one committed all the time. The problem is, even if they pick 1 out of 100 parcels to investigate... if you’re that 1, the odds don’t matter.

 

There is always the option to specifically ask the company to declare the package correctly. They might ask you if you're sure but they will do it.

 

Totally fine with me. I actually always ask to undervalue: I'm not going to pay 300-400 euro MORE for a 800 euro doll.

 

If it makes you feel any better, I believe the companies do this by listing the direct material value of the doll without any overhead calculated into the price.

So, essentially, you purchased like 800g of resin and some assorted fibers.

The cost listed for dolls on websites is the price required for the companies to stay in business and stay profitable, it is not necessarily the actual material cost of any one particular doll. And although, I think, legally, transaction value must be declared on the customs form, a lot of companies do essentially a "replacement cost" declaration

 

I don't know about New Zealand customs, but where I live (Belgium) they stop and check almost everything from outside EU. So if they stop an item and check the value themselves and it's highly above the declared one, you may get into troubles (the package will stuck at the customs for months and you will have to do a lot of calling, emailing and fines to get it home). Quite often they ask to provide a proof of purchase even when there is a declared value on the package (to calculate the fees).

But it seems that bjd are going under their radars for now and they believe that it's just a cheap doll under $25 (you don't need to pay customs in this case ). The biggest issue, like people above already mentioned, if the package is lost, you may only get the declared value of the item

 

As Melissa said, their under declared value is typically just the price they put on the items, not the time/creativity that went into them. You buy a wig and they under declare? They're putting down the price of the fiber used not the time/energy used to sew/thread/weft/etc. You purchase a dress and they under declare? You're paying for the yardage of fabric,thread and odds/ends not the the time it took a seamstress/machine to sew it or add trimming. You buy a doll and they under declare? they're only putting down the price they paid for the raw materials used. They're charging you just for the resin, not for the time it took to cast, or the molds used, or the fact that an artist sat down and sculpted a doll that you picked out and purchased. They're literally just charging for the amount of resin used for you to purchase said product.

Some companies make it a habit of under declaring their boxes straight from the get go. I think part of that is 'protection' from theft. No one wants to steal a large box labeled "Plastic doll parts" or "Plastic toys"...unless they're into that sort of thing. Now, if it says its 600 some odd dollars worth of plastic toys they may steal the package in hopes of making a decent chunk of change, but only 80 bucks? Its not worth risking losing their job at the postal office to only make 80 bucks. At least that was how it was explained to me when I asked why they were under declaring a doll package they sent to me. I live in the states, we're not hit by customs but I was told that they have frequent theft of dolls when they mark their value higher. It was getting to the point the company was starting to take a loss so they tried to figure out ways to fix it.

I understand you're predicament is a bit different, but as far as customs go, if you were to get 'caught'...how are they to know the value of a doll? I mean, (I AM NOT SUPPORTING RECASTS) one can purchase a copy of a 800 dollar doll for about 100 bucks from what I've heard/seen. How do they know that your doll is not just super cheap? It is the manufacturing company that marked the value of the doll. Do they make you guys present your receipt for items when you purchase them? If you were to ask a company to specifically declare the value of the package when you purchase as the legit price you paid I'm sure they would do it, but they'd probably let you know if the package was hit with higher customs fees/stolen they would not be held responsible for the custom fees/whatever else might be since they declared full value of the package.

Now, I've never had a company flat out refuse to resend a product that was lost, as I've never (knock on wood) had a package lost...but I would assume you'd be able to either get a doll or your entire price back. Most of the companies only accept paypal, I think it would be as simple as opening a dispute and stating you never received the product. They'd either have to provide a tracked package or refund you...but usually these companies are -really- helpful when it comes to re-sending products. Every company I've dealt with so far has been more than willing to throw in extras for going over their production time, or shipping parts they managed to forget to put into the box for absolutely free (usually including an extra or two as an apology). Like I stated above: They make profit off of these dolls. The bare materials they use are not the price of their dolls. If they were recasts wouldn't even be an option. You're paying for the art/time/creativity most of the time when it comes to things like this. With the money you pay for one doll they can (just materials wise mind you) make a few. Impldoll sent me a second doll without so much as blinking an eye when they messed up my order and allowed me to keep both of them. They even included a spare outfit so that both of the dolls had clothing. I only paid for one doll and one of the two outfit options. (Its an offtopic doll so I won't mention much but the outfits are just vests, hats, and a scarf)

 

It's not just the "artist's time and creativity" either that is taken into account for on-site pricing either btw, there's rent, electricity, heating, cooling, materials, web-hosting, transaction fees, wages for part-timers, etc. Most companies do operate as a business, so they do charge you for all of that indirectly. The actual physical wholesale cost of a doll may be, say, 80$, but you can't run a business selling small quantities at small margins. You either have to sell large quantity / small margin or small quantity / high margin.

It's generally safer for the companies to twist it a bit though for customs and theft reasons when they do so much business internationally with high-value items.

 

Some companies automatically under declare across the board. One of mine is from DFH through Alice's Collection and was declared something like $20 even though I'm in the US and pay no customs fee.

 

Luts underdeclared both the dolls I’ve had from them for $40, it’s only one company but I believe they aren’t listing the material costs because the dolls were an SD and an MSD, which is a huge gifference in amount of resin! Also most international people I do business with have told me the same value, under $42 will let them skip customs fees (so it makes sense, $42 is a cut off so Luts picks $40 to declare).

It is interesting because Luts had a notice up saying they do not underdeclare at request of the customer. Leading me to believe when they do, it’s their conscious choice to try and help out a buyer, but the notice protects the buyer as sort of proof the buyer did not try to dupe customs, it was solely the doll maker.

This is just one company of many, but I found it interesting when I discovered it and thought it was cool to share here in this thread about under declaring

 

In New Zealand our rules used to be that anything over $400 attracted GST so customs would hold it up and send you a bill. They were supposed to have moved to charging GST on anything coming from overseas last year but this has not been my experience (so far, touching wood, crossing fingers, touching wood again) and even items correctly declared and being valued over $NZ400 have squeaked through. (So very hoping I haven't jinxed my lucky run by mentioning it) So I wouldn't worry about it too much. If you weren't the one to 'incorrectly' declare value on the form then you haven't legally done anything wrong, and let's not encourage them to investigate our dolly imports eh?

 

First off, since I see you're new, welcome. It's nice to see someone honest about customs fees, but if you plan to not buy from companies that underdeclare, I'm afraid you're going to have a hard time. Underdeclaring is honestly par for the course; I'm in the U.S., where we don't have customs fees to worry about, so for me the value on the package is mainly a point of amusement, and no doll or doll item I've ordered from overseas has had the correct value written on the customs form.

If this concerns you, and it appears that it does, then you can request that the company declare the full value, but you should be prepared to do this for every order, regardless of whether it's direct from the company or through a dealer. You should also include with the request that you understand fees will be charged and that you accept full responsibility for them. And you should be prepared to receive some packages that are underdeclared anyway, because you're asking for something outside the norm.

I'm not sure where you got the idea of demanding a refund for underdeclaration, however. You received what you paid for, you were not scammed and nothing is missing, so you don't have grounds for a refund. If you're concerned about "what-ifs," that's something you can handle in the future, but "what if" is not grounds for a refund, particularly when the "what if" wouldn't have caused problems anyway. (If your doll was lost or damaged, they would have handled it, so you would not be "injured" by the problem.)

 

Just make sure you specify you don’t want that next time you make a purchase as under declaring is commonplace in this hobby. Talking about taking legal action is a little much to be honest.

 

Hi. I am from Germany and I can understand you a little bit. Here it is a big issue if the value on the package is not the same as the value on the bill you have paid.
I am one of the "lucky" persons that must go to custom office nearly every time I get a package which comes from the outside of the EU. Once I had to go there for a free magazine of my fanclub from Japan.
But as some others said the value some companies note on the package are mostly for material. The full price you normally pay is for time, material and creativity plus shipping.
So as long as the transport service and the custom don't decide to give them a more accurate check it is not your fault.
But this is only my opinion.

 

I'm glad I found this thread lol, I only recently found out that you can ask companies/distributors to undervalue your packages, but that seems awkward to ask?? So I'm wondering what you guys say when you ask. Like are you just like "Hi I was wondering if you could undervalue my order"? Customs here in Canada are awful, I'm just a little scared to ask haha!

 

I'm from the USA, so I've never had an issue with customs, but if the company under declares your package for customs, is the receiver the one that gets in trouble? Or the sender? It seems silly to punish the receiver when they have no control over how the package is declared by the sender.

 

Look, customs offices are well aware that some stores underdeclare automatically. So even if they decide to check the value of your package and make you come get it, as long as you then present the actual value you paid (by showing a Paypal receipt or whatever) there won't be a problem. You can truthfully say you did not request it and customs will most likely be fine with that. You will then have to pay a fee based on actual value of course, but that'll be it. It's a non-issue.

As for asking, usually there's no need. I've never had a doll company declare actual value.

 

This. A few days ago my package was stuck in customs and it seems it was very undervalued (10$ lmao). I just sent the payment receipt and the invoice, paid customs and it's ready to be sent to me soon. Kinda unlucky ( I wish they didn't check because I wouldn't have had to pay customs that way lol), but I didn't have any problem. I think they would punish you only if you fake the customs declaration or something like that.

 

This is the kind of thing that is different in every country. It's always a good idea to know the law where you live.

Here (Sweden) you can get in trouble. It's the person whos adress is on the package that is ultimately responsible. It's the same law that is supposed to prevent people from claiming ignorance about illegal products ordered online and such.
Personally I much rather doll companies (and everybody, really) just be honest and not break the law. I mean, I know why custom fees are a thing, I understad the idea behind it. It may be a blunt tool, but it's not entirely without reason.

With that said, I have recieved several packages that has been under declared (I would never ask someone to do this, but sometimes sellers do it without asking) without problems. Here it is very rare that customs take much interest in that, they are bogged down hunting for weapons and drugs. But that doesn't make it less illegal and it isn't a victimless crime if you look at the big picture. And even if you dissagree with the law, that doesn't automatically give you the right to break it. I save that for serious matters where there is a need for activism and protest, things like peoples safety and freedom, not my personal greed.