Overseas shipment sitting in customs.....

Anybody have experience lately ordering parts or otherwise from overseas and them sitting in customs for an inordinate amount of time?

Nothing special.......just some bike parts from Slovenia......that arrived in the states within 3 days of shipping but have been sitting in Chicago customs since April 8th. Shipment tracking is being handled by USPS, so there's that.

Just sit and wait? Give it a couple more weeks to start moving before contacting USPS and getting no help at all?

 

It may sit in Customs for weeks, or months.

And that was before the great resignation trend

 

2020 I had stuff in customs for months. Lately it’s been better. But yeah it can be a few weeks.

 

Ordered parts for my benelli. One box out of Germany and two 5ft boxes from Slovakia. Both shipped around January 2022. None took longer than 3 weeks total to arrive at my door. Maybe they screwed up the customs forms.
I did have a small USPS int. flat rate box get stuck in Chicago for a month before it shipped off to Australia. But a few weeks later same size box went through Chicago no problem and was in Japan in under 3 weeks total. Just a crapshoot right now.

Oh, and make sure they're not waiting for someone to pay the duty tax. Had that once, but I was aware that was going to be a thing.

 

That's pretty much the impression that I'm getting from most folks I've talked to who deal with these kinds of shipment frequently.

I'll continue to be patient, at least for the next couple weeks.

 

Go down there with an attitude.

squeaky wheel gets the line, or maybe the taser.

 

I have frequent items shipped in from Pakistan. It's literally hit or miss. Sometimes the boxes fly through customs and delivered quickly. Other time it could be a two to four week delay and the boxes get destroyed by agents whom are performing searches.

The worst was I ordered two engines from the UK. Because the engines were complete the amount of paperwork required and extra charges was a huge PIA. So much so that the vendor has now refused to ship to the US. It was a constant time consuming task that took almost two additional weeks and hours to get sorted.

 

Bought a sticker kit from Italy for my RC51. Received it within 10 business days. No issues with customs. Package was received yesterday.

 

Who is it shipping with? I work in the automotive business and whenever I bring anything for a new project over from Euroland it's a battle with customs. Usually there is a contact number for classification on the tracking site. most times a 10 minute call will get it moving.

 

LOL when my dad worked in the Ukraine and Bulgaria they would have to bribe the local schleps to get the tractors and combines unloaded and then transported. Can you imagine 100 John Deere combines and 200 tractors just sitting in the ship or on the docs for a week or two until everyone got paid. Bribes work.

 

I had a pedal bike from Israel make it my door in 6 days, shipped via EMS/USPS. I think it spent 7 minutes in customs. NY though, not Chicago.
Meanwhile I have a crankset from the UK that was shipped 7 days ago and appears to be on a very, very slow airplane.

 

This is not a good way to go. Several years ago I ordered 2 specialized line generating lasers from a company in Toronto. Being located in Buffalo, I thought it would only take a few days, but the lasers went all the way down to a customs facility in Kentucky. (Apparently an international shipment with lasers is like shipping plutonium) After a week of looking at the tracking saying it was in customs "processing " I called UPS to raise a stink and I said "give me the number I'll call customs myself " The nice lady at UPS gave me some wise advice. She said: "Do not call customs to try to get them to move faster. They will put your package in a dark corner of the warehouse and it will never see the light of day again" So I waited patiently about two more weeks till the lasers finally showed up.
I don't think there's much outside accountability for efficient processing with customs being a gov't agency.

 

Order a Ukrainian PAWG two months ago and she still hasn't shown up.

 

Coincidentally the package moved out of customs last night and should be here Saturday.

Cheers, gents.

 

Those things are more trouble than they're worth!

 

That’s why you get them with free return shipping

 

Usually the container (your shit was riding in ltl) was pulled for something, paperwork, insp. etc.

 

I've had great results getting items shipped from Europe via DHL. 3-6 days, to my door.

As mentioned above, don't go giving a piece of your mind to customs officers. Nothing good will come of it. They have more power than God.