quarantine assessment fee

[4monicak]

I live in Australia and was recently contacted by Aramex shipping company, advising me that I had to pay $40 for a quarantine assessment fee before my parcel would be delivered. It was explained to me that this fee applies when an imported item lacks sufficient information or when there's a "commodity concern". In this case the item was a statue made of copper from Nepal, described only as a "guru statue", and possibly this was not enough info. I wonder if other people have had similar experiences? This cost added significantly to the total I paid for the statue. I have bought items from all over the world, sometimes they have been inspected, but I have never had to pay a quarantine inspection fee before. If this fee was incurred because the paperwork provided insufficient information regarding the contents, shouldn't the seller be responsible for this cost? Furthermore, there's no way of knowing why they opened the parcel, all I know is that quarantine decided to check the contents and I have to pay for it. 😞

[lyndal1838]

Sellers are not responsible for any import fees, Customs fees or quarantine inspection fees.  Buyers are supposed to know what can and can not be imported into their country.

No seller can be expected to know the rules for every country in the world.

At the very least your seller should have put on the Declaration what material the statue was made from.  If it had been wood for example it may have had to be destroyed if it had contained "beasties" or was not treated properly.

Australian Customs and quarantine randomly inspect items....a few years ago I could count on a parcel being opened and inspected every 6-8 weeks....it must be 3 years since that has happened.  Only once have I had a slap....a seller forgot to remove a potpourri sachet from a china container before sending it (I asked her to do this as I knew it was a no-no to import it).  The sachet was removed and destroyed but the container was repacked and sent on to me.  I have never had to pay any fees though.

[4monicak]

Thanks for comment. I am aware of the import restrictions to Australia, and the item was cleared by quarantine. The problem appears to be the lack of information re the content, but I have no way of knowing this for sure. As I wrote, sometimes my items from overseas have been inspected but I have never had to pay for this "service" before.

[lyndal1838]

The difference is in the shipper.  Aramex are a private shipping and logistics company who would process their customs clearances in bulk.  You are paying a private company to do the customs clearances.

If your item had come through the mail service you would probably not have had to pay anything unless the item had to be treated in some way.

[4monicak]

Thank you for your comment, I will follow up on this. When I spoke with Aramex, they insisted on that this had nothing to do with them and that the problem was most likely due to insufficient information re content.

The seller has responded by saying that this has never happened to him before.

I also checked the Aust quarantine website where there was a table listing costs for inspections due to "insufficient information" and "commodity concerns" as services costing $40

http://www.daff.gov.au/biosecurity/import/general-info/fees-charges-import/import-clearance

[i-love-my-sheep]

Maybe you were just unlucky. I've had plenty of packages opened for inspection, which I received with the card inside saying it had been opened. Some packages said what was in them, others just said something like mineral or science project (they were mineral specimens). Another said ornament (more mineral specimens). I've never been charged. 

I wonder if being a statue from a country that may or may not be high risk for import for illicit substances, meant they had to do more stringent testing, rather than just opening the box? Statues are a common item for concealments, so may've been x-rayed and swabbed and whatever else they do when they test for those things. I'm just guessing though, I could be totally off the mark!

[4monicak]

I have spoken with the Dept of Agriculture, they were very helpful. It was explained to me that the problem was the lack of information provided by the seller. The seller had not specified the material that the statue was made of and had also included a "tribal mask" (which I had not ordered, this was included as a gift), also without describing what it was made of. The items were checked without opening the parcel and no note or sticker was left to indicate that an inspection had been carried out, as this is not required by law.

[lyndal1838]

So they charged you $40 to do an xray inspection of the parcel?   All I can say is Wow!!  And it is right that they would not have had to notify you as they had not opened the parcel.

Obviously the problem was the tribal mask....who knows what material it might have been made from.  If it was wooden then it could have been contaminated although I have had wooden statues arrive in the mail with no problems.  Maybe Country of Origin has rung alarm bells.

[2106greencat]

Shouldn't any customs charges be imposed by AQIS ??

Lyndal, you know way more about this stuff than I do, but once it is in Aus I would expecy any notifications to come from the Aus Customs, rather than a third party ??

[lyndal1838]

Greencat, the difference here is that the OP's parcel has been shipped by a logistics company similar to Pitney Bowes where the shipper is responsible for any import charges and will pay them on the recipient's behalf after first collecting them from the recipient. 

They would know in advance of any Customs charges due to the cost of the item, but a quarantine charge such as this would not be known until the package arrived and was pounced on by AQIS.   I don't think there is anything suspect about the shipper asking for the charges before delivering the items.

The seller is to blame for not putting enough information on the Declaration but the shipper should have picked up on the problem before shipping it.

Many years ago when the import limit was a lot lower than the $1000 that it is now (and I knew a lot less about how these things work) I bought two rings from the USA.  Neither of them was above the threshold but combined they were.  The seller declared them separately on the form and they were shipped with FedEx.  When they arrived here I was contacted by FedEx and told that I had to pay duty and charges because the parcel exceeded the limit.  It cost me $125 to clear the items, payable to FedEx who then passed it on to Customs.

They then explained to me that if I had paid two lots of postage (about $20 back then) and had them sent in 2 packages then I would not have had to pay the charges.  I sure learned quickly.