Busted by Customs

[cohibaIV]

Absolutely gutted!!!:mad:
Been waiting for a delivery of cigars from America of which has been taken longer than usual.
Now I love Cuban cigars but you also can?t beat the high end Dominican cigars especially the price.
Anyway, I was waiting on a box of 25 Punch Rare Corojo Magnum, box of 10 Romeo y Julieta Romeo's Court, some Punch Rare Corojo Corona?s and Crystale?s and Partagas Decadas 1997 No. III?s (a beautiful cigar) all of which I got at a really decent price.
Then WHAM!! Got a letter from Her Majesty Customs and Excise today informing me that if I want my Cigars I will have to pay duty?.this duty being ?170!!!!!! :eek:
Yes that?s right a hundred and seventy pounds!! :confused:
Which is twice the amount I paid for the cigars including delivery in the first place.
So not only are we getting screwed with petrol prices and inflation, customs want there piece of flesh too????!!!!
Not a great way to start a Saturday?.:(

[Deano]

Ah shitttt.

The oddest thing though, is that I got busted today too. ?47 import duty :-/ Which is about half what I paid.

Not great either. I suppose its just pot luck.

[cohibaIV]

Ye, Not much luck in my pot at the moment, not paying tho...cigars will be sent back to sender in 20 days so he said he will post again separately if I pay the postage so things might turn out good in the end...

[SmokinCohibas]

Hi Dean,
So what happened?
How come u got busted?

[Deano]

Bought some cigars from topcubans a few weeks back, they send as gift I think, and customs open it up and charge you the tax etc

[Montesmoke]

Same happened to me with Top cubans a couple of years back, was asked to pay the tax duty i declined, i wasnt happy:mad: didnt use them again.

[Deano]

Yeh I'm only using them as I wanted a bunch of singles.
Tbh, I'll probably use you going forward!

[smokiejoe]

that must of been a real downer.god i would have been so p.... off..

[smokiejoe]

the trouble is customs are clamping down on it big time at the mo.its just pure greed.

[mopey]

Can any one tell me what level of duty I would be expected to pay on imported cigars? I tried some googling and it said something about ?170 per kilo of cigars or something?? I am not looking to buy that much, or even particularly pricey cigars. I am only looking at a small order to test the waters. Thanks.

[Montesmoke]

It depends really you can never tell if you will get caught with tax duty.
what is it you want? PM me might be able to help you.
Monte.

[mopey]

I was looking at importing some Quorum Churchill's. Probably not a great cigar by and aficionado's standard but I really enjoy. I have to pay six quid a pop for them, in the states its about 25 dollars for 20. So I figured an import might be worth a try, if I get caught by customs and they want too much on import duty, I can always let them go.

[rokkitsci]

Absolutely gutted!!!:mad:
Been waiting for a delivery of cigars from America of which has been taken longer than usual.
Now I love Cuban cigars but you also can?t beat the high end Dominican cigars especially the price.
Anyway, I was waiting on a box of 25 Punch Rare Corojo Magnum, box of 10 Romeo y Julieta Romeo's Court, some Punch Rare Corojo Corona?s and Crystale?s and Partagas Decadas 1997 No. III?s (a beautiful cigar) all of which I got at a really decent price.
Then WHAM!! Got a letter from Her Majesty Customs and Excise today informing me that if I want my Cigars I will have to pay duty?.this duty being ?170!!!!!! :eek:
Yes that?s right a hundred and seventy pounds!! :confused:
Which is twice the amount I paid for the cigars including delivery in the first place.
So not only are we getting screwed with petrol prices and inflation, customs want there piece of flesh too????!!!!
Not a great way to start a Saturday?.:(

Tell you what, Cohiba (you too, Monte): I'd be willing to third-party any USA smokes you order. You buy them, have them shipped to me, and I will repackage and send the "Plush Stuffed Llamas" to you, hopefully avoiding HMC&E. We can work out compensation (cigars? return favor?).

Just a thought.

Let me know.

[Gary]

Funny I've had several orders from the states and have never got caught by customs (thank god), however last year ordered a box of Montecristo Petit Edmundos from CigarOne (Geneva) and they did get snared and had to pay ?50 to get them, although even with paying the ?50 it still worked out better than ordering them from the UK or Ireland although does take some of the shine off the great prices of cigars in places like Geneva and Spain.

Getting caught by customs wasn't even the worst part about it! To give you the shortened version customs/Royal Mail took over 3 weeks to get in touch to tell me they had my smokes, then when I went to the sorting office in Belfast instead of giving me the cigars in the same condition that they had received them in they had the box shut with a single piece of cellotape (yeah that will lock the moiture in!) However the best was yet to come, with the order I had ordered several singles too. When whoever was opening the original package to inspect, they cut right through the singles, and instead of apologising they simply just took the cut/broken cigars, re-packaged them back up and left them for me to collect. Unbelievable!

Anyway, sorry for the rant in only my second post, still a sore point!

[mopey]

Sounds about right for Royal Mail. I didnt get my posted delivered for about two weeks once because they got a new postman. I went to the post office to try to sort it out and there attitude was, sorry but we cant help you, try asking the neighbours! It eventually all turned up in one go about two weeks later, god knows what they had been doing with it.

[Gary]

Jesus mate don't me start about Royal Mail. I wish there was an alternative because I would be using them, Royal Mails slogan should be "Royal Mail - We Couldn't Give a F**K" (excuse the language please)

[cohibaIV]

Tell you what, Cohiba (you too, Monte): I'd be willing to third-party any USA smokes you order. You buy them, have them shipped to me, and I will repackage and send the "Plush Stuffed Llamas" to you, hopefully avoiding HMC&E. We can work out compensation (cigars? return favor?).

Just a thought.

Let me know.

Cheers rokkitsci, ;)
I don't mind doing favours or posting paper clips...:)

[cohibaIV]

Jesus mate don't me start about Royal Mail. I wish there was an alternative because I would be using them, Royal Mails slogan should be "Royal Mail - We Couldn't Give a F**K" (excuse the language please)

:D

[Willie1]

Customs just love to be greedy and awkward :), you'd think that with the amount of VAT and tax that the Gov't gets, that they'd at least over look a few boxes of cigars, but sadly this is not the case.

Willie

[Drewmidorn]

I've been done twice. The strange thing is the first time I was told they had been seized and that was it and that If i had a delivery again they would prosecute me...how they can prosecute you for someone posting something to you is a little odd.

SO.. my main squeeze offered to have them delivered to her address under her name so that should they seize anything they would warn her and then i'd have to find another girlfriend who could receive the cigars (joking!)

However the first order delivered to her was taken and they asked for the duty, which i happily paid, with no mention of prosecution! i think they make up the rules as they go along!

[Willie1]

Has anyone had any problems ordering a box of NC or MM cigars from the US or are the customs going for the lot? :confused:

I'm still contemplating on the box of Phillies Titan maduro as they're an almost everyday smoke, but I'm not sure if it's worth the heartache in trying to order them without the hassle of customs trying to fleece me from what bankroll I have.

Willie :smoke:

[cohibaIV]

Absolutely gutted!!!:mad:
Been waiting for a delivery of cigars from America of which has been taken longer than usual.
Now I love Cuban cigars but you also can?t beat the high end Dominican cigars especially the price.
Anyway, I was waiting on a box of 25 Punch Rare Corojo Magnum, box of 10 Romeo y Julieta Romeo's Court, some Punch Rare Corojo Corona?s and Crystale?s and Partagas Decadas 1997 No. III?s (a beautiful cigar) all of which I got at a really decent price.
Then WHAM!! Got a letter from Her Majesty Customs and Excise today informing me that if I want my Cigars I will have to pay duty?.this duty being ?170!!!!!! :eek:
Yes that?s right a hundred and seventy pounds!! :confused:
Which is twice the amount I paid for the cigars including delivery in the first place.
So not only are we getting screwed with petrol prices and inflation, customs want there piece of flesh too????!!!!
Not a great way to start a Saturday?.:(


Up yours Mr Customs man....:rock: Today arrived (after many months waiting for the cigars to be sent back and then re-sent to me), the cigars that Customs wanted so much money for....:der: And it only cost me an extra ?20.:smoke:

Smoking happy!!!:41: :rock:

[Willie1]

Nice one Dale, sounds like the extra wait was worth the result :)

Willie :smoke:

[cohibaIV]

You bet..
:eviltongue: to them...
Bloody 2 humis are well full now..:smoke:

[james]

if customs in the uk stop the cigars , how much duty, tax ,chages etc do they charge?

[Willie1]

I second that wholeheartedly :top:

Willie :smoke: