Yep have never heard of anyone being prosecuted. They make you pay the tax's/import charges based on their estimated value along with a fine. If you don't then they usually destroy the item. Personaly know of many people who have had stuff undervalued and have never had a problem. Have only known of one who have been penalized.
Lou1983: Also, alot of sellers will mark the receipt as being less than what you actually paid. I've done it a couple of times with car parts from the US but if anything happens through transit the insurance will only pay out what the receipt value.
And if Customs opens the package and find the goods are under valued then you are in for fraud.
And yes, Customs opens packages and inspects parcels.
I imported something from a chinese website, and they lowered the price I actually paid.
I never asked them to do this, does that mean I'm in for fraud? Even though I'd done nothing wrong?
Some ebay sellers even openly say on the listings they will lie about the value. Im cheap so only really bring in things that are way under the threshold, so no gst ever. That will probably change soon tho.
Is it possible to purchase a camera from B&H and have it ship to NZ? In the past if I added a camera to the cart it said they could not ship it to NZ. But I just tried and it came up with "Due to U.S. Postal regulations, we cannot ship items containing lithium batteries to international addresses via Postal Service." but yet it doesn't prevent going to the checkout with a camera in the cart.
I also noticed "If your goods are valued at over NZ$1,000, you will need a client code. from customs, what is that about? It sounds onerous.
Yes. I've bought Nikon cameras and lenses from B&H, and Canon lenses, but not for a few years. You could get around restrictions with youshop, though they might not take something that expensive, one of the other reshippers may.
The client code stuff isn't too onerous. I had to get one before my goods were released but it just took filling out a form and waiting for a few days. I can't recall if there was a cost involved but a call to customs should clear that up.
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