mbassoc2003 wrote:I found that things 'go missing' a lot if you ship to Italy and you declare the value of stuff. If you send registered there is no requirement for the recipient to sign for stuff, so unless you're gonna use UPS or some such, there is no way to protect yourself from the Italian corruption there.Things got slightly better from the UK now that we don't need to make customs declarations to Italy, but theft is rife and their public still refuse to acknowlege receipt of mail even when shipped registered.Don't ever ship to Italy unless you know and trust the guy you're shipping to. It's not worth losing your money with no recourse. Too much crime in the system.
aia wrote:Thanks Ian for your words! As i have always asked (and this caused me some strives in the past...) i dont want to cheat/fraud while declaring a different value on the duty custom form... i want to avoid additional troubles.My 2 cents in order to better explain the italian case: all in all, the italian postal system is not the best in the world but i have not thjat much to complain about it... ok, timing is not performing properly and costs are extremelty high, but i rarely had issues with losses or damages...what is awful, to avoid as much as possible are the italian duty customs!!! they are likley the main cause to losses, delays and damages on item! now, if you declare your goods below a certain threshold (say less than 20 bucks) then the process bypasses the duty custom and this is smtg vital if you dont want to have neverending issues with them.i will leave you just a single case to better understand: i bought from the US a divine right game. this, of course, had a final value igher than 20 bucks... so it stopped to the duty customs... they found that in the box there was a metallic box (the seller used to keep all the counters in an old metal candy box) and they opened the box, they inspected the game and the candy box and... they closed and TAPED all the 4 sided of the game box with the brown tape!!!!when i found it, i was totally astonished... i opened a claim and the claim is still there... it happended in 2005...At the end of the day, if you want to have stressless deal with italian guys, it is sufficient to keep a low value of the goods... this will reduce by nearly zero your risks of troubles! in apprxo 8 years of trading with the US i had one loss only.Thanks for your patience and ciaoooaxel
mbassoc2003 wrote:Difference in Canada is, if I ship something to you International SIgned-For, or Airsure, I can be sure your postal service will get a signiature at your address at your end, and that is all I need as proof of receipt of goods to cover me with PayPal's Seller Protection Policy.In Italy there is no such assurance, and this allows a lot of buyers in that country to deny they received their goods and claim their money back through PayPal. At the same time, if the italian postal monkeys say it was delivered, PayPal say FU, sue the buyer.So fraud is rife in Italy and they know there is nothing you can do about it as a seller. I've had exactly the same issue with Greece. I know there are honest buyers, and I know there are honest postal workers in Italy and Greece, but it's a complete turkey shoot, and crime and corruption are far more acceptable in italian culture. It's no big deal screwing foreigners, and the moral upstanding citisens are figting an uphill battle to try to get their country to be less corrupt.I'd sooner send unrecorded to Canada than I'd send recorded to Italy unless I knew the person receiving the goods and trusted them.
Blackmoor wrote:Yes I see your point, I never ship to strangers in Italy. When I was active on Ebay a few years ago I stopped selling to Italy due to a few "lost" shipments. I also stopped shipping to a few other european customers as well (like Spain and France) for the same reasons.
aia wrote:Ok, dont want to start a fire, i just wanted to provide you with an obejctive assessment of italian situation and dont want to end up with the usual things like: "pizza, mafia and..."
mbassoc2003 wrote::lol: You completely missed the point; and you need to look up the definition of 'racist'.
mbassoc2003 wrote:ROFLMAO.You crack me up.
stratochamp wrote:i won the 1023 & 1026.