Im not so lucky today because the Alligators from the Bureau Customs at the EMS Philpost branch at Pasay along Domestic road taxed me at almost 50% of the cost of what i’ve paid for my items ordered via Play-asia.

These are the items that i ordered :
World of Warcraft Series 2: Dranei Paladin: Vindicator Marrad – Deluxe Collector Figure (US) : US$ 34.90 (~1,557 PHP)
World of Warcraft Series 2: Gnome Warrior – Sprocket Gyrospring Figure (US)  US$ 19.90 (~888.34 PHP)

Sum US$ 54.80 (~2,446 PHP)

Shipping US$ 23.90 (~1,066 PHP)

Total US$ 78.70 (~3,513 PHP)

——————–

This is not the first time I ordered via Playasia. I ordered a copy of Hellgate London back in december, Super smash bro’s brawl for wii in May and Orange box 2 weeks prior to my World of Warcraft collectibles order. I ordered Hellgate London and Smash bro’s brawl via Fedex then Super Smash bro’s brawl via UPS. Then with the collectibles, the first time i ordered via EMS. All of those were tracked shipping options. I only googled for the process of EMS shipping a couple of days after i placed and paid for my order, when the tracking system told me that the package is shipped and is already in the Philippines currently being processed. Google results told me that all EMS shipments are dropped at the Philpost office in Pasay along Domestic road. Next, I googled for Philpost and my query was rewarded with results pointing to complaints about missing packages, stolen goods and goods that had their beautiful packaging sliced open horribly… some of them still have their contents intact, some barely and some… of course gone. Paranoia sets in.

I received the notification card from Philpost yesterday – the package is in the Philpost office along the Domestic Road (Pasay, Philippines) and that i should pick it up there though I expected that they will deliver it to my house (The hotline that i called told me that they dont have enough logistic assets to do so).  Rode a taxi on my way there and gave the Philpost grumpy grandmas my tracking number then told me to wait for the grumpy grandpas to call my name. It didn’t take that long for my turn. They opened the package in front of me and there they are… My precious Dranei Paladin and my Gnome Warrior collectibles. Included in the package was a photocopy of the Play-Asia invoice that the customs official inspected and almost automatically, i was told that i had to pay importation taxes for them. The amount that the customs officer calculated (out of her head) is PHP 1,406.00 tax which is around US $30-ish. And the Shipping fee that i already paid for with my transaction with Playasia is included in the computation slip (Not sure if it’s included in the computation itself, but with the bad penmanship,yes it was written on a scratch paper, it’s almost impossible to tell.). I only had 1,000 PHP with me so i asked them if i can pay via credit card (which was also a bad idea for me, but it was an act of desperation to get “my precious-es”) but i was told that they only accept cash. looks like i have to go half-day on office again tomorrow because they don’t entertain shipment reception during weekends.

I dunno if the computatuon importation fees for my order was legit or if there was some sort of corruption involved, but one lesson i learned from this : DONT order via EMS when you live in the Philippines, who’s shipment gets dropped to Philpost, customs and eventually corruption. If you did, you are not alone… just check ebay discussions, apparently this has been the case for Thousands who ordered stuff online. Most of them got spared, though. from the discussions, there’s only 10% chance of getting snaked by customs. Depends if the customs office already met their “quota”.

Btw. I am ordering a GTX280 this week and it would cost me approx USD $450.00, i hope the customs official won’t go greedy-mode on me again.

Related posts:

No related posts.